Room Service

“When a hotel room's the closest thing you got to home
You could be in Philadelphia you could even be in Rome”

Its been roughly over a year, my association with the corporate arena, and to be more specific the “sales world”. But no, this is not a cribbing session on sales, that will follow later [to everyone’s delight], for documentation sake or more. This one is close though – on a lifestyle which the sales force have to adopt and live by, voluntarily or otherwise…

I have been living out of an American Tourister bag since the past few months, moving in and out of hotels, places and cities like it was no one’s business. Post school, it seems India has become my playground – yes it being a very bold statement…but I would repeat it, if need be.

I am not aware if all hotels and its rooms were meant to have this uniformity in design and content, but they sure adhere quite well. A few things up front:

 I can randomly dial numbers now and get room service / housekeeping, given my in depth knowledge on their prescribed range

 I have to take a quick glance at the key to remember my room number every time I do call

 More often than not I utter the room number of my previous room in the last city I was at

 My interaction at the reception/staff has become mechanical and duly follows a linear mode

 My arrangement of laptop, books and diaries are of the same nature in all rooms, if I have to adjust in any way, it’s a shady room…Period

 I without taking a look at the menu, order precise food items and have a high hit ratio at that

 The most astounding : From a hotel room, I cannot within a short time frame conclude on which city I am in…I would have to ThINK for that…to make things clearer to those who are already laughing at my state, I present a live case, which took place a week back…

One of my dear Mba batch mates called from the Ambal land down south of the IT origin and in between mutual cribbing sessions happened to ask me which city I was in (which seems to be a joke doing rounds within my friend circle these days). I frankly could not at once answer her, as this was my third city in as many days, so I took a quick glance towards the hotel menu. Usually this does the trick, and, I answer, before the other person can notice a hitch. But this was not going to be that easy, because on the menu were listed :

KUKREJA GROUP of Hotels
• Delhi
• Lucknow
• Kanpur
• Varanasi

The menu was playing with my mind, and hence had to use reserve brain power in order to answer the undesired question of the season. My friend in all its moment did take full advantage (as I would have done) and “thy trip taken”…royally at that…

So, well this is going to continue and run through the year. Would have to devise a way out, and create a code of some sort, as I know that in the deep and remote corners of forgotton lands lie my friends, faced with a common enemy. I will rise to the occasion and deliver…or whatever!!!....

Till then keep humming this while I pack and check out…


“Ya I've been on the road nearly all my life
Been around the world 'bout a thousand times
Still a knock on the door makes me nervous
I think I'll see you standing there - but no
It's only room service - ya room service”