Episode 1 Hotel India

Mumbai...

..the biggest city in India.

Endlessly rich in culture and in contradictions.

It's home to one of the oldest

and grandest hotels in the world, the Taj Mahal Palace.

INDIAN SINGING

It is beyond just luxury. This is a mirage in the middle of the city.

It has over 500 rooms...

..and 1,500 staff.

I don't feel like I am 61. I feel like I'm 16.

Taj has built me very strongly.

It is famed for being meticulous, where no detail is too small

or demand too great.

Anything that is possible. I cannot get you pink elephant. I will try!

With an army of staff striving for flawless service...

This is India and we frankly don't say no to anything.

..it is where the super-rich of today come to live like the maharajahs of India's past.

Sometimes I close my eyes

and I pretend that all of India is like this.

Standing on the edge of the Arabian Sea, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

has been a landmark in Mumbai for over 100 years.

Favoured by rock stars and royalty, billionaire businessmen and stars

of Hollywood and Bollywood, it was the first luxury hotel in India.

For the last five years, executive housekeeper Indrani has been

keeping the hotel in a manner fit for Kings...

All the canopies. They have to be more stuck towards the ceiling.

A little of the wire is showing on them.

..and there is little that escapes her attention.

Hi, boys, good morning. It has to be nicely vacuumed, OK?

I should put a hand inside.

Once you have vacuumed, please put your hand inside the corners

and see that everything is clean. OK?

These are the blankets.

These are the blankets

which have already come after disinfection from the laundry.

But since it is all touched by human beings,

you can have lint and I don't want anything over there.

So sometimes I scan the faults

so I am checking also with the torch if I have missed out on anything.

This is clean, show me the other one.

At £9,000 a night, the Tata Suite is the most exclusive in the hotel.

Named after the hotel's founder, the suite has 15 rooms,

including its own private spa and gym.

This is what I was talking about.

Can you see that it has little bubbles? All right?

There should not be any bubbles.

It has seen dignitaries

and celebrities from Tom Cruise to Barack Obama pass through its doors.

-Which one have you done already?

-This one.

-Huh? It is not clean.

Can you be very, very careful while you're doing it?

With the next guest and his entourage arriving in a few days' time,

Indrani wants to check everything.

All right, so I want complete, tight bunch of pink roses.

They are coming to India for the first time

so ensure that we have a little Indian touch to it.

This guest is all of excitement

and you must have seen all the photographs

of the people who have stayed here.

And though I see that every day, but I don't hesitate.

Every day when I look at it, I feel immensely proud.

Oh, my God, I have been able to do something for this guest

who has done so much for the world.

I am looking at the finishing below the...under this.

Why are you looking there?

The finishing and the cleanliness under the basin

because this is an area which is neglected. People, they feel lazy.

So we ensure that when we are checking the room,

we always sit down and look up.

When a guest is lying in the bathtub,

he is actually at this height and he can see this. You can't see.

But guest can see this, like this.

So we have to ensure that everything is perfect.

The Indian philosophy dictates that anybody who comes to your house,

he's not a guest but he is God.

So we treat every guest who comes and stays with us

as close to God as possible.

For many general managers,

running a hotel like the Taj is the pinnacle of their career.

Every city has its own monument

to which people very strongly relate to.

So this is the place in Bombay which people relate to very strongly.

Gaurav has been in charge for the last three years,

a blink of an eye in a hotel which everyone in Mumbai has grown up with.

To a large section of society in Bombay,

they have seen this hotel for the last 100-odd years.

Their parents have seen this, their grandparents have seen this.

A lot of them have got married here, their parents have got married here.

They call it the "People's Taj".

This is unlike any other hotel that I have run before.

When you come here, you realise and feel the history of 110 years.

The Taj was the first hotel in India to have electricity

and the first to have a licensed bar.

Built in 1903, over 40 years before the end of the British Raj,

it was a regular retreat for the Indian maharajahs

and throughout its history

has welcomed VIPs from all over the world.

