Tag Archives: Returning to India

The gods in the hotel

When people ask me about why we have moved to India, I sometimes tell them about the deities in the hotel. The boutique in the hotel is a small one full of shimmering and over priced fabrics. When I am unable to take walks in the monsoon rains, I compensate by walking in circles around the hotel corridors and have stopped occasionally at the boutique to look at the displays. One morning a few days ago, I saw them-  a row of deities on a shelf close to the ground. “That is funny. I wonder how I never saw them.” I thought. I walked closer to inspect them and they were all there- saints, gods and goddesses, the symbol of  a cross, a statue of Christ.

A hotel employee dressed in his uniform sat kneeling on the floor and one by one he picked up the statues and pictures, washed them with a wet tissue, dried them and delicately adorned them with vermilion before placing them in a row on a shelf in a cupboard that I had never seen open until then. The roses he placed at the feet of the deities were the same roses I had seen in the flower arrangements in the hotel lobby.

I sat next to him on the ground and watched as he continued his prayers in silence. “Is this your altar?” I asked him. “No.” he replied, “It’s everyone’s altar. All the employees in the hotel come here to pray. Once a week one of us bathes and feeds the gods.” He placed little balls of sugar candy on a plate, he lit a small lamp and incense sticks.

I got up to leave and wondered about the fire hazards of lighting a lamp inside a wardrobe but surely the gods must be pleased at such devotion. It has stayed with me since- this devotion in a corner of a hotel boutique and sometimes during my walks now I am tempted to open the cupboard to peep in on the gods and see how they are doing.  And now sometimes when people ask me about why we came to India, I don’t tell them about my home sickness, I don’t talk to them of alienation in exile, I tell them about the gods in the cupboard.