Taj Hotel

The Taj Hotel is identified in the novel as the Bombay establishment bearing the name of the Tata family and built by Jemshedji Tata. Its brief appearance in a conversation about Hotel Shahjahan turns a question of hotel history into a revealing contrast between a grand, mistaken account and the practical concerns of hotel work.

Identity and Location

Gurberiya names the Taj Mahal in Bombay as one of two hotels supposedly built by Shahjahan, whose name he associates with Hotel Shahjahan. The narrator corrects him: the Taj was built by Jemshedji Tata. The exchange establishes the Taj Hotel’s place in the novel not through a visit or detailed description, but through its association with Bombay and its founder.

A Mistaken History

Gurberiya presents Shahjahan as a great man who built two hotels and made a fortune. The narrator laughs at the account, then distinguishes the establishments’ histories: the Taj was built by Tata, while Hotel Shahjahan occupies an aristocratic house built by Simpson. The correction separates the historical emperor from the similarly named Calcutta hotel and replaces Gurberiya’s imagined shared origin with two different builders and building histories.

The Exchange’s Significance

Gurberiya’s explanation that he lacks formal education precedes his confident, inaccurate account, making the moment gently comic without making his ignorance the conversation’s final point. Once corrected, he shows little interest in the history lesson and asks instead whether waiters at the Taj keep their tips or share them equally. The quick turn from founders and fortunes to the distribution of gratuities places the Taj within the everyday economic questions that matter to hotel staff. The novel offers no account of the Taj’s operations; its significance here lies in the contrast its name prompts between the narrator’s historical correction and Gurberiya’s immediate concern with workers’ earnings.