It was a hot summer noon in this busy city, and three of us were really exhausted after the extended stay previous night at our friend’s place quite far away from the city. The moment we entered the city, one of my friends said he wanted to buy something very important from the busy market area. The friend who was driving and I were apparently wild at the idea because to get a parking space in that vicinity at any time of the day was unthinkable, more so we wished to get back home soon to get some sleep that we missed last night.
Nevertheless, we succumbed to his coercion and dropped him near the shop with clear instructions for not to exceed half an hour. Then it was a long journey to find a parking slot. We almost circled 3km through the heavy traffic before we found an unconventional parking area, a by-lane seemingly empty. I told my friend to move the vehicle towards the shade and the shade happened to be the frontage of a boutique hotel. Surprisingly, no vehicle was parked in the frontage and had enough space to accommodate at least five cars.
We parked the vehicle towards a side of the road without trespassing the hotel’s premises that was patently marked with white line on the front yard extending to the road. While parking, we also made sure that in no way we would obstruct their way either to the reception or to the entrance of the basement parking. After making ourselves settled at that place, of course with the AC on, I phoned my friend. Then informed him about our global position and advised to catch an auto-rickshaw to reach the spot to avoid pushing ourselves to the traffic snarl once again. In this part of the world, many people park their vehicles in the available slots and proceed with their shopping or business activities by travelling in auto-rickshaws within a distance of 3 or 4km.
I hung up the phone and was about to say something to my friend in the driver’s seat only to hear a knock on the window pane at the side of my door. I slid opened the window and saw a man appeared to be the security officer of the hotel. Without any preface he said “Don’t park here”. I asked him why? But without giving any reason he said we were not allowed to park there. My friend kept quiet and let me do all the talking. I assured the officer that we would be inside the car so that if any vehicle coming to the hotel found us causing inconvenience to them then we would move the vehicle from there. Still he disdainfully insisted that we moved away from there. I retorted with a bold ‘No’ and slid down the pane. Immediately the officer hurried to the hotel.
Few seconds later another man in formals came to us and repeated the same words what was told by the security officer earlier, indeed followed by four or five extra security henchmen. I very clearly and politely explained him we had parked here for the shade on the side of the public road which has no ‘No Parking’ board and promised him we would leave soon. Then he introduced himself as the manager and informed us that he had strict orders from his higher ups not to entertain any vehicles other than the visitors or guests to the hotel. Without losing my cool I told him that I was not convinced. In a jiffy came the response, “Sir, if we could own the plot and the building, we are the ‘legitimate’ owners of its shadow too, and you have trespassed on our shadow. Therefore, it is our prerogative to allow or disallow anyone to use our shadow for whatever the purpose”.
Both of us were dumbstruck and meantime my phone started ringing. It was our friend who was over the phone pleading us to pick him up from the spot where we dropped him because the rickshaws were not willing to come to this area, always for reasons best known to these rickshaw-wallahs. Neither my friend nor I did utter a word to the hotel manager and in total daze we left the place.