Suite Tooth

But even her pad is run like a hotel, which means employing two people to take care of the basics including housekeeping and room service.

Jamwal belongs to a breed of professionals, who live in suites, sometimes due to circumstances and sometimes by choice.

When pharma businessman Vasant Kumar moved into the ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton in Mumbai two-and-a-half years ago, after he separated from his wife, it was supposed to be a temporary solution.

8216;8216;But it doesn8217;t get better than my hotel room,8217;8217; is what the 54-year-old has to say today, as he gets back into his spacious suite that comes with living and dining area, attached baths and a kitchenette and special room service.

8216;8216;I can concentrate on my work, without worrying about plumbing defects and the daily menu. Not to mention that staying here allows me to easily entertain my foreign clients,8217;8217; adds Kumar.

Well, it8217;s actually a nice idea for single men and women to put up at a suite. No waiting for the maid, no bills to pay8230;

But is the switch as smooth for a family? Can you make do with a hotel room when you have to think of kids too?

Fijian diplomat Shaheen Ali, his wife Sally and three-year-old son Shakeel are a case in point. In their room at Delhi8217;s Hotel Ashok, there are clothes hanging on the line, teddy bears sprawled on the bed, Cartoon Network on the telly, besides Shakeel8217;s nervous giggle8212;this place looks as lived in as any home.

Getting comfortable in a luxurious yet often impersonal room is the first thing long-staying guests do. While the Alis have their necessities elaborately spread about, little Shakeel, says his mother, 8216;8216;is equally at home, shouting, moving around the corridors and making friends with the staff.8217;8217;

Recalls Jamwal, about her own formative years, 8216;8216;I still remember how my friend and I who I used to invite over often would borrow cycles from the waiters and go gallivanting.8217;8217;

And once a room8217;s lived in, comes the rather predictable urge to put more personal touches, irrespective of the fact that some time later, they won8217;t be staying there.

Jamwal tastefully decorates her room with special furniture and art she collects and is only happy to have extra-cautious room service staff takes care of her belongings.

Engineers Greg Hepburn and Andrew Instone8217;s room at Pune8217;s Le Meridien has photos of the latter8217;s children and a personal stereo system getting pride of place. And Kumar8217;s gone the whole hog, making arrangements for his Man Friday to be put up with him at the hotel.

For most guests, a dinner out too is restricted to familiar surroundings. 8216;8216;I love Pan Asian at the ITC and, most often, drag my guests there,8217;8217; says Kumar.

It8217;s the same with the Alis, who mostly frequent the Ashok8217;s restaurants, though like all couples they seldom have common tastes.

But great room service and a chore-free life often pale before the simple joys of 8216;8216;having your own kitchen and own fridge stuffed with food and grocery,8217;8217; says Debora Bienze, who8217;s been staying at the Mumbai Taj for the last seven months with her husband Bernhard who works for the Swiss Consulate.

8220;Though pretty much everything is available, there comes a time when you just want to go home to your own house,8221; says Debora.

Like Beinz, Sally too misses cooking and is often bothered by her confinement in two rooms. 8216;8216;A backyard would have been fun,8217;8217; husband Shaheen volunteers.

Plus there8217;s hotel food, the variety of which is no match for a simple something whipped up at home. Chef Sean Cummings of the Hyatt Regency in Mumbai says numerous in-house guests ask him to cook up special meals for them. 8216;8216;Some even offer to stir the ladle themselves,8217;8217; the chef informs.

While domesticity brings with it a desire to strike roots in what is essentially a transitory space, single people or those away from home for long appear to take to suites in a much better way.

Instone can8217;t forget the time when the hotel went out of its way to arrange for throat lozenges at 2 am, when he came back with a sore throat and fever.

It is this kind of personalised service and care, he says, that mitigates the 8216;staying in a hotel8217; factor and makes it worth the over Rs 20,000 most five-stars charge for their suites long-term guests get heavy discounts, though.

For Kumar, the ITC family is his own. 8216;8216;I have a 300-member family, who are there for me when I need them, and also provide me with the necessary privacy I require,8217;8217; he says.

With inputs from Aparna Sosamma Wilder in Mumbai; Astha Gupta in New Delhi and Preeti Raghunath in Pune