Expulsion out of a Paradise:
About a collapse customs and morals in the famous Hotel Lake Palace Thekkady
inside Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary
About a collapse customs and morals in the famous Hotel Lake Palace Thekkady
inside Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary
In February 2016 it was for the first time that we spent two weeks in the former Lodge of the Maharaja from Travancore, situated in the remote area of peninsula in the middle of a wonderful Wildlife Sanctuary which can be accessed with a boat only. Together with some Langoors high in the trees we believed ourselves in a Paradise: in the later afternoon, herds of Elephants, Gaurs, Deers and Wild Boars came out of the forest to graze in the meadows around the Lake or to take a bath, groups of Wild Dogs and Otters appeared to hunt, and sometimes one could even see a Tiger or a Leopard. And the few guests of the six rooms were sinking into an almost reverent silence about it.
The little Hotel had been run by the Butler in Chief, Mister Lee Mathew Saji, the ,soul’ of Lake Palace. In his courtesy, mindfulness, sensitivity towards the guests and his awareness, modesty and amiability he could have come from a nineteenth-century novel. Every winter we felt strongly attracted to turn back to Lake Palace, and each time again we were admiring the animals and their adventures, enjoying the silence, writing on our books and sharing our thoughts with the friendly people around us.
As we arrived in 2018 we met a deeply depressed and sad Mister Saji, holding a letter with an official order in his hands: the Main Direction of KTDC transferred him to a nearby Beer Parlour, most obviously to punish him after he was reprimanding a staff member, who had been negligent in his duties. And as we wanted to visit him at his home in January 2019, we learned the terrible thing: that he committed suicide!
After this terrible and utmost sad incident the atmosphere in the Hotel began to change: the rooms were no longer cleaned with the same attention as before, the quality of the before delicious dishes was loosing a lot, more and more Tourists appeared, - not to enjoy wildlife but to noise and litter around, playing games, drinking plenty of alcohol and loudly watch television. In the first chapter of this new story of Lake Palace our complaints about such kinds of misbehaviour have been taken serious and the guests had been reminded to keep silence. Later on we sadly had to realise that there were balms and personal medicaments missing in our room, and even money had been stolen. But much worse than this: our room keeper, one called Mister Rajesh, began to behave more and more rudely against my wife. He gaped at her most brazenly, followed her on her walks and tried to interrupt her with attempts of a ,conversation’ whenever she was concentrated on writing an needed silence. In February 2022, when covid19 pandemic was peaking in Kerala, every member of the staff at Lake Palace was wearing a mask to protect the guests. Only Mister Rajesh was excluding himself from that mandatory protocol. He did not keep social distance at all but followed her on her promenades through the garden, and, whenever he felt unobserved, he approached her either to ,talk’ to her or to urge her for Selfie together with him on his Smartphone. Longer than it would be necessary for the cleaning he spent time in our room and felt free enough to watch cricket in television… Once he called us in the middle of the night on our rooms phone and demanded to give him our camera. He even stole pieces of my wife’s clothes and demanded that she handed over her underwear to him. While doing so, he began to grope her breast. When she slapped his hand away, he grabbed her and forcibly tried to pull her to him and to kiss her, but he did not succeed because she resisted very violently. All of a sudden Mister Rajesh appeared even as a waiter while breakfast, lunch and dinner. Unfortunately he tried to grab my wife’s hand even during the meals!
When she demonstrated him more and more drastically that she was rejecting him terrified and full of disgust, his aggressivity increased, even in the presence of other guests and staff members. As a ,Surplus’ he followed my wife voyeuristically when she was in the bath. – We would like to underline that, during the period of his most disgusting and criminal behaviour, very friendly relationships were being developed with some of the other employees who were conducting the boats, taking care of the garden and serving the guests. It did not go unnoticed at all by them how rude, obscene and mean Mister Rajesh was. Is it then a surprise that one of the always hard working trainees complaint about his unjustified arrogance?
We already addressed ourselves to the Manager of the Hotel, asking him if there could be something done against the ongoing tendency that a majority of guests was now coming to Thekkady not with the interest in wildlife and its atmosphere of a unique silence, but, to the big regret of a minority of mindful guests, just to drink, noise and gamble around as if they would find themselves on a playground. Of course the sighting of animals was badly impacted by those new ,customs’. The Hotel Manager assured that any necessary steps should be done to restore the former atmosphere. Few days ago the new Main Directrice (MD) of KTDC visited Lake Palace together with her family but she did not show any interest in welcoming the few other guests. Now the Hotel Manager was assuring his will to speak with her about the current situation at Lake Palace right on the same day. – We never heard anything about the results of such a conversation nor if it took place at all, and even as we approached the Lady with a recommended letter on the matter of an employee we did not get any answer.
Since Mister Rajesh was behaving more and more unbearable, we finally dared to report his outrageous sexual assaults to the Manager. Other members of the staff were present at that moment and it seemed to be evident that everybody was as shocked by hearing the story as we were. There seemed to be an overall agreement on the necessity to dismiss Mister Rajesh from service as early as possible. Some months later we even learned that there were two other women exposed to his sexual assaults.
This may explain why we took it for granted that Mister Rajesh was dismissed from any KTDC service in the meantime and we felt free to book our stay for 2023. But to our deepest disappointment some reliable source reported us that he had not been dismissed at all and that the leading administration did not even warning words for him! He was still working there, but we on our side immediately cancelled our reservation. As an answer we got the ,offer’ to remove Mister Rajesh for the duration of our stay… One can learn of such a completely incomprehensible ,offer’ that, instead of being held accountable, a criminal person like Mister Rajesh experiences unconditional and extremely strong protection from some ,higher’ – maybe ,political’? – authorities. For us, the only way to proceed was to bring this most regrettable issue to the public. We undertook this step with the permission and the strong support of all our friends in India, especially those in Kerala and Lake Palace Thekkady. We have the aim to warn all those travellers from the current situation who might be planning to visit the place, and we do this, finally, in the great hope that Lake Palace might regain one day its former magic.
