Reservation

Reservation means “the act of keeping back, withholding or setting apart”. But there are certain types of reservation which do not fall under this definition. We have faced such reservations in our day to day life and I will shortly introduce you to the “technical terms” used to refer to some of them.

Towel Reservation
Long ago an intelligent fellow thought of using his horse carriage to take people from point A to point B since he had lots of free space in the carriage and he could make some quick copper bucks as well. People found this mode of travel very comfortable because they did not have to own a carriage of their own. As time went on, the crowd became larger and finding a place to sit inside the carriage became a challenge. Along came an equally intelligent fellow who thought of using his towel to reserve a seat in the carriage. All he had to do was throw the towel on a seat from outside through the window and the seat was his. People found this mode of reservation very comfortable because not only did they not have to draw their dagger for a place to sit but also they could use their old towels for something useful. It always had to be an old and worn out towel because the time gap between the placement of the towel and retrieving it is sufficient for a thief to make it his possession. Many a towel have been lost and very few have been found in the world of seat reservation.

Nowadays sophisticated IT professionals use their heavy bags carrying a laptop and what-not to reserve a place right next to them in the shuttle or the “red bus”. When someone tries to sit in that coveted place, you will usually hear a stern voice saying “this place is taken dude”. The humble towel reservation has come a long way.

If you are under the impression that towel reservation does not happen inside the office premises, then you have not been to the office cafetaria in a long time. A very sophisticated form of towel reservation is in practice and it is called the ID card reservation. You will find some software professionals entering the cafetaria and “proudly” removing the ID card from around their neck and placing it on an empty table. These software professionals should be levied a heavy fine and their ID cards should be confiscated till they give in writing that they will not misuse the ID card. An even more interesting variant is the use of mobile phones for the same purpose. I do not have any issues with this because someday I would need to change my phone and the software professionals these days carry very smart phones.

Always Reservation
We have to learn to live without unnecessary meetings. We also have to learn to live with unnecessary meeting room reservations. Whoever thought of the concept of recurring meetings did not think about the resource crunch this could cause. Some meeting rooms are permanently reserved till the world ends and sometimes only the ghosts of the past attend these meetings because normal mortals find the meeting rooms empty. But in a way this is good because it cuts down on the unnecessary meetings as the exercise of finding a free meeting room will probably drive the organizer crazy.

If you go to the cafetaria or a hotel at 12:30 PM, you will find atleast one table with the “Reserved” tag resting on top of it. If you go to the same cafetaria or hotel at 1:00 PM, you will find the same table with the same “Reserved” tag resting on top of it. If you thought going to the same cafetaria at 2:00 PM would make a difference, then you are making the same mistake which everyone does because it is the same. My only guess is that the ghosts of yesterday are still stuck in the meeting room and have skipped lunch. Or maybe the table has a broken leg and the only way to prevent someone sitting there is to put this tag. I am not referring to genuine reservations for our guests but the ones which are reserved and never taken.

I-also-reserved Reservation
If you are not careful enough, two towels can land on the same seat during reservation and this could lead to a conflict. The only peaceful way to resolve the conflict is to find out which towel is the one below. But in the land of peace, harmony and fasting for peace and harmony, most of the conflicts are resolved with physical force. The amount of physical force can vary from a soft shove to push the other contender aside and take the seat to a firm hit on the cheek to establish the right to sit on the reserved seat.

If you have not faced the I-also-reserved issue when you are about to enter a meeting room, then you are most probably using remote meeting technologies too much and it is time you started interacting with live people.

What Reservation
In certain parts of India, the concept of seat reservation in trains does not exist. I was passing through one such state when I was doing a course in XLRI, Jamshedpur. The seat meant for 3 people was occupied by 6 people and before I forget to mention, this was in a reserved compartment. Even though I had a proper ticket I was told to “adjust”, not even “kindly adjust”. Even my bathroom slippers were used by someone and when I wanted it back, the guy gave me a look as if I asked for his daughter in marriage. I was smarter the next time and I took the flight to Kolkata but I was a little extra careful when we flew over that particular state.

The concept of a “queue” in some places in our country is very different than what Wikipedia would say and if you think standing in a queue gives you the right to reserve a spot in the queue, then you are very wrong. There could be a hundred or more who would join the queue in front of you and most of them will have a “genuine” reason - right from “just went to the loo” (which would be the nearest transformer) to “I just came to speak to this guy who is my father’s cousin’s friend’s father’s cousin brother”. Some people just do not give a reason - they are born this way and they behave this way.

Reservation, as such, is not a bad word. It is not something which you should not speak about or discuss about. It is a beautiful concept invented by human beings (not by God) to create a sense of order and equality in this unequal word. And it is in our hands to respect and use it properly. I had to put this last paragraph in to fully utilize my reserved number of words for this article.