Keep it simple

Why do hotels insist on investing in TV systems that their guests find impossible to master?


So, among the list of demands the Rolling Stones lay down when they go on tour these days is that the hotel staff must leave detailed written instructions on how to work the TV system. I couldn't help but laugh when I read this.

How the mighty have fallen! (Or do I mean just grown old?) There was a time when the only use the Rolling Stones had for a TV set was to wreck it completely as they trashed hotel room after hotel room on their many tours around the world.

But now that all of them are either in or approaching their 70s, those days of drugs, sex, and rock and roll are long gone. Now it's just rock and roll, and a few hours of downtime in front of the television, watching the news or their favourite series, or maybe even a bit of sport, to calm down after the adrenalin rush of playing large stadiums full of roaring fans.

You can just picture it, can't you? Mick Jagger comes back to his hotel room, all hot and sweaty, having done his best Tina Turner impression yet.  His slips into the shower (avert your eyes discreetly now!), comes out in his bathrobe, and picks up the remote hoping to catch the news on the BBC.

The TV comes on. But instead of showing one of the channels, it says Menu, with a bewildering array of options listed underneath. He finally scrolls down to TV and presses what he thinks is 'Ok' on his remote. Nothing happens for a few excruciating minutes. The the TV begins to show him all the movies that he can order and charge to his room. He presses 'Exit'. Nothing happens.

By now I am guessing that Mick is ready to revert to his bad old days and trash the TV along with the room. But he draws on the restraint his 70-plus years on the planet have taught him, picks up the phone and asks for some help. A few minutes later, a young whippersnapper arrives in the room, supercilious contempt writ large all over his face, and shows the mighty Stone just how it's done.

It is at this point in my fantasy that I stop chortling and start steaming. Because the scene I have just described is exactly what happens to me in four hotels out of five on my travels.

It seems to me that the golden rule of hoteliering is that the more fancy the TV system, the more difficult it will be to navigate. I last encountered one such system a week ago at a very swanky hotel, which was perfect in all respects but the TV technology.

The television system was controlled through an Ipad that seemed to have a mind of its own. It took me a good ten minutes before I could crawl through all the clutter of options to access the TV channels to watch a bit of news.

Later that night, as I settled down to watch a DVD before going to bed, I came up against an unexpected obstacle. I could not find the DVD player.

And yet, I knew that it did exist, given that its remote control was lying right in front of me. I looked high and low, opening drawer after drawer of the TV console. But no luck.

After 10 minutes of this fruitless search, I finally gave up and called for help. A smiling young lady arrived a few minutes later. I explained that I could not find the DVD player. Ah, she said, walking across to the writing table in the opposite corner of the room, and opening the bottom drawer, "Here it is!"

And how would I operate it from the couch in front of the television, I asked. I could hardly jog across the room every time I wanted to press pause.

Oh, you don't need to do that, she said. In fact, you don't even need to use the remote control at all. You can just operate it with the Ipad from anywhere in the room.

With the same IPad that had driven me insane an hour ago? No thanks. I made my excuses and went to bed with a book.

So, why do you think hotels do this? What is the point of investing millions in a TV system that just drives your guests bonkers every time they try and use it. Any system that requires someone to give you a 20-minute tutorial on how to operate it, is simply not the best choice for a hotel chain. (Their guests really do have better things to do than try and master a system that they will only use for a couple of days.)

At the end of a long day, when you are looking forward to unwind by watching an episode of The Good Wife or the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the last thing you want is to have to summon help to get the TV working (especially since, more often than not, help will arrive long after your show is over). And that is just as true of us ordinary mortals as it is of the Rolling Stones.

So, Sir Mick, sorry about taking the mickey out of you. "Detailed written instructions on how to use the television system" sounds just about right to me.

The new celebrity circuit

When the A-list drops into India, where does it go?

By the time you read this, the great starship Oprah will have departed our shores after getting a taste of India (‘it’s life Gayle, but not as we know it’). The Winfrey whirlwind started in Mumbai and then tore through the rest of India with a breathless intensity. Oprah partied with Bollywood, was serenaded by children, went shopping in quirky little stores, stopped by a temple, attended a literary festival, and even managed to squeeze in some paparazzi-bashing (quite literally, as her bodyguards manhandled the media entourage waiting to greet her in Vrindavan).

