Mistaken Identity

A colleague from our offshore unit in Pune (India) is here in London, arriving on Sunday. As always, when somebody arrives from India and more so from Bombay – I go into a strange questioning mode – almost as if a part of me would be transported to Bombay just asking all those questions and listening to the person speak. This colleague happened to stay in airport Centaur for a night before flying out here and as soon as he mentioned the word ‘Centaur’, I was reminded of an incident which happened years ago, but one that never fails to crack us all up. To this day, we tease my sister over it.

My sister has always been a book-worm. All through her school, college and working life. It did not help her case either that my brother and I used to frequently play pranks on her, while she was studying. Instead of chastising us at the time, she withdrew more into her books and kept more to herself. Because of this and also a lack of interest, she is not very familiar with the geography of Bombay, in spite of being born and brought up there. During her college life, she has many a times taken the wrong train to come home, ending up in a different suburb altogether. As a result, my parents used to always worry about her when she stepped out of the door and still do. They would breathe a sigh of relief only when she walked through the door. These were the pre-mobile phone days, so contacting her to check up on her was not possible.

From a very young age, I used to love going out and used to go on my own to a lot of places for shopping, concerts etc. My parents never worried about me when I was out and I used to be a regular chaperone for our host of relatives visiting us from all over India and abroad. During one such visit of my aunt and cousin who live the UK, I was in the midst of my study leave. They were in Bombay bang in the middle of my study leave and so chaperoning them anywhere was out of the question. Since they were leaving before my exams finished and had a couple of errands to run, my sister had to step into my shoes.

One of these errands was to meet a friend of my cousin’s. At the time, my cousin was studying in an international school in Kodaikanal, on an experimental basis. One of her friends L was stopping in Bombay, en-route to the US and so they decided to meet up in Bombay. L was staying in one of the well-known hotels in Bombay called ‘Centaur’ at the airport. The plan was for my aunt and cousin to pick up L from her hotel, go out for lunch someplace and then drop L back to her hotel. I had briefed my sister on how to get to Centaur, suggested some nice places to eat around that part of town beforehand. The first part of the plan went off well; they met L at Centaur and took her out for lunch to a nice restaurant close by. They dropped her off to the hotel in the lobby and came home, about an hour and a half later.

When they got home, we were discussing their day and the places they went to. My sister mentioned that they had taken bus number 777 to get there, as I had suggested and bus number 888 to get back home. I was quite surprised when she mentioned 888 because I knew that that bus goes nowhere near the airport. So I started asking her more and then she told me about their whole day. After reaching airport Centaur and picking her up, they took a taxi and went for lunch to a restaurant in nearby Juhu and took a taxi back to the hotel. My sister told the taxi driver ‘Centaur’ when she got into the taxi and drop them off at Centaur is what he did – just one at a different location !! Anybody who has lived in Bombay for a reasonable length of time knows that there are two Centaurs in Bombay – one at the airport and one in Juhu. Since they were in Juhu already, the taxi driver just assumed that that’s the one they want to go to. When they got to the Juhu Centaur, L seemed a bit perplexed and commented that the lobby looked different. My sister pacified her saying that this was the back entrance to the lobby and so it looked different. They then said their goodbyes and came home.

I realised that my sister had dropped her off at the wrong hotel straight away and then began the frantic phone calls to make sure that L was ok. Apparently L went up to her floor and even tried her key to her room number, but the door would not open. So she took her key downstairs to the lobby and complained to the receptionist. On closely examining her keys, the receptionist realised what had happened and explained it to L. The hotel being Centaur, they dropped L off to the right hotel and made sure she could get into her room before leaving her. Poor L was brave enough to laugh it all off at the end of it, but understandably, kept to her hotel room for the rest of her short trip.