A Room with a View

Colombo’s Cinnamon Grand Hotel, formerly known as the Oberoi, was a large block of a building in the architectural style of the 70’s. Facing the main road, all one could see were rows and rows of large square blocks piled one on top of the other reaching to the skies. Each of the blocks had large glass windows framed on a narrow ledge. These were the days when one could open a hotel room window for a breath of fresh air, blow out cigarette smoke or in extreme cases think of it as a dramatic exit point.

Today, the Oberoi would be unrecognizable; restored into a modern looking edifice and transformed into a five-star watering hole and grandly named the Cinnamon Grand. Its windows remain firmly sealed endorsing the managements aversion to fresh air, smokers and the occasional daredevil who attempted to leap through without the aid of a parachute. Why my unhealthy fascination with windows you may ask? All will be revealed as this tale progresses and you will discover that these windows play quite an important role in this unfolding drama. Regular visitors to the Oberoi were a couple from the Land of the Rising Sun, the husband visited our island paradise on business but primarily to satisfy his passion (no, not his wife), in his case it was golf. Every morning he would leave his good lady to her own devices and take himself to the Royal Colombo Golf Club to play with his little dimpled balls while the lady was left to amuse herself.

Into this idyllic world, entered my friend the singer (let’s just call him that for the sake of peace and harmony). He firmly believed one of the perks of his profession was the friendships he struck up with a never-ending stream of females of varied shapes, sizes and ages, and he pursued this with almost the same dedication as our golf playing friend chasing his little dimpled balls. So, he crooned and while he crooned, he wooed and after a few evenings of crooning and wooing he was soon practicing sukiyaki duets with the golfer’s lady. I must say he was never an inquisitive type of person. Prying into the marital status of a lady, he considered bad manners. He was a gentleman, our singer was. So, a routine was established, the golfing hubby left in the mornings armed with his clubs and after a short interval our singer ascended to the heavens to keep his tryst with the lady from cherry blossom land and there was happiness all around.

Until one fateful day, when the best laid plans of mice and men went fatefully awry. The day began as usual, golf clubs left and descended to the lobby, crooner ascended to improve foreign relations and all should have been right with the world except for the fact that our intrepid golfer had forgotten his golf hat. Thus, with a right about turn he proceeded back to his room to pick up his headgear. Meanwhile, in the room our crooner had wasted no time and to put it delicately, was as nature intended him to be. The knock on the room door, (as you know the citizens of the land of the rising sun are famed for their politeness), made his blood run cold. In those split seconds every samurai movie he had seen flashed through his head and most of them had gory endings. But he was a quick thinker our crooner, no dilly dallying for him, especially when faced with the prospect of meeting a golf club wielding husband. All thoughts of furthering foreign relations flew out of the window and he followed his thoughts out of the same window.

Out on the ledge he realized that a naked man pasted against the pane of a bedroom window would have given rise to comment and since there was nowhere else to go and being blessed with strong arms our hero as quick witted as ever simply lowered himself over the ledge and hung on for dear life. It was this view that greeted the commuters plying the Galle Road on their way to work or whatever errand they were on. It was surprising that no one raised an outcry or rushed into the hotel to inform them there was a naked man hanging from the 7th floor balcony. My theory is that people never really look up and those who did wouldn’t have believed their eyes. This is a true story and if you had passed this way and by some chance happened to see this sight, rest assured you were not hallucinating. Anyway, much to the relief of our crooner our golfing buddy had completed his mission and left. Our crooner clambered back into the room and furthering foreign relations was now a distant memory. Should the spirit have been willing the flesh was decidedly weak, in fact it had turned to jelly. Mumbling his excuses and putting on his garments faster than Superman’s quick changes in a phone booth, he made his exit and closed that particular chapter for good.

As a final post script to this tale of crooner turned local Spiderman, I leave you with one more adventure involving our hero and buildings. It was some months after the Oberoi incident as we now refer to it. My friend was singing at the Akasa Kade. The Akasa Kade was then Colombo’s tallest building and its rooftop restaurant catered to the society’s elite. Leaning against the railings you had a magnificent, uninterrupted view of Colombo by night. It goes without saying this would have been one of the most romantic spots in the city. Now my crooning friend having struck up a friendship with a Scandinavian lady, naturally invited her to dinner on a night he was working there. Between singing love songs to the lady and dining with her on his breaks, it was a perfect setting for romance to blossom. I have to mention at this point that my friend had somewhere along the way struck up a relationship with yet another young lady and was going steady. However, I sincerely doubt if he knew the meaning of the word “steady”.

The girlfriend having got wind of her boyfriend’s indiscretions, (Colombo has a bush telegraph which could teach tribes deep in the jungles of Africa a thing or two), suddenly burst out of the elevator giving a very good impression of a tigress after its prey. To get to the open dining area from the lift you need to navigate past the band and the dance floor and at this time our friend was on a break improving Sri Lanka’s relations with Scandinavia. Seeing the girlfriend before she spotted him and fully agreeing with the proverb, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” he took a tight grip on the railings of the balcony and lowered himself over the edge hanging there for dear life. He later told me looking down at the cars moving below they looked like the dinky toys we used to collect as kids. It might have been a case of all’s well that ends well had not a waiter (to this day described as ‘that bugger’ by my friend when recounting this), seeing a body dangling from the side raised a hue and cry, begging and pleading with our singer to come back up fully convinced he had a spurned lover with suicidal tendencies on his watch. To cut a long story short, the Scandinavian lady was dispatched back to her hotel with a band member, our hero suffered some cuts and scratches, not with his acrobatics but administered by his girlfriend on his return to firmer ground, and another chapter in our crooners rather colorful life came to a close. I know this sounds like a work of fiction, but the band members who were part of this evening and still around can bear witness to the truth of this tale. On a personal note, I miss the seer fish in white sauce, my favorite dish at this establishment.