On Friday night, a college mate and close friend of mine, Ashok called up to say that he is visiting Bangalore. He was planning to visit an exhibition conducted by the Indian express hospitality group. Saturday was the last day of the event. He wanted me to book a hotel room and pick him up when he arrives. I agreed.
Ashok and his family run a hotel chain in Trichy. This city is on the banks of river Cauvery and is famous for the Rock temple, Srirangam temple. It is almost the center of Tamil nadu and you can reach any part of Tamilnadu from here.
His restaurant is one of the top restaurants in the city and he is always tries to get the latest gadgetry that is introduced in the market relevant to his business. This trip was supposed to be such a gadget acquisition tour (GAT). He showed me an Invitation for an exhibition about hospitality industry. From the invitation I understood that this was not only about machinery, it was targeting the entire hospitality industry.
The southern states of Kerala and Tamilnadu are known for GAT’s since ages. Hehehe, GATs in those days were Garment acquisition tours and Gold acquisition tours. People from Tamilnadu will instaneously connect with this. This trend is slowing changing nowadays.
The whole family with or without relatives and friends set out on GAT to different cities to buy Gold and garments. Kancheepuram/Chennai was the place to go for Silk. Chennai/Coimbatore for jewellery. Folks from the neighbouring kerala are seen in chennai/coimbatore on GAT’s 
Ok coming back to the story, I thought this was a simple task. I called up a hotel made reservations in his name. Gave him exact landmarks where he should land so that I can pick him up with minimal hazzle and deposit him in his hotel and be gone. He came around 730am, we exchanged pleasantries and enquiries and I got him to his hotel room.
He urged me to go with him since he didnt have any company and he might need some help to talk with manufacturers who spoke only hindi. After much dilli-dallying I said ok, what would he do in an unknown city, without knowing the local language he could be easily duped. So we reached KPTO at whitefield around noon.
We registered ourselves as visitors (my, my, where did Indian express group get so many nice good looking girls!! May be from some college), and we entered the exhibition hall.
“Who is that”… He started talking to someone I didnt know, supposedly his relative. Before I could think of letting them explore together and vanish from the scene, Ashok made it clear that he was not going with him 
I thought, ok, lets see how it goes. The first shop was blue star. He talked to some executives and they instantly recognized him. “Oh we have installed some products in your shop sir, are they working fine? I heard some complaints is there anything I could do?”… Blah Blah and Blah blah. Cool man, these marketing guys are sweet talkers.
The initial part of the floor was occupied by all the big names in LCD Television. Samsung, LG, Sony everybody had their presence. The whole thing was classified as kitchen, F&B service, F&B, Housekeeping, Bakery, Interiors, new technology, spa’s, hotel management softwares and so much. I was more intrested in the glamourous stuff and he was more interested in the practical stuff. He took almost 15 minutes in every shop that he went, patiently talking about the products and figuring out details
My leg started paining, and I was almost on the verge of cursing myself. Then I realized that may be I should just enjoy my time here. So I imagined myself as a potential entrepreuner who is looking at starting a hotel.. (I know, you are asking if its a 3/5 star hotel right? Actually, It will depend on the loan!! )
I started asking him questions about what these things are for and how they work. Then it started to look more interesting. I have enjoyed going to star hotels, eating food in hotels and bakeries. I have admired the architecture and interior decorations. Never did I think much about this is huge industry. The part that I had seen and known till now was only the tip of something so vast. There are innumerable things, small and big, that go together to give the look, feel, comfort and taste that I had always enjoyed and relished.
Trade enquiries and acquitances were happening every minute and at every stall. I had gone to real-estate exhibitions, art exhibitions, photo exhibitions, consumer exhibitions, IT events. Each had been a different experience. This one was totally different.
First it was about something that I had absolutely no clue. My Grand father used to run a hotel, my mum used to say, till he was immobilized by an accident. Dad was never interested in Hotels and hence it went down and had to be closed.
When we were in college, I had heard stories from Ashok about things that happen in his hotel, but never was able to understand or assimilate them. Now after imagining myself to be starting a hotel, so many things started making sense. I could make out the enormity of his tasks. He briefly touched about labour shortage, which he directly attributed to IT. He justified it, saying that IT is driving real estate, and all unskilled labour are seeking work in the Construction and Service industry.
Blue collar workers in the maintenance (Plumbing, carpenters, electricians, service) have shifted to be part of the growing IT service industry in the big cities. Villages and smaller cities are struggling to find people to do maintenance work, as all these folks are now contract staff, wearing specific uniforms and serving the pantry’s or doing maintenance work at IT campuses. Hmm, may be its true.
We finally came out the exhibition and headed home. The next day went in driving him around to visit common friends. Everybody we met had this comment for me, upon realizing that my entire weekend had gone in driving Ashok around, “Get married before Ashok comes to bangalore again!!!”
That, I thought was the most funniest reason to getting married
For some reason, Ashok seemed to think that I was in trouble and was struggling. He kept on touching the topics of Gods, prayers and meditation. “People always had this question on their mind, Is GOD really there. The suffering one faces creates doubts in the head. The only solution to suffering is prayers and meditations”
He started telling me how much he has done research on all these, that GOD cannot be explained since anything that can be explained is not GOD, blah blah blah blah, and how meditation has helped him cope up with all problems. He urged me to do meditation.
I think my patience wore out by the time I was dropping him off at Bommanahalli for his return journey. Till that time I was in listen mode, I switched to talk mode.
I asked him to think why one should inquire if God is present or not? The only reason I could think of was: you will do things differently based on the answer, or you expect things to happen differently. If you do whatever you do regardless of, if GOD is present or not, If you can accept things that happen to you as they are, regardless of its good or bad, then there is actually no need to know if GOD is there or not.
Either he started to think or he thought I was getting irritated, he stopped the conversation. Luckily his bus arrived right at that moment and I packed him off.
Later in the night, started to wonder about what has happened over the weekend and what we had discussed. Wondered how comfortable would we be in handling unplanned events and unknown scenarios in our life, if they were to happen everyday.
Life for most of us has become predictable and routine and we find comfort in that.
