The Assam Tourism representative in Jorhat looked puzzled. “Hotel?” he asked. “Yes, a hotel,” I repeated. “Can you recommend a hotel?” Remembering that in northeast India, the term “hotel” can also refer to a roadside café, I tilted my head to the right to rest on the palm of my hand.
“Ah, hotel! You can stay here,” he said triumphantly.
Stephanie and I were at the front desk of the Assam Tourism Lodge at this mid-sized city on the south bank of the Brahmaputra. Like most government establishments, it had seen better days. Indeed, we had been warned to stay away from government lodges. Except for a few well-maintained lodges at the national parks, most had fallen into disrepair after years of under-funding. In the lobby, paint was peeling from the walls. The place had a musty smell. Out in the parking lot, weeds sprouted from cracks in the concrete. A few guests were sitting in the lobby looking bored. There was a soap opera on the TV but either the volume wasn’t working, or no one had bothered to turn it up. It was swelteringly hot, the single fan simply moving around the humid air.
The representative gestured towards the room tariff on the wall. A standard room with a communal bathroom was a backpacker’s bargain at $8. From there, the rate ascended through different options to the “deluxe, executive” at 1,200 rupees (under $20).
Stephanie and I don’t like paying over the odds for accommodation, but we have some basic criteria—AC if possible (if not, at least a fan), a bathroom and a bug-free bed. Our chances of getting that for under $20 were remote.
“Would you like to see a room?” asked the representative.
“Thanks, but I think we want a hotel closer to the city center,” I replied tactfully. In truth, I had no idea where the center was, but it seemed the best way to extricate ourselves without causing loss of face.
“There is the MD,” said the representative. We had already heard about the MD from the loquacious, I-know-everyone-in-Jorhat-and-because-you-are-my-friends-they-will-give-you-a-special-price taxi driver who had cornered us at the airport and driven us into town. He boasted of taking oil executives and other business travelers to the MD, and surely that would suit us too.
As a transport hub in the Brahmaputra valley and the gateway to Eastern Assam, with its oil fields and tea estates, Jorhat needs at least one business hotel, a place with anonymous architecture where the Wi-Fi works, and the room service includes Western fare. I use business hotels when I travel, but Stephanie and I were on vacation, so we wanted something comfortable, but less bland.
“We know about the MD. Are there other hotels?” The question seemed to fluster the representative. He reached behind the desk and pulled out a tattered notebook containing names, addresses and phone numbers. “You don’t have a list of hotels?” I asked, almost rhetorically. After all, this was the tourism office. He shook his head.
“Well, do you have a city map?” I was subconsciously trying to support my nearer-the-city-center thesis. More head-shaking. He handed us a regional map of Assam. Stephanie said we already had a better one.
“But there is the Nikita Hotel,” he added, his face brightening.
We decided to check out the MD. It was Sunday afternoon, with little traffic on the streets, so we were stuck with our taxi driver.
The MD was one floor up from street level. Behind the desk in the dimly lit lobby sat three uniformed receptionists, waiting for the oil executives and tea tycoons. We were not dressed for business, but at least we were Westerners and presumably had credit cards. The cheapest room with AC would run us almost $75 but we were tired and decided to look at it anyway. “Fourth floor,” said the receptionist. “We are sorry the lift is not working today.” Not a good omen. We trekked up the flights of stairs and then wandered down long dark corridors to a clean, but awkwardly designed room. We decided it wasn’t worth the price—or the long walk.
So on to the Nikita. “The manager, he is my friend,” our taxi driver informed us, although by now we assumed that anyone in Jorhat who would take our money was in his social circle. At least the lift was working. The room was sparse, and a little dirty, but the AC worked. We decided we had exhausted Jorhat’s limited hotel options and checked in.
A couple of hours later, I was fighting the temptation to climb onto the reception desk and enhance the “May I help you?” sign with the words, “I wish you would.”
We ignored the unemptied ash tray and the grease marks on the floor. It took an hour and three phone calls for the staff to produce two extra pillows and one more threadbare towel. The small refrigerator wasn’t working. A staff member came to the room, plugged and unplugged it and confirmed the diagnosis. He disappeared, without proposing a solution. Eventually, after more calls, we suggested an option: bring in a working refrigerator from another room. It arrived, but not soon enough to keep our Kingfisher beers cool.
We called room service to order a pot of tea and curd (a yoghurt drink, usually slightly salted). “We have no teapots,” answered the staff member. And curd? No curd. It was reminiscent of my experiences (described in Postcards from Stanland) of staying in Soviet-era hotels in Central Asia where surly staff ignore hotel guests and most of the items on menus are not available.
We decided to take our chances downstairs at the room with a restaurant sign on the door. It reminded me again of Central Asian hotel restaurants—high ceilings, bare fluorescent lights, torn window shades, two wall clocks stopped at different times, a few electrical wires hanging out of the walls, tables with chipped Formica tops.
It was too late for the “Morning Glory” breakfast, and the “Nil Grey Soup” did not sound appetizing, so we ordered vegetable pakoras and fried cashew nuts, which both turned out to be tasty. At 5:30 p.m., we were the only souls in the place. A few staff loitered near the kitchen, carefully avoiding any eye contact that might have required them to check if we needed anything. Outside in the lobby, other staff were pinning balloons to the stairs, presumably for a birthday party. A manager walked in and out, locking and unlocking doors and occasionally remonstrating with staff.
As we checked out the next morning, I asked the question I’d wanted to ask all along, “Why is the hotel called Nikita?” I was hoping for a reference to Nikita Khrushchev, or Soviet influence in the Brahmaputra Valley, but I also remembered that Nikita was the name of an Elton John song and a short-lived American TV series with improbable plots about a secret agent with long and shapely legs. I got the answer I deserved. “It is named for the owner’s daughter.”