It’s sad that hotel owners are treated badly just because so many of them break rules and take local laws for granted
Gaurav Luthra (centre) and Saurabh Luthra (right) in custody of the Thailand police after they fled India following a fire at their Goa nightclub on December 6, 2025 that claimed 25 lives. FILE PIC/PTI
I have to admit I was upset when visuals of those two brothers from Delhi began to appear on television screens. I refer to the owners of a nightclub in Goa that burned on December 6, taking the lives of 25 people. The brothers looked forlorn, which saddened me, but part of me was relieved too because their relatives had told police they didn’t have their phone numbers. Imagining the relief they must have felt helped me calm down.
It was interesting to note how news channels pursued that story relentlessly, but I assumed this was because the number of people who died was below 50. I believe if larger numbers of Indians perish — on account of mismanagement during a pandemic, for instance — anchors on television lose interest and focus on other issues. It’s just a theory I consider now and again.
Anyway, they did follow this story quite doggedly, asking questions about how the brothers escaped, who tipped them off, and why their passports were revoked only after they had managed to flee the country. I don’t know if answers to those questions will appear, of if we will ever find out whether they were protected by people in power, because questions like these have been asked all my life, with no resolution. All I know is that seeing them in custody made me sad because it reminded me that some restaurateurs are really treated quite shabbily in this country.
I can understand why this happens, because it’s not as if I am unaware of what the hospitality business routinely gets away with. I have visited Goa often enough to wonder how any restaurant, café, or pub manages to operate in places I have long assumed are off-limits. Whenever that happens, however, I am reminded of restaurants in other parts of India, where rules are as flexible. It’s probably why bad things happen so regularly, and why we forget them so easily.
I recall what happened in Kolkata last April, for instance, when at least 14 people, including two children, were killed after a fire broke out at a hotel. No one was clear about how it started, but police reportedly set up a special investigation team to find out. As an Indian, I am aware that adding the word ‘special’ is often a hint that there’s nothing particularly special about something, but I also know how important it is for the police, government, and bureaucracy to add it nonetheless, the way restaurant menus use it to charge R50 more for a Masala Dosa. Maybe they have found out how that fire started, but no one’s paying attention anymore.
The other tragedy that came to mind was from December 2017, when a fire at Kamala Mills trapped and killed guests at a rooftop restaurant in Bombay. It prompted the BMC to launch a clean-up drive and issue notices to restaurants across the city, dissuading us all from wondering who had issued those licences in the first place.
Now I acknowledge that there isn’t much to be accomplished by listing how rules are ignored or broken by restauranteurs, but I fail to understand why one or two of them should be vilified for it every six years or so. If we can just accept that the food we eat, the airlines we fly, and the businesses we routinely engage with are bending the rules in some way, perhaps we may find it within ourselves to be more charitable. That way, when restauranteurs are being arrested merely for doing something illegal, we won’t rush to insist on punishment. We have to ask ourselves what kind of country we are turning into if businessmen go to jail just because people have died.
According to the Goa police, the recent fire revealed that the nightclub’s panchayat license had expired and was not renewed. They also found out that the business was operating without permission, which means it’s possible that hundreds of other restaurants or clubs we visit are not supposed to serve us anything in the first place. So, what should we do — just stop going out altogether?
Here’s what I propose instead: If we start to live our lives under the assumption that most things around us are probably illegal, we may be able to start treating criminals like human beings again. It may sound farfetched, but we have been doing this with our politicians for decades, so why not extend that sympathy to people who actually give us something tangible?
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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