Many of us have heard about the story where a woman’s desire to treat some street kids to a good meal at a Delhi eatery resulted in a standoff between the restaurant management and some underprivileged kids. Sonali Shetty wanted to celebrate her husband’s birthday in a unique way and took a bunch of street kids for a meal at to a popular Delhi eatery. Most news channels came down like a ton of bricks on the restaurant management, painting a picture of a hostile, elitist establishment that snobbishly refused to serve kids merely because they were poor and dressed in a certain way.
The story doing the rounds on National TV
Image source
We saw a very vocal Sonali Shetty telling us how badly she and the kids she came with were treated by restaurant authorities. She told news channels how the restaurant authorities threatened her with dire consequences. We also saw little kids with charming but none-too-clean faces tell us how they were turned away without even a glass of water. We got the idea that this was a snobbish establishment turning away underprivileged kids because of some sort of feudal, anti-poor mindset.
Two sides to every story
We saw an equally defensive hotel owner telling us a different story: that Shetty had first demanded that the kids be fed free, and then threatening that she would have the restaurant closed. Another representative of the restaurant pointed to the sign on the door that says “Rights of Admission reserved”, saying that any establishment has the right to decide who they want to serve.
We then saw Shetty squatting outside the hotel premises the next day to drive home her point further. With two such contrasting sides being presented about the same story, we get that distinct feeling of the Rashomon Effect here and as is usually the case, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle here, with both offering us some version of the varnished truth as they see it.
So who is the villain here?
Now as someone who has tried (and sometimes failed) to get a table at Shiv Sagar during busy lunch hours, I know that this place is very, very busy on a usual day with throngs of people waiting outside for admission. It is likely that the skirmish started with something as innocuous as this. When this escalated, there could have been accusations and threats leveled (it doesn’t take much for this to happen in Delhi in my limited experience). If, as the restaurant manager says, free meals were demanded, they were certainly within their rights to refuse.
The main villain here might have been nothing more than the respective egos of the people involved. Shetty may have thought that she deserved special consideration because she was doing something nice for the underprivileged kids (which she was and she took them to McDonalds the next day too).
Maybe the restaurant thought that their other patrons would object. There could have been a number of different ingredients of the ultimate show down and much of this remains unclear. What is perhaps clearer is that both sides of the story may have done better to behave with a bit of grace, maturity and restraint? Also aren’t we all too eager to believe the story of the underdog without giving a fair listening to the other side?
Author – Reena Daruwalla
