For New Delhi’s five-star Leela Hotel, it is crisis time. Sunanda Pushkar’s high-profile death inside one of its rooms seems to have thrown the management into a tizzy and currently, staff at the luxurious five-star enterprise are trying their best to handle the question — what's going to happen to the room now?
But according to sources from the hospitality industry, deaths are, sadly, rather common in hotels. “In fact, several suicide-prone people pick hotels to commit their final act in,” reveals a Mumbai-based hotelier. What’s been a public relations nightmare is the fact that Sunanda’s room number (#345) broke out as part of the initial flood of stories arriving from various media sources. So now, it’s public knowledge that this particular room witnessed a tragic episode. This could, let’s say, stay in public memory for some time to come. “The case is devastating. What appears to be a domestic dispute spilled into a hotel room and I do feel bad for the folks at the Leela,” says another official from a Bengaluru-based luxury hotel.
According to me, there are several ways in which hotels deal with a death. They change room numbers and may even call the room something else (like a ‘special suite’), if the new numbering system is odd. But the most important job is the houskeeping department’s. Simply put, everything goes into the incinerator — the sheets, curtains pillow covers... everything. The room could also be sealed for a while, but that depends on hotels. If it’s a big suite, you really can’t keep it shut for long — it’s bad for business.”
Deaths in hotels have frequently hit the headlines. Just look at the list — Glee actor Cory Monteith, Sopranos star James Gandolfini, singer Whitney Houston, glamour model Anna Nicole Smith, singer Janis Joplin and designer Coco Chanel were all found dead in hotel rooms.
Cases got so frequent that several authors have written about hotels and celebrity deaths. Jacob Tomsky, author of Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality, was quoted on CNN saying: “Guests who pay in cash and only cash are watched quite a bit closer. (Also) Nothing is bad for business like a sheet-covered gurney being pushed through the lobby… They (hotels) will do everything they can to deal with it behind the scenes.”
In India too, practices are similar.
“Leela just couldn’t do it though. The case was too shocking and high profile, and it’s not like they can ask police to wait at the back. The service entrances are excellent for emergencies and in case of a death, we try to be as discreet as possible,” says the Bengaluru hotelier.
Also, in India, there is something called the ‘cleansing the death room’. “When an unnatural death has taken place in a room, there will be negative energy present. A spiritual person, who can feel the vibrations, needs to go there and figure out how much negativity is present. Just about any pandit will not be able to do the job, you need to find someone who is an expert in this subject,” says Faree, a city-based tarot reader.
But Pandit Kamal Joshi adds: “You must do a havan or Aatma Shanti puja in the room because the soul could now be tied to the hotel. After that, a paath must be done in the person’s home too. Families should pray that nobody in their current or future generations have to face a tragedy like this.”
But priest and astrologer Malikarjuna Swamy is worried about the guests. “The Udaka Shanti puja must be performed in the room. It is a must because any guest staying in the hotel room could be troubled by the soul of a person who has passed away in that room.”