But while nobody got a real sense of what Oprah Winfrey is all about – except that she is an expert manipulator of her own image – by the end of her visit one thing was clear: India now has a new celebrity circuit in place. Sure, the old delights still feature and Oprah dutifully dropped by to be photographed open-mouthed at the Taj Mahal in Agra, but there is a brand-new itinerary in place for visiting celebs.

First up is Bollywood. It is now a truth universally acknowledged that any A-list visitor to India has to hook up with some Indian film star or the other. Hugh Jackman danced with Shah Rukh Khan at an event when he visited Mumbai. Tom Cruise was shadowed by his MI 4 co-star Anil Kapoor during his recent visit. And Oprah’s first stop in Mumbai was at the Bachchan residence where she renewed her acquaintance with Aishwarya and Abhishek (who have appeared on her show) and met their new-born daughter.

Next up is Parmeshwar Godrej. You clearly don’t rate as a bona fide celebrity unless Parmesh throws a party for you. And her guest list is pretty eclectic taking in everyone from Imran Khan and Jennifer Saunders to Richard Gere and now – yes, that’s right – Oprah Winfrey. The beach shimmers, the champagne flows , the stars shine bright and the conversation sparkles as Mumbai’s A list queues up to have its picture taken with the guest of honour.

And then, there’s Gregory David Roberts of Shantaram fame, who is to Mumbai what Mother Teresa was once to Calcutta. If there is a celebrity in town, then Roberts won’t be far behind, organising a visit to the Mumbai slums that featured so prominently in his book. Madonna and Oprah were only the latest celebrities to have been given the grand tour, but you can be sure that they won’t be the last.

In fact, poverty tourism itself has become quite the rage as visiting celebrities vie with one another to visit the ‘real’ India (you know, the one that featured in Slumdog Millionaire). Cue, trips to deprived neighbourhoods, shanty towns, orphanages, crowded railway stations, even sleepy villages. The entire entourage descends on the chosen spot, wearing horrified expressions, SPF factor 50 sunblock and baseball caps, clutching bottles of mineral water in their sanitized hands and trying very hard not to inhale. Some go back home and write cheques to assuage their guilt, others just wash away the grime under the power showers in their 5-star hotel and move on to the next stop.

Those whose sensibilities are not quite up to all this hard-core stuff, get their ‘slice of Indian life’ stuff from the temples. Ever since the Beatles fetched up at Rishikesh to stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in the 60s to learn a bit of transcendental meditation (and a spot of levitation while they were at it) India has been the favoured destination of spirituality junkies. Pushkar, which has the only Brahma temple in India, is a favourite stop as are some of the more famous shrines in south India like Tirupati.

But the recent success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love and its movie version featuring Julia Roberts has given a fresh fillip to this industry. Now, there is a new influx of celebrities descending on India, keen to find themselves through fasting, meditation and some light chanting. Madonna was seen at the Nathdwara shrine in Rajasthan, Mick Jagger is said to be a regular visitor to temples in and around Jaipur and Udaipur, and Oprah herself put in an appearance at the Ma Dham in Vrindavan to film the widows (without permission, as it turned out, but that – as they say – is another story).

On the scenic front, too, things have changed. Rajasthan is still a great draw, but the celebs are increasingly plumbing for small, off-the-beaten path, family-run properties like Deogarh over the big hotel chains. Goa is now officially passé. Kerala is where it’s at, with the backwaters scoring effortlessly over the beaches. And Dharamsala is the new Rishikesh, with the Dalai Lama proving to be an irresistible draw to all those newly-minted Buddhists in Hollywood with Richard Gere (yes, him again!) leading the way.

Yes, there is a new celebrity circuit in India now. And once Oprah airs that India special on her cable network, I’m guessing that it’s going to get a tad crowded.

Blood is thicker

Every child should have the right to know where he or she came from

A few weeks ago I wrote about a man who was fighting a legal battle to establish his rights as a father.

