It's Friday morning here in Mumbai. I am checking out of the Maratha Hotel for the last time. I probably will be back some day, but never with the frequency of the last two years.
In addition to work, I have had the pleasure of spending time in Mumbai looking around and getting to know the city in a bit more detail. Both companies with which my company merged had Mumbai as their headquarters. As such, I worked with colleagues here as part of my integration efforts in that have formed the core of my role here for the last two years. It is a massive city, staggering the imagination in ways that few other cities could. It is everything that India has to offer slammed into a small coastal range of land. The worst of the worst and the best of the best are here. It is an exciting place. I have enjoyed getting to know Mumbai.
I have spent more time in Mumbai than any other place in India, excepting Hyderabad, of course. This has lead to me being extremely well-known at the hotel where I stay, the Maratha. As I come in now, I am greeted in Hindi and do the whole check in process in Hindi. It's pretty nice to be known. I keep anticipating that I will be forgotten, but it has become clear that I am remembered. At breakfast and dinner in the hotel, I get greeted in Hindi and do all of the ordering in Hindi, as well. So, I am a bit of a novelty here at the Maratha, and we all enjoy the uniqueness of the relationship.
I sat at breakfast this morning considering how I have become accustomed to hotels that once amazed me. The luxurious is common to me now. This will change upon return to the US. Hotel service and accomodation will take a step down upon repatriation.
And so it goes.....
I will write about the service we get while staying in a hotel in Charlotte during our first week back. it should make for some interesting reflections. As I have said many times, when I go back to the US I go from being "saheb" to being "aam admi". Tara and the boys will experience similar changes. This will take some getting used to.
When I come back to Mumbai, it will be as a visitor on a trip where Mumbai is "one of the destinations" during a relatively short trip. It may never again be my "second home" for my work in India.
Maybe. Who can tell?
Thanks Mumbai, it has been a true pleasure.