Every client who comes and stays with us is a VIP.

To a large extent,

we don't like to distinguish between the real VIPs and the VIPs.

But if you really want to have a culture of top-class service

being given to every resident guest,

you need to treat every one of them as VIPs.

We will go through all of them...

Before all major visits, Gaurav holds a meeting

with the hotel's heads of department to scrutinise every detail.

The position you would have chosen

for them to stand for Oprah Winfrey's visit

as well as for President Sarkozy was the correct position.

At no point in time should we forget that anybody who comes

and stays in this hotel is paying through his pocket

and needs to be treated in that particular manner.

I want everybody's opinion on,

do you want somebody playing traditional Indian music?

The whole idea is, when they walk in they hear something

which is very traditional, Indian and soft.

It's not just the guests who stay in the Tata Suite

who are given five-star treatment.

-Hello.

-It's nice to be back.

-Welcome back!

Dr Anil Sinanan has been visiting

up to five times a year for over a decade.

-Hello.

-Welcome back.

-Thank you.

-Enjoy your stay with us.

-I always do.

A lawyer from London, he stays at the hotel

whenever he visits the city.

My love affair with Mumbai is purely because of Bollywood

and I try and buy every single CD which is released, every DVD.

And I also go to... non-descript stores,

in really foul places,

that's my mission, to buy LP records.

I think it is probably that I am trying to recreate my childhood.

I go out and I like mingling with what they call the masses,

ordinary people. And they look at the Taj in awe, not envy.

And because I have travelled globally

and from the Caribbean, I find that really strange

because often people look at you

if you come out of, let's say the Hilton in Trinidad.

They just say, "Rich bastard".

And they want to beat you up and kidnap you.

But in Mumbai, they just see that as like,

"Wow, well done, you, for being a guest!"

Because one of the maxims

of Indian life, or maybe Hinduism, I don't know - "Guest is God".

So I am a guest, so I am a God.

When a guest is booked into the Tata Suite...

..Gaurav checks everything personally before they arrive.

I can't shake this habit off. I have to come at the last minute

and I have to see personally for myself.

It gives me a sense of control.

It also allows me to sleep better!

I think I am a natural critic by nature.

The more I intervene in terms of doing repeated rounds,

the more seriously everybody else actually takes their job

so it works that way.

This lamp is... OK? I want this to be...

Individual as well as the main lamp, both are crooked.

Get that addressed, you can do that later on.

As far as the sitting room is concerned,

the entire room has been painted and polished.

You will not find any fragrance or any kind of smell over there.

The room has been completely sanitised,

pest controlled and disinfected.

I don't want any painter, polisher

now coming into the suite, from now on.

-I don't want the smell to change.

-Absolutely.

On that day, I just want to feel the flowers smell and nothing else.

-When is his butler coming?

-It is half an hour before his arrival.

-On eight.

-OK, what I want you to do is, after the first day, OK?

I am not talking about the eighth night when he comes in,

ninth, try to get in touch with his butler.

Your butler team is going to be here?

-Yes, sir.

-Please ensure there is a lady in that team.

The last time, spoken about two butlers and a lady in the team.

Ask what his preferences as far as the single malt is concerned.

-Yes, sir.

-OK. When he comes the first day,

he is going to be in the hotel at about nine o'clock.

I don't know if he's going to ask for dinner.

For us to be able to understand what his requirements are going to be

is going to be an issue in a sense.

-So I have made a booking for him in all my restaurants.

-All of them?

All of them. I really don't want to take a chance.

So anything that is expressed during the course of the stay,

you know, we really don't want to be in a position to say no.

This is India, we frankly don't say no to anything.

If it means I am going to have to ask somebody

to stay back in the hotel

because the services may be asked outside the working hours,

we will ensure that we deliver.

I mean, otherwise how do you explain 1,500 people?

Let's start.

