Hotel R. K.

Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine, my first visit to Chennai, would become so idiotic!

Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is one of the biggest cities in South India. It was in the early years of my professional life, when it so happened that I had to attend an interview for an enterprise, which had then newly opened a branch there. I was already employed, but never wanted to miss the opportunity to have a peek at the challenging work profile of the company. And thus started off for Chennai.

It was my first visit to this city and being alone, was a bit nervous. I landed early morning and was surrounded by auto rickshaw drivers even before I stepped down from the bus. This is a common scene, when you land in a big city. Knowing, these fellows will charge triple or quad of the actual fare of the journey, I bypassed them to catch an independent auto, whose driver looked somewhat decent. I told him to take me to a good moderate lodge, for which he took out a booklet containing the pictures and prices of almost all hotels in that region of Chennai. I selected a moderate motel and we commenced. It was hotel RK …

By 7 AM I reached the motel. The auto driver was fair and charged only “double” the actual fare for the journey. I took a room there, had a nice bath and later rang up the mobile of a distant friend of mine, over the phone provided in my room and made a good estimate of the location of the company. Later had a mild breakfast from the hotel, took my certificates and started off for my interview. My plan was to finish-off the interview by noon, return to the hotel and then roam in the city side with my camera… but…

My interview went well and the job was certain. I was very happy. Now, the next thing to do was to vacate the hotel and roam around the city. I decided to return to the hotel. Unfortunately... I just realized that I didn’t have the address or phone number of the hotel !!! In my hurry, I had missed to take a business card from the reception when I went for the interview. The worst blunder a person could do in an unknown city. I did not know what to do next. I tried to remember the name of the hotel from my early morning itinerary. I just remembered that the hotel’s name was some “Arcade” or something!!!

I jumpstarted to an auto and ordered him to take me to hotel “Arcade”. Arcade?? The driver reverted in amazement, saying he never heard of such a hotel in that part of city. “But don’t worry sir, we can find that out”. He commiserated me. We roamed the whole Chennai, asking different auto drivers about hotel Arcade, none of whom had ever heard such a name. Then we met one driver, who said, “is it hotel RK? If so, then it is close-by!”. I disagreed in a stentorian tone, “Nope! Its hotel A R C A D E”, recollecting the picture of the hotel from my early morning sleep. Later we met many other auto drivers, and they also said the same. The auto rickshaw meter was running high and I decided to change the strategy of my search. I boarded down the rickshaw and had to spend one half of the money I had in my pocket.

The next idea was to make help of the help-line. This is a wonderful facility to help people landing in unknown places. Every city has a seven digit help telephone number, like “3333333” was for Bangalore. But I did not know the helpline of Chennai. Thus I called up my Bangalore help line and asked them the help line of Chennai. Later called up the help line of Chennai and asked them to tell me all the hotels and their addresses in and around the company I had the interview at. “Sir, we are pleased to help you, but what you have asked for is just impossible”, came a soft female voice from the other end. There were around 112 hotels in that area. But I was not ready to leave her. “Could you please tell me at least the top ten hotels in that area whose names start with the letter A?” I retorted, like it was some SQL query. She replied, “Sir, there are 23 hotels starting with A” and started reading the hotels one by one. I listened carefully when something like hotel Arcade will be called… but alas… Finally she got pissed off and I had to disconnect after her humble request.

I thought again and formulated my next strategy. It was over 3 PM then and my return bus was scheduled to be at 5 PM. I quickly decided to simulate my early morning journey and thus boarded for the place where I had landed on that worst morning. That place was very crowded with all the auto rickshaws running around, creating turmoil. I asked a few auto drivers about whether they knew a hotel by name Arcade. Later I asked a few auto drivers if they had a booklet of good moderate hotels, in which I could stay for a day. I was almost certain that I must come across this hotel in that booklet. But unfortunately, whoever I asked did not have a booklet and I was totally depressed. Being a Capricorn, how can I give up! At last after a long hunt, I finally got one with a booklet. I requested him to lend me that booklet for a second for reference, but he differed. He said if I wanted to take an accommodation, then he could give me that booklet, otherwise “get lost”! On the worst day, you might have to face the worst hospitality too... But I had no other choice and thus boarded the auto. I went through the booklet eyeing eagerly for hotel Arcade…

Never in my wildest dreams, had I ever imagined, I could do such a big mistake, which could land me solitary in a big crowd. There was no other choice left and thus I decided to do some randomized search. The idea was to randomly go to some hotel and ask them if they knew any hotels by that name. They should definitely be able to help me…

Soon my brain started organizing the things that happened since morning and immediately a small idea came to the foreground. I had made a phone call from the hotel to my friend’s mobile that morning…And that was it…

Finally, I landed in the correct hotel, and just looked at the name board. The name R. K. was gleaming golden in the 4 O’ clock sun, smiling on my ludicrous day.