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Hospitality

Dictionary meaning

Hospitality -

1.the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.
2.the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.

Indians are believed to be one of the most hospitable people. It may be true to quite an extent, but there are some elements which seem strange. Say the obsession with eating, or to put it in some other way, guest eating well being a surrogate of a good, hospitable treatment. This may be more visible in interior or 'traditional' parts of country where ofter the person who is 'guest' is supposed to be 'following' or 'eating' thing served by the host. Plus there are some unwritten rules like you need to be always smiling, you need to get along well with everyone irrespective of age, believe with XYZ rules and all and blah blah. To hell with what you believe in, to hell with what you like or dislike, to hell with what you are as a person!

It all reminds me of one line i saw in a recent movie "Ghee khilaana aapke hobby hai kya!". (said by Katrina Kaif in a movie where she plays a Indian-Firang babe, said to her family members in Punjab) Recently I happened to go to a janmastmi celebrations where they had a prashaad in the end. They had some 12-15 varieties of sweets. All of them were 'served'. They were not ready to take it back (hospitality obviously!) and i couldn't leave it (good manners + prashaad combo!). Alas, I had to eat all of them and be in anorexic state of mind for next few hours! And I know not what people who are so-called 'health conscious' be thinking of when faced with similar situation!

We often tend to confuse hospitality with 'forcing to eat' so that the host doesn't feel 'bad' and all such stuff. So I wonder whom are we hospitable to !
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Comments

  1. Anonymous9:56 AM, October 30, 2007

    Lol!!!

    Long back, I wrote a similar post, after visiting a couple of relatives this summer! :)

    you may want to have a look at it here: http://worldthrumyeyes.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/indian-way-of-showing-affecion-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-and-eat/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nikesh Rathi10:54 AM, October 30, 2007

    Hey ... that made an interesting read!

    ReplyDelete

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