THEY PRAY

-Good morning, everybody.

-ALL: Good morning.

Of the hotel's 1,500 staff, 200 are room boys.

Many have migrated from the villages of their birth to work in Mumbai.

They all come from a humble background.

There are many boys who are not so highly educated,

they have just done the schooling.

They have not seen or experienced

what we are expecting them to deliver.

They are being slowly acclimatised

to a different world of hotel industry.

A precision of luxury, understanding the finer details

is what they have been taught every day, morning, evening.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

Each morning after prayers,

Indrani's exacting standards start with the boys themselves.

-Hi, morning.

-Good morning.

-OK, boys.

First and foremost, is he looking fresh,

ready to take on the world, OK?

Obviously he has to smell good,

in the sense that he should smell fresh.

Hello, Samuel, hair is not cut.

There are times we are being strict with them,

there are times we are nice with them

and there are times we are like elder sister to their problems, their issues.

It's like a whole family working together towards a common goal.

Come here.

Your trouser is very long. Can you wear it around your waist?

Put it up, pull it up.

And your shoes are also not polished.

I polished them.

So many of them with their own little issues,

we know each one of them, how their family is, what they are,

who their children are, what issues they are having,

what family problems they are having.

Sometimes we do try to sort this out.

It's not only a professional relationship.

Turn, turn.

I want cut down here, shaved over here.

I don't want all this trickling down.

Hair cut. Santosh, hair cut.

Where are your nails? Cut.

OK.

-All of you wearing black socks?

-Yes.

-Who is not?

For the fortunate few who get a job at the hotel,

it can change the course of their lives.

Mr Chaskar has worked here for 42 years.

During that time,

16 members of his family have also been employed by the hotel.

Private bar service.

These days, Mr Chaskar is in charge of the mini bars.

Private bar.

May I come in?

I really enjoying my job very much.

I don't feel like I'm 61, I feel like I am 16.

Because I'm still young. People are asking me,

how you don't have a stomach, how you're not fat.

I say, "Taj has built me very strongly."

And that is what the wonderful things people listen to me.

Working at Taj is happiness, not only me but my family

because this is a super deluxe five-star hotel

which is number one in all of India.

That is why it is a proud and a pride to me and my family also.

It is a dream come true.

An enjoyable life we are living here.

Private bar service.

Show the smile.

A smile shows you're comfortable, the smile shows understanding,

smile tells that you are really successful,

a smile says caring and a smile says that yes, I am very happy.

Private bar service.

-Very good morning, sir.

-Morning.

Very nice to you.

-Here's your newspaper.

-Yes, please.

-Do you require some replenishment

of tea or coffee?

Would it be possible for you to make me some coffee from this?

-Yes, I will do that, sir.

-Thank you.

Allow me to make you a coffee, please. Thank you very much, sir.

-Do you require Nescafe, sir?

-Black coffee.

-Black coffee.

Enjoy your coffee, sir. Have a nice day. Pleasant stay, sir.

I suppose I do like being called sir. I don't know!

But, yes, I think it is like being

treated with kindness and respect.

I hope it doesn't go to my head.

Or maybe that's why I keep coming back!

I have come from a very humble background,

both my parents were largely illiterate

and children of indentured immigrants

from India to the West Indies.

I literally had to get myself to university, get a job in London

and I started literally with nothing so why not enjoy it now?

Thank you.

I suppose that is why I appreciate it.

I suspect, if I was born into it,

I would have probably taken it for granted.

My favourite bit of the hotel is sitting

exactly around the poolside.

I like the sort of protected environment, oasis of calm

where you can get away from the hustle and bustle

of the urban jungle.

Sometimes I close my eyes

and I pretend that all of India is like this.

That this is the real India.

In the real Mumbai,

the average person lives in less than five metres of space.

Built on a peninsula, the city has nowhere left to expand...

..but the population has doubled in the last 25 years.

