Such a posh place surely chucks them at the first spot of discolouration. And anyway, is it really stealing if it stays on the premises?
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Last week, I was at a workshop in Kathmandu which put us up in a fancy hotel. So there were flowers everywhere, but especially my favourites, lilies, sitting full frontal in lush arrangements.
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After a particularly exhausting day, needing a pick-me-up, I purloined one stalk off the conference room’s flower arrangement. Being a good middle-class person, I justified my felony with “who will notice if I take one stalk among the dozens?” Such a posh place surely chucks them at the first spot of discolouration. And anyway, is it really stealing if it stays on the premises?
I plonked the lily in a glass by my bed. It was nice to wake up to its imperious beauty and the strands of its fragrance. I did feel a twinge when I saw the arrangement in the conference room still there, lopsidedly missing a lily. But what to do now?
That afternoon I ran to my room to get something. A satiny wave of lily fragrance hit me. All from one flower? I wondered. But it wasn’t just one flower. On a table by the window sat three lilies. Their varying heights testified that they previously inhabited the complicated flower arrangements in the common areas. Someone in the housekeeping staff had evidently noticed my lily and put some more in my room. I will never know who it was or what prompted this sweet and whimsical gesture. Maybe, it’s how they interpret their job of hospitality. Maybe, it’s how they see themselves as a person, capable of creating pleasure for someone. I felt a humble delight.
It reminded me of a different encounter with a flower. In 1999 a project took me to Lahore. It being my father’s hometown it was both emotional and exciting to go. We arrived late at night and fell into bed. A knock woke us early morning. A staff member stood at the door. “We heard some guests have arrived from India. We wanted to welcome you with our hearts” he said, proffering a small vase that held a single, quite ordinary rose.
I’m aware that such stories hover on the edge of sentimentality. But, I believe they are to be cherished for they transcend the extremely narrow world view and relational interactions we struggle with today. They are organic, non-instrumental and most importantly, expressions with a great confidence in human connection. An act of pyaar in an era of PR.
Fancy hotels shower us with solicitude, as if luxury must pretend to be love, then deluge us with calls for feedback and ratings. They leave treats and notes to ensure Instagramming. You get to look cool online, they get PR. It’s a win-win as they say. Two columns on a pre-defined relationship excel sheet. Neatly balanced but never touching. The personal is professional.
Our biggest social terror it seems is to not be in the win-win spreadsheet imaginarium masquerading as equality. You can write a Chat GPT resignation, break up honestly over text, tick the boxes of terms and connections and feel virtuous. But feel good? When there is no room for the surplus of emotion, intangible yet plush as the fragrance of lilies to hold you beyond categories and transactions?
Yaniki main aur meri CV aksar yeh baatein karte hain ki, I can buy myself flowers, emphasis on buy, emphasis on myself. Lonely kya?
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com
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