Of Hosts and Hospitality !

Athithhi devo bhava’ or ‘Guest is God!’ - a statement that we have been hearing from childhood. How would you like to be treated when you are somebody’s guest? How do you treat your guests?
Being a slightly neurotic and extremely shy person, I feel miserable everytime I present myself as the guest to anybody’s home. Talking to the person in a social gathering is bad enough, it is worse when you have to visit this person and remain as inconspicuous as possible for the entire duration of the stay. Forget good memories, I try hard to ensure there are no memories of my stay at all !
Talking of hosts, I have found that there are many kinds. All of them fall in between the extra-hospitable and the when-are-you-leaving types. Both the kinds scare me.I was forced to stay with a former friend and her husband during one of my onsite visits, although I personally preferred staying at a hotel, than with someone else. This friend was a year or two older than me and took it upon herself to make me a better person.
I have never been scared of anyone so much in my life. Every word and every action of mine was being judged. She told me how I should eat my cereal (like kheer, with hot milk and sugar even if it was cold cereal and sweetened), that she hated people who refused to have tea or coffee in the morning - when I declined an offer for coffee or tea, what I should eat for lunch and how much and so on.
She would ask her husband to sleep on the floor so that I could sleep on the bed, although I begged her not to do so. In spite of my insisting on taking a taxi, she would nag him to drop me at my office, although it was quite far. She would insist that her husband and she would pay for all my expenses, including for a trip to Niagara !
Was she good? - Yes, she thought so !! Was I comfortable ? - Definitely not !! I am fine with kindness, but I simply could not take charity. I was suffocating and felt manipulated. Needless to say, I tried to find an apartment as soon as I could and moved out immediately. Till this date, she thinks I was being ungrateful and hates me for it !!
I have had a couple of such bad experiences. In many cases, it becomes extremely embarassing when the host has personal issues or minor domestic squabbles when I visit them. Some of them are good at pretending that nothing is amiss, whereas a few others take me in confidence and tell me their problems.
A third type, which is scarier and tougher to handle is when the hosts behave as if you were not even there and sulk silently in a corner. In some friends’ places, I have been subjected to such behaviour. What’s worse, I am asked to take sides. Irrespective of whose side I take or do not take, I always end up looking like an idiot. I cannot walk out of the place, since I am supposed to be a guest. So I have to go through such ordeals and pretend that I don’t exist !
I once joined my friend to her cousin’s place in the US. Another friend, who was feeling extremely bored, joined us. We had good fun in the beginning, but somewhere in between, the cousin’s husband took offence to one of our jokes and started giving us the infamous cold-shoulder treatment. We apologized to him but he still remained distant. That night at their house, was one of the longest nights I have ever been through. My friend was embarrassed for her cousin’s and her husband’s behaviour. We spoke only in whispers the whole night and didn’t make eye-contact with the inmates of the house, the whole of next day. By the time we left that evening, we had had enough and when we got into the car, we felt like we had just been released from the prison!
There is no set of rules to be a good host. Being yourself seems to be the best way. That is of course, assuming that you are not a complete jerk, in which case, being some one else definitely helps the guest !! A lot of us are basically good people, but we take the maxim - Honesty is the best policy, too seriously and end up blurting out honest but unnecessary statements to the wrong people at the wrong time.
I recently went to meet with my cousin, who had come down from another city and was spending the afternoon at her friend’s place. I did not want to go to a stranger’s house, but ended up going because my cousin insisted that I come. The friend’s husband was working in the same organization as I and had attended a recent meeting with the senior management.
A few minutes inside their home, the husband asked me if I was present in that meeting. When I replied in the affirmative, he asked me if I was the person who had asked a certain question to the chairman. Feeling proud of myself and my rising popularity, I happily nodded my head. ‘I did not like it. You should not have asked that.’, he said. I made a weak response that my question was based on my personal experience, but no, the verdict was out. I was out !!
I kept thinking - I had been judged already. He knew me, he could read me like a book. He could see what a bad person I was !! He hated me !! (I was being truthful when I said that I am slightly neurotic !). That put an end to whatever little I was saying there. I had scored zero on his scoring sheet and I could not find a way to redeem myself !! We went out together, but his looks seemed accusatory (to me !!). I wanted to hide myself ! He was the host and I was a guest, how could I argue with him and prove my point? How could I tell him that he had offended me?
I guess the only memory they would have of me was a rather sullen looking lady, who had nothing to say on any topic - a dullard maybe ! I hope that is all they think about me !!
Different types of treatments work for people. Some of us expect to be treated like guests and want a royal treatment. Others like things to stay casual. Depending on how the host/hostess treats me, I may stop at the drawing room, eating what is served and agreeing with everything the host/hostess says or may insist on helping out with cooking and washing dishes and feel completely at home!
Slightly dirty houses seem more comfortable and hospitable than the spic-and-span ones. People living in the former seem more human than those in the latter type of houses! When I am in a sparkling clean house, I am only thinking of the juice/coffee that I am holding and hoping I don’t spill it (that always seems to do the exact opposite). In slightly dirty houses, I am talking with abandon. Spilling the juice does not bother me, because I know, I can always clean up the place later!
Now that I have written so much about hosts and hospitality, I am hoping I am casual enough and not overbearing to my guests. I hope my house looks just the required amount of disarray, and looks cool and slightly disorganized instead of a pigsty!!