A Breed of Counterfeits

Chapter 11 Rajesh

'If I have any merit, it is getting along with individuals according to their ways and characteristics. At times it involves suppressing yourself. It is painful but necessary.'

- J.R.D. Tata

I kept my bag in the lobby of the hotel, which was like a slightly larger home. The taxi driver had dropped me right in front of the hotel entrance, which at first seemed to me like someone's home because the white building of the hotel did not bear any name, nor any board on it, but the GPS in my phone showed this was the correct place. I had looked at the cab driver questioningly before getting out, and the cab driver said that this is the right address in his Indian accent. When I asked him, the cab driver said he was from Bangladesh. I wondered how a guy from Bangladesh ended up as a cab driver on Santorini's small island in Greece. The cab driver did not seem very chatty either, so I paid him the money. As I walked into the hotel, I noticed a little board, which I had missed earlier. It was to the right of the entrance which bore the hotel name: Cristos Cliffs: a Greek Paradise. Maybe I missed the name because it was night already.

I reached the lobby and saw that it seemed to be more like a small hall. A tall girl with brown hair welcomed me from behind the reception desk. I noticed she had a beautiful set of teeth, large and white, which accentuated her smile. She must be in her 20s, I thought.

"Welcome to Cristos" she said in a thick European accent.

It was not a corporate hotel, so the girl at the reception had not worn a badge with her name, and she was dressed casually in a colorful top and jeans shorts.

"Chaírete" I said, which meant Hello in Greek. I made it a point to learn a couple of common phrases whenever I visited a non-English place. This way, the locals feel more connected. They see that you have attempted their language, which makes them feel good about themselves, and this way, they open up more than they would when you use English. Learning little phrases like Hello, Goodbye, Good morning, How are you, Is this beef, I am from India, I work in Finance, are easy when the alphabets are English or rather Latin. So I never had trouble learning a little bit of French, Mexican, Spanish, and, more recently, during my last visit, Swedish, when I went to Gustavsberg. But other languages, which had different roots and different alphabets altogether like Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, and in this case, Greek, were difficult. Greek was one of the hardest languages to learn after Tamil and Mandarin. Japanese was relatively easier for me, but Chinese flew way above my head, and I found even though Greek alphabets were familiar to most of us right from school - the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and others, it was not at all easy to form words in Greek. Therefore, I had settled for learning only the words 'Hello' and 'Thank you,' which translated to Chaírete and Efcharistó, respectively.

"Chaírete. I'm Kristina." the girl in the lobby said. "Do you have a booking?" Maybe Kristina was too familiar with tourists trying to attempt to speak Greek. Also, no matter how hard I tried, a bulky brown man like me speaking anything but accentuated English would not convince anyone that I knew their language.

"Yes." I said. "I have a booking by the name of Rajesh N." I said, handing her my phone, which had the booking.

She wrote down a few details, asked for my passport, and showed me to my room.

Like the pictures I had seen on the website, the rooms were dingy and painted white. The walls were rounded in corners giving the room a feel of an ancient cave decorated with modern furniture. There was no right angle amongst the walls, and every right angle was rounded like an arch. Two small beds lay in the middle with a washroom on its right between the entrance and the bed, and the opposite corner of the entrance had a large gallery. Like the images on their website, the gallery had a view of the vast blue Aegean Sea and Thólos Naftílos, a dead volcano island in the sea. Two Sunbathing benches and a small table with two chairs with a candle on it were placed in the gallery making it slightly congested. But the cool and refreshing sea breeze distracted me from looking at the specifics of the room. Kristina asked about dinner since it was already 8 pm and I said I would let her know.