On guest houses

Earlier this week, I visited another institute and stayed at their guest house for a couple of days.  This GH had a very homely atmosphere.  I had one room of a big apartment with shared kitchen and dining facilities.  All the meals were cooked and served fresh by a resident caretaker (who reminded me of the proverbial Bansi kaka from Hindi movies).  It was sheer delight to have hot and puffed chapatis fresh off the pan for dinner (something that I don't enjoy at home also as my cook does the cooking and leaves before I return).  We were served hot Indian meals for breakfast as opposed to toast or cereal with milk.  The caretaker was also kind enough to serve us masala chai before we left in the morning and after we returned in the evening. Had I not been otherwise preoccupied, I might have stepped into the kitchen and taken some cooking lessons from him.

This visit brought back some pleasant memories of my fist visit to N1.

Every year, N1 goes through a rough time accommodating its new batch of students.  However, hosting visitors is not one of our problems.  Our authorities have been very conscious about maintaining a couple of small but decent guest houses so that we can invite and host visiting scientists without any constraints [1].
A very talented person from the hospitality industry was brought in to renovate some old, decrepit houses into functional guest houses.  Two of these guest houses, known as VIP guest houses, host senior and distinguished scientists and also new faculty members who stay there till they find a place of their own.  The only limitation is that these guest houses do not have a fully functional kitchen.  The visitors either eat at the hostel canteens or food is brought from outside and heated in a microwave before it is served.

There is another guest house, which hosts job candidates and faculty members who stay back on campus to teach early morning classes.  I stayed in this guest house during my first visit.  This guest house also did not have its own kitchen, but was located right next to the director's bungalow.  As the director stayed by himself in his bungalow,  he allowed some other rooms in a different part of the bungalow to be used for hosting guests.  The dining area of this house was also made accessible to institute visitors.  Thus it happened that during my four day visit to N1, I ended up having fresh, home-cooked meals prepared by the director's chef along with other visitors [and many a times, the director himself joined us].  

Due to a variety of reasons, this bungalow is not open to visitors any more.  Thus, institute guests are back to having packed meals in their rooms.

I was very impressed that the institute that I was visiting has made such comfortable long-term arrangements for their guests.  It's always nice to feel at home when traveling.

[1] However, earlier this month, it looked like we might have to convert our guest houses into hostels.  Fortunately, we were able to avoid this extreme step.