Alongside its hundreds of millionaires,

more than half the population lives in slums.

Many live and work on the streets outside the hotel.

Lalita, Suresh and their family

have lived by the hotel for most of their lives.

They make money selling strings of jasmine to passers-by.

I came when I was very young.

Actually, I came to India in my 20s, 20, 22.

And, of course,

I was a very leftist woman at the time and my first husband,

we were fiance at that time, he was coming from a very rich family.

I used to take him to hippiest places and he said, "OK, half-half.

"Half the time we will go to the hippiest places

"and one or two nights at least we come to the Taj."

And when I came here, when I saw that, I said,

"No, that is for rich people, for bourgeois, I am not coming."

We stayed there and I was very happy to stay there.

I found it gorgeous, fabulous. That was ages ago.

The best memory I have here is with my second husband

which was the greatest love of my life.

We used to have a great time talking with the people,

being, in a way, like we were in a family.

There is something about this hotel which is really very particular.

You stay there and you get back to the history

of a big part of the history of India.

And also a part of the history of the world.

Sometimes I live with all people that they have been passed by,

the last Shah of Iran, as well as John Lennon

and so many other people and I feel them, I feel their spirit there.

Serving the world's elite requires the utmost discretion.

When John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed for five days, no-one,

not even a cleaner, was allowed in their suite.

-So you set the suite yesterday?

-Yes, ma'am.

-You had a round?

-Yes.

OK.

-You've got the key?

-Yes, ma'am.

-Let's open up.

Before the next guest checks in to the Tata Suite,

the head of each department wants to make sure

everything in their area is faultless.

Let's start with the living room.

Mehr is in charge of food and beverages.

OK. You've got the Pimm's.

Take the band rolls off, no band rolls on any of them, please.

I am not quite liking the shine of this.

And if you leave it here, it will get more tarnished

so just take this off, polish it, put it back. Martini extra dry?

-Yes, ma'am.

-Gordon's?

-Gordon's is there, ma'am.

Yes. No, no, no Bacardi.

-Why?

-Absolutely not. Please upgrade. Captain Morgan Spiced Gold?

-Yes.

I come back actually multiple times.

This is probably the third one I am already making.

There's a water mark on this glass.

-See here?

-Yes, ma'am.

By afternoon you will find that whatever

I have already highlighted right now will get addressed and I will

make another round around evening just to make sure it is correct.

No.

Please, a fresh piece.

Or get it cleaned.

Checks upon checks upon checks.

Endless checks till he actually checks in! That is how it is.

The Tata Suite comes with 13 staff.

Rooms have been dedicated to all the guests' needs...

-Give this a VIP pressing room.

-Yes, ma'am.

..including one for ironing.

-Get a couple of laundry baskets, please.

-Certainly, ma'am.

Ask Mr Mahel to make a round of this room

because I don't think this is everything they need.

But ask him to still check.

OK, fine. Come.

There are many times that VIPs or VIP movements involve

only their own butler coming in to contact with the VIP.

Our butlers only become for the butlers to their butler.

So it can be a butler to a butler to a butler.

You could end up with four butlers in the room

and also you could end up with three butlers that have very little to do

because their butler is already taking care

of most of the preferences. But we go with that.

Little bit to the left.

Out, away from you.

Yes. Glass also.

-Both glass and bottle.

-OK.

The philosophy of the hotel is the same

as the philosophy of the country.

Fourth one again. Little bit away from you.

The guest is God in India and, you know,

we live and breathe that philosophy.

You have no provision to actually lay an extra chair

-so what I want you to do is pull it here. To here.

-OK.

If I have to add an extra chair in emergency

-then keep an extra chair somewhere near.

-Sure.

-OK?

The way the suite is originally in running needs to be

turned around very, very quickly after the morning meeting.

I will not have to then come back to have a look at this.

OK. All right, thank you.

For us, everything we do is keeping in mind that the guest is God

when he walks in and whatever we do is centred around that idea.