Adam Dell had gone to court to ask that his name be added to the birth certificate of his daughter Krishna after a DNA test had established paternity. And he was in negotiations with the child’s mother, Padma Lakshmi, to come to an arrangement that ensured that he got to spend enough time with Krishna.

His relationship with Padma Lakshmi may have ended badly. But Dell wanted to be involved in Krishna’s life. He wanted Krishna to know who her father was; and that he cared enough to fight for her.

Well, today, I am going to write about a man who has just lost a legal battle to escape being named as a father.

N.D. Tiwari, that fine, upstanding political leader who has been chief minister of one state and Governor of another, lost the final skirmish in his long legal battle when the Supreme Court of India ruled that he had to supply a DNA sample so that it could be proven, one way or the other, whether he was the biological father of Rohit Shekhar.

It was a significant victory for Shekhar and his mother, Ujjawala Sharma, who had been trying for decades to get Tiwari to admit paternity. But Tiwari resolutely refused to recognise Shekhar as his son, even though his relationship with Ujjawala was common knowledge in political circles.

In his petition to the court, Tiwari – chivalrous old codger that he is – labelled Ujjawala as an ‘unchaste woman’ for having had a relationship with him while still married to her husband (presumably, she held a gun to his head while she had her nasty way with him, the poor man!). Rohit, he maintained, had been born while Ujjawala was married to another man and, in accordance with Indian law, he should be regarded as the legitimate son of her husband.

Therefore, said Tiwari, there was absolutely no reason why he should be required to give a DNA sample to prove (or disprove) paternity.

Well, the courts clearly thought otherwise. First the High Court and then the Supreme Court ruled that it was the right of every child to know who his or her father is. And that right trumped all the legal arguments that Tiwari’s team of crack lawyers had presented in court.

Finally, it seems Rohit Shekhar will get to know who his biological father is, even if he had to wait until he was 30 to get conclusive proof.

Now, you and I may well quibble over whether a man who behaves the way N.D. Tiwari has, should have any right to be called a father. But none of us can deny that the principles of natural justice demand that every child should have the right to know where he or she comes from.

Yet every day we see instances of children being denied access to that knowledge. And while many such battles are fought away from the limelight, the list of public figures who have dodged paternity is long and illustrious.

N.D. Tiwari is not the only politician to deny paternity of a love child simply because it was politically expedient to do so. Across the border, we have the shining example of Imran Khan, who refused to acknowledge his daughter, Tyrian, with Sita White. The US courts declared him the father in absentia when he failed to turn up for a court hearing or provide a DNA sample. But Imran continued to deny her existence because it would difficult to explain a child conceived out of marriage to his followers (such as they are) in Pakistan.

It is to his ex-wife, Jemima’s credit, that she took Tyrian under her wing after untimely death of her mother, Sita, and gave her the recognition that she so badly craved. But then, Jemima, who was born to Annabel and Jimmy Goldsmith while her mother was still married to her first husband, Mark Birley, probably knows how important paternity is to children no matter what the circumstances of their conception.

Aatish Taseer, the son of the assassinated Pakistani politician, Salman Taseer, addressed his angst at not being recognised by his father in his book, A Stranger to History. When he finally met his father at the age of 21, Salman explained to him that it would have been impossible for him to be in Pakistani politics with an Indian wife and a half-Indian son. Tragically, the two were estranged when Salman was shot dead by his guard and Aatish wrote poignantly about “mourning a man who was present for most of my life as an absence”.

Of late, though, science has made it that much more difficult for men to evade parental responsibility. Back in the 70s, Mick Jagger refused to acknowledge paternity of Karis, his daughter by African-American model, Marsha Hunt, until the girl was 12 years old. But in 1999, when the Brazilian model Luciana Morad had his son, Lucas, a paternity test cleared up the matter immediately and Jagger obediently stumped up child support.

It’s too late for that as far as Rohit Shekhar is concerned. He is a grown man now, a lawyer in his own right. But while he may no longer need a father to support him financially, he still needs to know who father is. That is the right of every child – even after he is all grown up.