BUSY, WORK AND PLAY – Part 35

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

The First Hello

One mid-morning, I was working in my office busy with menu planning and writing the store’s requisitions for the next day. I was interrupted by an unexpected visitor. She was the Hotel Ceysands General Manager, Captain D. A. Wickramasinghe’s (Wicks) teenage daughter. I had met her twice before when she visited Coral Gardens Hotel with her parents a year ago, in 1976. The three of them also came to visit me when I was in the hospital in January, 1977 recovering from a near-fatal injury. However, we had never spoken with each other before.

“Hello, how are you? Are you enjoying your work at the Ceysands?” she asked, smiling beautifully. With the sea breeze flowing through the open corridors of the hotel, her long, silky hair moved gently covering her beautiful face. While adjusting her hair she giggled and told me, “My mother and I accompanied my father from Colombo this morning. We will be staying at Ceysands for a week this time.” She was a playful 17-year-old, six years younger than me. I decided to be formal with my boss’s only child. I rose up from my seat and said, “Miss Wickramasinghe, do you require anything from the kitchen?” She pulled a chair and sat, uninvited. “Forget about these formalities. Please call me Shani”, she said flirtatiously and giggled again.

After a short pause, she asked “What do people call you?”, I said, “Chandana or Chef.” Then she asked me, “Don’t you have any shorter nicknames?” I replied, “Not really… occasionally a few people have called me CJ or Chandi.” She laughed and said, “Doesn’t Chandi mean naughty? That name suits you!” “No! In Sinhala Chandiya means tough man or thug, but I am not one of those”, I said in an annoyed voice. “I like Chandi. I will always call you Chandi” she said and left my office. That day in early November 1977, I was re-branded as “Chandi” and that name stuck for the rest of my life……..

Guest Activities and Entertainment

Having decided to make Ceysands the most active hotel in the south coast of Sri Lanka, the General Manager – Captain Wicks, Hotel Manager – Alan Silva and I focused on that goal immediately. With the help of six Swedish tour leaders who lived at the hotel, we organized many sport activities for the guests. This included early morning cycle tours and brisk walks in the neighbourhood personally led by Captain Wicks. We also had tennis, beach volleyball, water skiing, surfing, sailing and numerous indoor games. One tour leader was the Resident Manager for their entire tour group operation in Sri Lanka and another tour leader specialized in water sports. Captain Wicks was an excellent tennis player and he usually found a guest for a match every afternoon. We worked very hard and in between played hard. Mixing work with fun is a good formula in hospitality.

We also played beach rugby occasionally, especially when some of the corporate executives from John Keells and Walkers Tours visited us. Some of these colleagues were outstanding rugby players like Jagath Fernando. Jagath was a brilliant fly half for Royal College, the CR & FC and the Sri Lankan national rugby team. He started his career at John Keells as a tea taster but climbed the corporate ladder rapidly (eventually becoming the Deputy Chairman or number two of the whole group). Jagath was also a friend of mine, who spent a couple of days with me when his family visited Jamaica when I was the General Manager of Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel, 20 years later.

To enhance the seven dinner buffets each week, we arranged for a variety of bands to perform. In addition to the dinner music, we had lunch time calypso music. After dinner entertainment included bingo games, magic shows, special dance acts, fire limbo and oriental orchestras. A very popular weekly event was the evening serenades on the river.

Evening Serenades on the Pontoon

Once a week, after dinner we took 60 guests on a two-hour river cruise on the pontoon owned and operated by Hotel Ceysands. We arranged a band, a dance floor and a small bar on the pontoon. We floated from the hotel to the Bentota Bridge and then up to the river mouth before returning to the hotel. We decorated the pontoon with twinkling lights which made it very festive and romantic.

I created a special cocktail every week to serve each guest on boarding the pontoon. This one cocktail was included in their ticket price, however, we charged extra for additional cocktails and other beverages. Guests often had several rounds of the cocktails. My bar team had to increase advance preparations to a greater extent, to meet the overwhelming demand.