Please realise all these people have stayed

in the best hotels in the world.

There are certain things they take for granted

and there are certain things they really like to be surprised with.

The ability of a hotel to surprise on those small, finer aspects

of luxury is what is going to set you apart from other luxury hotels.

I am slightly restless by nature,

hence my management style is also dictated by that.

I am a bit aggressive at work, in the sense

when I want to do something I want to do it then and there.

The TV needs to come down.

If you are extremely passionate about what you are doing,

a certain sense of that tends to get

also rubbed onto people who work with you.

Plus they also understand there is always somebody keeping an eye out

and there is always somebody who is really concerned about

how the hotel is faring.

And sometimes over a period of time,

people understand that the final solution in a hotel tends to lie

with the general manager, which is rather unfortunate

because, you know, for every solution people actually

look to the general manager. For the final solution.

So, once you get engaged so heavily with something like this,

the sense of responsibility actually

changes from just being responsible for your job,

you suddenly realise you are also responsible for 1,500 people.

For its most exclusive guests, the hotel rolls out the red carpet.

So, right now, this carpet is not laid.

It'll be just done ten minutes before the arrival so that...

because a lot of people who are stepping onto it,

we don't want it to be spoiled, so we put cordon stands.

But I, personally, love this look from here. Red, I love these things.

And this will be maintained till the day he checks out.

-INTERVIEWER:

-How are you going to keep people off of the carpet?

You saw me doing this now.

Escorting them, telling them this is not the way,

the other way is the official route.

But we have been doing this for 20 times so we're well practised.

Despite reserving a place in each of their eight restaurants,

the hotel still doesn't know what the guest is doing about dinner.

Chef Oberoi is the hotel's grand executive chef.

He's spent 40 years cooking for presidents, kings and celebrities.

INDISTINCT

Chef Oberoi is hoping tonight's guest will want

an authentic Indian dining experience.

We don't know what they will have.

It should be Indian.

I think that's what we expect them to eat -

the first meal in the country.

Especially in this city. That's why we got the Mumbai tiffin ready.

And a person, when he orders a tiffin,

he gets the flavours of Mumbai.

For high-profile guests, the hotel often arranges for a musician

to play the traditional Indian instrument the jal tarang -

a set of bowls tuned with water.

OK, so, this is how the magic begins.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Why has this been chosen as the music?

You know, it's very, very typical of the city

so we want to give the VIP an absolute, you know,

a welcome to the city and give him a slight flavour of Mumbai.

He's testing it now.

Gaurav was a bit concerned about what the musician would be wearing.

I've got it.

He told me that he should be wearing an Indian kurta,

the colour should be matching the colour of the sari

which is being worn by the front office staff.

So I managed to get it and the thing was that I didn't know his size

but I finally got his size and it's fitting him, so that's a win for me.

-So, is he in?

-Yeah, he is in.

-He's in.

-He's in.

-How did it go?

Very well. As anticipated, he was very interested

in understanding what jal tarang was all about, so we just told him

what it was all about and why it is done in India because, you know,

it tends to send out positive vibes and energy and things that, so...

-That's how.

-Relief? Relief?

No, there's always another day, another challenge.

With eight restaurants in the hotel on stand-by,

the Tata Suite guest decided to eat in his room.

As soon as a guest checks out, Indrani's team begins again

preparing the Tata Suite for the next arrival.

-Good afternoon, everybody.

-Good afternoon.

We have gathered over here. We'll start from 6.49, basically.

Govind, you'll be with the vacuum cleaner

and you can start doing the vacuuming.

And extra furniture which is there, like, mirror is there,

I'll be just telling you the easiest furniture, just start

removing them and start keeping them in the lift landing area.

So let's start.

Here we have a guest who is paying almost as much as their salary,

maybe, per day, so obviously there is a difference.

But that will be in any kind of hoteliering industry,

the difference will always stay

about whom they are servicing and how they are.

