At home, in Delhi

Hotels tend to promote themselves with ‘home-away-from-home’ connotations – telling guests about the available comforts, the conveniences designed to make their travels easy, and, most of all, the friendly, personalised service. Sometimes, guests leave testimonials to the effect that ‘the hotel staff were like my family’.

And if you watch closely, you’ll often see guests making too-intimate conversation with the waiters and other staff, in a unilateral effort at connection in faraway places.

In February 2008, I was at the Hyatt Regency Delhi, when I sat facing a man who really needed to connect:

A man who looked like Freud, nursing a red wine in the Executive Lounge, is showing the waiter photos stored on his phone.

My son and his girlfriend, he says.

My other son and his girlfriend. Neighbour’s daughter. My mother-in-law, he says with a mixture of affection and amusement. Travelling in Canada.

He shuffles through a few. My daughter is in the wedding … my daughter and this girl are good friends.

This is today, here in Delhi, he says more loudly, awaiting the waiter’s reaction.

Yes, yes, Delhi, says the waiter, happy to see the familiar among these family shots.

He scrolls on: Here’s my backyard, that’s an owl.

Snow … this is near where I live.

This is my neighbour. The girl who got married, this is her house.

Oh, said the water.

We had a party for Valentine’s Day, I don’t know if you have Valentine’s Day …

Yah, eh, February … February 14, the waiter says, as if to prove that he knows it.

The men get together and cook a meal … for the women.

The waiter nods politely.

My brother-in-law … this is in New Hampshire. This is a party there … his daughter is getting ready to go to college.

My nephew.

My brother-in-law.

My wife. My son. My father.

The waiter asks after his father.

He’s, uh, 81 – he’s old, the man says as he scrolls on.

What kind of dog is it?, the waiter asks when the next photo appears.

It’s a pug. P-U-G.

This is behind my house … sunset.

Business trip I took to Minnesota. Back to my mother-in-law’s house. I think this is Christmas time. My in-laws have a small cottage on a lake … it’s beautiful.

Again, The waiter nodded politely.

It was cold … we all got up and had coffee on the dock.

An associate of Freud turns up, watches the proceedings for several moments before he interrupts … Excuse me, he says to the waiter, before turning to Freud: Weren’t we meeting in the restaurant?

Freud looks up briefly: I think we’re meeting here. We’re here, he says as he goes back to showing the waiter his photos as the other man comes to sit opposite him … it’s an antique, he says, even as the waiter turns to the other man to take his drink order.

The first man shifts his attention to his associate. They eat at 8.00, 8.30 here, he says. So did you go to surgery? How’d ya do?