The Party

The sun was setting in its entire splendor splashing extravagant colours across the deep blue sky.

The River Sal hotel, in South Goa emptied out its clientele to witness this vanity of nature.  There were sounds of euphoric appreciation all around us and this added a further dimension to what we were witnessing.

 Right next to me was Dr. Roberts from the U.K. and his wife Joan.  For years now we met at the River Sal Hotel to escape the frigid climate of Canada and the U.K.  We often did things together and we got to know and understand each other very well. Dr. Roberts had retired from active service to the public in the U.K.  A hand written invitation was promptly placed in my hands by Joan. We were invited to a party at 7 p.m. the following evening to celebrate Dr. Robert’s 70^th birthday.  The hand written invitation clearly stated that it was for drinks.

By mid afternoon the following day those Brits that were not invited to the party walked around with stern faces wondering why they did not make the list of invitees.  Needless to say, they would remain up in their apartments and discretely peep through the curtains to record anything untoward which could be used as gossip the following day. 

At seven p.m. sharp the party began.  Drinks were ordered to suit the taste of the guests and before long; everybody was in a jolly mood.  The master of ceremonies was the owner of the hotel, who took it upon himself to supply all kinds of snacks.  The guests were hungry and did not hesitate to prompt the waiters to repeat the orders which seemed to vanish no sooner than when they arrived.  All the guests were delighted by the generosity of the hosts.  “He’s a jolly good fellow”, was sung with gusto several times and so was “Happy Birthday to You”, which was beginning to acquire a falsetto rendition as the night wore on and tongues became anestisized.

Both Dr. Roberts and Joan were delighted with the company and the attention that the guests showered on them.  However, on closer examination one could sense that Joan could not mask her concern over the enthusiasm with which the Master of Ceremonies ordered in the food.  I guess that she began to sense that each time he ordered shrimps or other delectable food; she could see dollars and cents rolling in his eyes.  She was not about to talk to the manager about her silent suspicions and spoil the party.

It was getting late and the guests virtually had to crawl back to their apartments after drinking themselves foolish.

The following morning at breakfast, the Manager approached us cautiously and handed over a bill for the previous night. I naturally told him that it was not my party and that the bill should be handed over to the birthday boy.  He nervously explained to us that both Dr. Roberts and Joan refused to pay the food bill since they had not instructed him to supply any eats.  He was quick to remind us that in Goa no party is complete without a whole lot of food.  We agreed with him.  Joan showed him the invitation card and drew his attention to “drinks only” which was even underlined in that particular invitation card.

The Manager explained to us that he would be out of pocket for several thousand rupees and that somebody would have to pay.  Of course, we insisted that we were not the ones that he should be asking for payment and stressed over and over again that he should ask Dr. Roberts to come to some kind of compromise with him over the payment.

When we met Joan shortly thereafter, she was enraged with the Manager for adopting his own agenda at her party, but though we never learnt what finally happened, we are of the impression that the bill was settled.  We do know, however, that on a matter of principle Joan would have probably come out of the deal ahead of the game.    We suspect that this was so because the Manager refused to smile for a couple of weeks after that.

 He must have learnt the hard way that one must not mix culture with business.