People who have spent more years have become more...

they feel more attached to this place.

It's like their home, you know.

Room boy Harshad has cleaned the bath in the Tata Suite

for the last two years.

The boys at the Taj are relatively well paid

and Harshad earns more than three times the average income in India.

For a select few, a short stay in the hotel is not enough.

Maria Mooers is one of three resident guests.

An American oil heiress with a property in Rome,

she likes to escape the European winter.

-INTERVIEWER:

-You live here, don't you?

-Yes, I do. In the winter.

In the summer, in Greece. I'm very lucky.

So how long are you here, of the year?

I'm here, this time, for six months.

I've done two. It gets a little...

Time drags here.

I don't have many friends.

-Do you mind me asking how old you are?

-I'm in my 80s.

What does that mean exactly?

-83 exactly.

-83.

And, before, I used to lie about my age.

Now it's a sort of triumph to have made it this far.

When you look in the mirror these days, what you think?

Sometimes I think, "Oh, that's not bad,"

and other times I think, "Oh, my God!"

Especially when the hair starts to grow out

and you realise I'm not this smashing blonde after all.

I've known older people, old people, in fact, that...

..after 50, they just sort of slump into an easy chair

and stay there, you know.

And I've never been happy with that.

-You want some more adventures.

-Well, yes, of course.

That's the whole point of staying alive, no?

I need...

I need this.

In her 20s, Maria married an Italian opera singer.

They had three children but later divorced.

I was with a Greek man for many years and then, unfortunately,

he prematurely dropped dead.

But he saved himself nothing.

He'd done everything.

Liquor, drugs. But he was great fun.

You had good time.

-I had a good time with him, yes. And...

-How long ago was that?

-Oh, let's see. Must be, now, eight years ago.

-Eight years ago?

-Yes, eight or nine years ago.

-So you were in your 70s?

-Yeah.

-A love affair in your 70s.

-Of course. Why not?

If they don't mind, and they didn't seem to. And...

..he did say, "You know, Maria, I'd like to marry you,

"if you weren't so old."

And how old was he?

He was much younger.

He died at 44, prematurely, because he saved himself nothing.

You caught a man who was 30 years younger than you.

Actually, he caught me. Picked me up in church.

It was Easter, and I love the Greek Easter. So...

-How long were you together?

-We were together almost 11 years.

-It was obviously an important relationship.

-Yeah, it was. It was.

And...I was shattered when he died.

Tasked with making the hotel a home for guests

is the team of 35 butlers.

In weekly role-playing sessions,

they are schooled in the correct ways to serve.

What we are doing today, we are doing in-room dining training.

We'll do a mock audit,

in the sense of one of you, or two of you, will be coming with

the trolley with this order and will be delivering it to the guest.

Try to make him comfortable, talking to him.

Try to understand the guest's requirements or his preferences

and then ask questions accordingly.

So, be confident and don't forget that you have to smile a lot.

Everybody is very tense at this moment, so don't be tense - smile.

Oh, yeah. Please, come in. Come in.

-How are you?

-I'm good, thank you.

-Good, good.

-How was the meeting today?

-Oh, it was lovely.

Thank you very much for asking.

-Would you like to taste the wine?

-Perfect, yes.

Oh, it's a lovely wine. Thank you.

You can just leave it on the...

on the table itself.

Thank you.

In the £2,000-a-night Neptune Suite, Melville, the butler manager,

is welcoming back one of his most regular guests - Captain Bhasin.

I mean, I've been here in this particular department

the past three years.

I've been always taking care of him.

The relationship is actually very, very special because

he actually calls me for every single request, whatever he has.

He'll always pick up the phone and say,

"Tell Melville to call me in my room,"

or, "Tell Melville to come to my room.

"I would like to give him something."

The captain has been coming to the hotel for 50 years.

I'm an oil trader

and I travel practically all over the world.