Every week I gave the week’s special cocktail a romantic name. One night my name for the special cocktail was “Rum Passion Sweetie”. Captain Wicks asked me, “What are the ingredients in your cocktail today?” I said, “dark rum, white rum, passion fruit juice, sugar syrup, orange zest.” He then asked me, “Who is Sweetie?” I simply could not tell him the truth, but when he insisted on knowing, I said, “Well, that’s my girlfriend’s nickname. She likes to remain a secret for the time being.” Only two people on board the pontoon knew the truth.

Flaming Baked Alaska for 128 guests

From the food sales analysis report, I discovered that one item in the à la carte menu – Baked Alaska was the most popular dessert among our guests. I decided to serve it to the guests on the weekly seafood nights. That posed a challenge as most of the newly recruited servers were somewhat nervous about flaming the Baked Alaska in front of the diners. I spoke with one of the Restaurant Supervisors – Nilanthi Perera and said that I would help her with the flaming of the Baked Alaska if she agreed to serve the entire restaurant. She was up to the challenge and on the first night, both of us served flaming Baked Alaska to 128 guests.

After that many of the young, new servers volunteered to be trained in serving Baked Alaska. Nilanthi and I trained those who expressed an interest in doing so. A month later, everybody in the restaurant became experts in flaming Baked Alaska.

Topless Beach

One day, the Resident Manager of the Swedish tour operator came to see Captain Wicks and said, “A few of our guests would like a separate area on the beach for nude sunbathing.” We refused citing that it was against the culture of the country. As a majority of the guests at the hotel were from his group, Walkers Tour gave him a lot of prominence and he was powerful. Eventually, we agreed to reserve a small area within the hotel premises well covered with mangrove trees as a private, topless beach, on a trial basis. We told him that if we received any complaints from the locals, we would close it.

I always felt that it was not a good idea. In my view any initiative to satisfy guest needs should blend well with the local culture. In my role, I was asked to coordinate the food and beverage service to the private, topless beach. I arranged for the service to be from the nearby pool bar. Very soon many male servers requested transfers to the pool bar!

88 on Speedboats

I was impressed with Ceysands’ boatmen who trained guests to drive the speed boats. “Chef, would you like to try driving a speedboat?” When one of them asked me that, I jumped into the boat without batting an eyelid. He trained me in the basics and I acquired the skills quickly. The next day, I learnt to drive faster while moving the boat in the figure of an eight. Eventually, I was able to do a perfect 88 on the river.

At one point I even thought of buying a second-hand speedboat at the price of Rs. 35,000 thus using all of my savings since I was a trainee waiter. Captain Wicks totally discouraged me as he thought that it was an unwise investment. He said, “Chandana, as long as you don’t overdo it, you may use a hotel speedboat for your new hobby when the guests are not renting.”

The Chief Accountant of the hotel felt that it was an unnecessary, additional expense to the hotel. Captain Wicks considered factors such as my doing long shifts seven days a week, increasing food and beverage sales and managing food cost efficiently, to justify his decision in giving me this additional job benefit. Captain Wick told the Chief Accountant, “This is the final decision, your direct superior, Priya Edrisinghe (Finance Director of Walkers Tours) agrees with me.”

Another Near Death Experience

I was amazed one day to see how quickly some tourists were able to master water skiing. When a boatman and skiing instructor asked me, “Chef, do you want to learn to water ski?” I hesitated, as I wasn’t a good swimmer. “Don’t worry Chef! With the life jacket, you will be fine in case you fall” he encouraged me.

My first attempt to water ski was a disaster. After managing for a few feet, I lost my balance and fell. The only thing I could think of was that the depth in the middle of the river was 30 feet. As I panicked the life jacket was not much of a help. I sank but came up slowly. Fearfully, I couldn’t see the speedboat any more. I sank again and as I came up for the second time, I vaguely remembered someone holding one of my arms.

That was not only my first attempt to water ski, but also the last in my whole life. I never got into a river again. Years later our house in Oakville, Canada had a large backyard underground swimming pool. My wife and children always laughed when I refused to join them in the deep end, traumatized by my fear of the depth of water…