First Mistake

The first mistake I made in New Delhi was to assume that a word given is a word kept.

I had booked into a hotel in Karol Bagh and decided to meet the managing director ( or at least he claimed he was ) to book a room for my return leg from Amritsar. I was shown a smaller room (208) which I had rejected and then the better room (408 ) which I found more suitable. I paid a deposit of 2000 rupees, got a confirmed receipt for the same and was smug and confident that a room would be waiting when I got back from Amritsar.

What did happen when I got back could fill two chapters, but to put it bluntly, the hotel management (smug in their knowledge that my deposit was with them…...and so was my patronage) offered me no room at all when I got back…..playing a waiting game…offering me a room on the first floor..one on the second then…and delaying me a full hour before they gave me room 208 ( the room I had rejected). I shouted at the front desk manager for his total lack of interest…..he refused to refund me my deposit ( though it was clear the Hotel had broken the contract) …and offered me rudeness instead. They were running a bum outfit, convinced that a tourist who comes to the hotel is unlikely to leave it for another if he has full day tours for the next three days.

This I later confirmed was the modus operandi of every Indian…to keep a promise until the last moment so that the hapless tourist has no choice of an alternative. When I booked a tour to Agra, the tour agent promised me that the car I hired would be ready, when I met him at six in the evening he assured me that the car had been booked. Then at 10.30 at night, when all the other agencies had closed, he offered me a van. He had no car and possibly never had.But he waited until the competition was over and it would be too late for me to seek an alternative to tell me that.

 They never see the harm they do to themselves……the loss of trust and the fact that no sensible man thus treated is likely to recommend them to his friends. The call word seems to be this: Make a quick buck now.