The Americas, Europe, UK, the Far East,

the China, Korea, Singapore, Thailand,

Australia, India,

Bangladesh sometimes,

South Africa, East Africa.

I've been staying here for a very, very long time and I enjoy...

It's like home. For me, it's like home.

I've got all the facilities that I look for in a suite.

They make sure that you are as comfortable as you can be.

Nothing, no tarnish. Plates should be clean.

The butlers are preparing for one of his regular dinner parties,

which will be attended by a number of Mumbai's millionaires.

It's basically 12 to 15 people at the max that usually come

and he's staying in a very beautiful suite that overlooks the ocean.

It has the space and the capacity to accommodate

that many amount of guests.

He has lived in luxury for many years of his life.

He knows standards. He knows everything.

If you're going to be putting a glass on his table,

it has to go with a cocktail napkin

and, of course, a stirrer stick if it's a mixed drink.

So on and so forth.

So there is everything that's important

with regards to the details Captain Bhasin looks into.

Captain just mentioned to me in the lounge area that he's going to be

having a special blend of his nuts which he gets from the Gulf.

He's going to give it to us and we need to place it around the room

so that it's going to be very convenient for people

as and when they drink. They will be...

You know, they can just stretch out their hands and grab on some nuts.

These are important guests for him. He also mentioned that to me.

So we have to floor the guests.

We have to make Captain Bhasin look really, really good

in front of his guests, OK?

Everything to the last final detail should be nicely planned, OK?

Stirrer sticks, coasters, cocktail napkins, lime juice,

sugar syrup, salt. Everything.

None of his guests should be having to wait

for more than two minutes for a drink.

I bring with me...

..various kinds of nuts that we get in Dubai.

There's a very special shop which does nuts in different flavours.

They are in hermetically sealed bags, very fresh,

and they are opened when the guests are here.

And they're put in little serving bowls around here.

-How are you?

-Lovely to see you.

-Good to see you.

Nice to see you. How are you?

You've lost a lot of weight.

Last week, when I had these friends of mine,

one lady pointed out to the other lady who was here...

I didn't hear it. ..that these nuts are not good.

And she called Melville, the butler.

And he was told that, "You know, these nuts are bad.

"You know, you should taste them

"and try them before you serve to the guests,

"because if it happens next time,

"we're going to report to the hotel management."

He profusely apologised.

"I'm very sorry, ma'am. It will never happen again.

"We will make sure that next time the nuts are fresh nuts."

She didn't know that these were my nuts.

On that evening, he saved... he saved me.

I mean, he could have said,

"Sorry, ma'am, these are not my nuts.

"Sir has brought this,"

so it would have been a very embarrassing situation.

-INTERVIEWER:

-(Are the nuts OK?)

Before they could say cheers, we have placed the nuts,

so it's just fresh, as it is.

HE INTRODUCES GUESTS

Good morning.

Good morning.

Very good morning to you.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Mr Chaskar has been striving to please guests at the hotel

his entire working life.

I have about 200-odd people who have done

more than 35 years of service, active service.

I mean, some of them have worked here for as long as...

..as close to what my age is.

Anybody who has worked in this hotel for ten years plus actually is

extremely thankful of the fact that he's got a job at the Taj.

It's difficult for people who have worked here for a very long time

because they know no other way of living, actually.

I think this hotel has been everything to them.

I mean, they've got married here, they've had their children,

their children have gone ahead and got a job

and made a career for themselves in their lives

and fathers have continued working in this hotel.

Let's check the grooming.

SPEECH OBSCURED BY BACKGROUND NOISE

-This, try and press it.

-Yes, sir.

And your shoes - toes to be polished again. I think...

Yeah, the polish is coming out.

So just polish the toes and the sides.

-Chaskar, always perfectly groomed.

-Thank you, sir.

You should take the example of Mr Chaskar on the grooming standards.

-Your shoes can be more shiny, if you can.

-Of course.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

In a few months, Mr Chaskar will be retiring

42 years after first seeing an advert for a job at the hotel.

There was ad in the newspaper.

I just sent application and I got a call later

from the Indian Hotels Company Ltd on the fifth July 1972.

And I had an interview.

-INTERVIEWER:

-You kept that for 40 years?

-Yes, madam.

Round about 42 years have passed.

This letter has been given by management.

"You are appointed in the stewarding department."

I was so happy and entire my family, my village were

so happy that one of our students from the high school had got

a topmost, highest, the Taj Mahal Hotel Palace Mumbai,

a job in that Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai.

My entire relatives was so happy.

And this is the certificate of service of 35 years.

The long service award was given by our boss.

This certificate, I got from them. 35 years of service.

But now you've done 42 and you're about to retire...

-Yes.

-..looking after the guests.

-Yes.

And that is a very big history for me because it's a life.

It's a life experience. Each and every guest comes in my dream.

Who is Mr Galal, who is Mr Matal, who is Madam?

So all the guests are...they're good related to me, like my family,

because I spend more of my hours in the Taj Mahal Hotel than my family.

So I'm very close to my company, closer to my hotel

that which I'm related, like blood relation.

You're going to miss the Taj.

I will miss a lot.

Yes. The tears are here in my heart.

Today, across India, Hindus are celebrating the festival of Diwali.

All of you, welcome to my house.

Happy Diwali. Happy Diwali.

Of course, my family is welcoming you at the main gate of my building.

Will you please come follow me? Thank you very much. Careful here.

Mr Chaskar lives two hours away from the hotel,

with his wife, son and daughter-in-law.

You're welcome, welcome, welcome to my house.

This is my wife

who always cooks the food very delicious.

I'm very happy with my family.

They never trouble me and they also know, at this age also,

I am working hard at my place

but I never show my tiredness to my family at all.

I always go smiling to the work,

I always come smiling with my family, and that is why I keep

increasing their happiness and they also do the same at the same time.

Typically, businessmen and, you know, even households

and families will do a Lakshmi Puja to invite goddess

Lakshmi to their homes to bring in success, prosperity, wealth, etc.

At the hotel, we do this every year. Same room, same time.

Because it's something everyone feels very connected to.

And what I just did was actually bring our sales books across.

We do this every year. We print a new set of books for Diwali.

The priest will come in shortly and the Puja will happen.

After that, he will bless my books.

So it's, so to speak, that after invoking the goddess

he brings her blessings and he bestows them on my books and that'll

bring me great sales, so that's pretty much what it is all about.

20%-25% of my time is actually spent

on ensuring that certain traditions,

which are part of this hotel,

are carried on with the same amount of spirit

that they were handled with in the past.

A lot of functions which we do for employees every year

as a matter of tradition,

sometimes you don't even know why they're done.

There have been functions where I've tried to find out

why do we do a certain thing in a certain manner

and I've not been able to get a clear answer.

But today I think it's more important to carry on doing these

as long as they provide a lot of benefit to the employees.

I think these are certain traditions that we need to keep intact

as part of this hotel

in order to differentiate this hotel from any other hotel in the country.

THEY SING

It is changing and it's going to change more and more

because people are not going to spend

40 years of their productive life

working in hotels or for a single hotel.

So that's changing.

You will get to hear comments and remarks in the hotel about,

you know, "There used to be people who used to know me."

The expectation of clients in terms of them being recognised

and them being pampered the way it used to happen in the past

is also going to change.

I think the kind of luxury which people in India expected

of five-star hotels in the past

is no longer going to be there in the future.

You're not going to come back and you're not going to see 50 employees

who recognised you for the last 30 years to be around.

That's not going to happen.

Bye-bye.

You've got certain spots which are the one where you go

and you know you're going to meet half of the world.

It is definitely the place to be.

This is where everyone comes.

This is where everyone meets from around the world.

We have to not just meet their expectations,

rather exceed the expectations.