”Unbidden Guests are often welcome when they are gone.”
—Shakespeare.
There were times when entertaining a guest was not as formal an affair as it is today. The best conception of hospitality in those days was:
“A stone jug, a pewter mug
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And a table set for three.”
The words occurring in the Old Testament, viz., “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels themselves,” had a very valid application in those days. The ancient Indian concept of (Guests are gods) sums up the Eastern philosophy in respect of uninvited guests. The unlocked for and uninvited guest at that time was very often a wayfarer overtaken by the night and looking for shelter, to issue forth on his journey the next morning with fresh vigor after a night’s rest and a little sharing of pot-luck under an honest man’s roof. He did not look for or criticize the lack of social graces in his host and was grateful for whatever attention he could get from a person he might never have hoped to meet a second time in his life.
But entertaining in the formality ridden, largely urbanized society of to-day is an entirely different proposition. From being a moral duty, it has been converted into a social obligation or even a means of business-promotion. The stranger is, therefore, naturally excluded from the prevailing compass of hospitality. He does not fit into the picture. He is taken for an intruder, a trespasser. If he finds himself stranded in an unknown place at an inconvenient hour, the best he can do is to look for a public place like a hotel or a lodge where he can make himself as comfortable as his pocket would permit.
But even though the total strangers can no longer hope to enjoy the hospitality of a host to whom he has not been properly introduced, there is the uninvited guest who poses a peculiar problem. More often than not, he is an acquaintance who cannot be unceremoniously thrown out, someone who unilaterally insists on resurrecting from the oblivion—of faded memories an old friendship which has almost dried up with the passage of time, a poet keen to unburden himself of the after-effects of a visitation of the Muse, or a poor relation who is not particularly welcome because of his unseasonable and irksome memory of the not-so-affluent past of the host, but with whom certain appearances have to be kept up. Sometimes it is a casual acquaintance who, out of sheer fellow-feeling, thinks nothing of dropping on you unawares, and may be, surprising you at some task requiring concentrated attention which you had deliberately left over to be attended to at leisure. Any of these types is enough to put maximum strain on the ingenuity and good grace of the host.
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There are various situations particularly favorable for the uninvited guest and several ways in which he succeeds in foisting himself upon an unwilling, though tongue-tied host. One place where you are most exposed to being frequently forced to have the pleasure of their company is a big city. Every day, all sorts of people from far and near converge on big cities for pleasure, on business or on trips combining both purposes, and a majority among them finds it more convenient (and cheaper) to put up for the duration of their stay-sometimes extending beyond a full week with friends or even with those who would not confess to more than a nodding acquaintance with the visitor.
As the host is preparing to leave for work, and trying to figure out to himself the chances of the nightly apparition vanishing as it came, the poor man is suddenly brought back to earth and its hard realities by a friendly thump on the back accompanied with an effusive compliment on his good habit of early rising; and even before the compliment has sunk-in, he is asked either to take a day off to take the visitor on a sight seeing trip (which is the least he may be expected to do) or to send back the car immediately he has landed in office so that the ‘uncle’ can take out his ‘dear’ nephews and nieces for a nice outing which is the thing they have been missing for long.
Then there is the extra informal friend who, one fine evening, drops in with the grouse that it is ages since he has seen you and goes on to remake that he was beginning to wonder whether you were in this world at all any longer. While you are mumbling an apology, be has already made himself comfortable in your favorite chair and started taunting you about your absent-mindedness or stinginess in failing to offer your visitor tea etc. Meanwhile you are expected to keep your guest in good humor and high spirits by listening to the stories he has to retail. Gradually the evening wears off and by the time your guest has had his cup of tea, has told you for the hundredth time how much he enjoys spending an evening with you, and has advised you for the thousandth time not to allow yourself to become a recluse and to keep meeting friends as often as possible, you are already looking upon the evening as lost.
Perhaps the worst and the most despicable representative of the species is the distant relation who considers it his privilege to surprise you at any hour and as often as he chooses. He is most difficult to shake off and the most persistent of the lot. You have been through a particularly heavy day at the office and returning home at a late hour, are looking forward to shedding your worries in the relaxed and intimate atmosphere of a happy home but as you reach the door-step; you find the same air of formality which you have just left behind. You are told that so and so has been waiting for you at the dinner-table and that you should change and hurry up………The whole picture” changes. But to keep-up appearances, you force an unwilling smile and go and greet him. Now, for the rest of the evening and may be for a few evenings more, you are almost cut-off from the family as the precious visitor will insist on having your exclusive attention all the time. You are nicely fixed up. Though the visitor may not be welcome to your respect or esteem, yet he has invited himself to your hospitality, and unless you are a person blessed with extraordinary nerve, you are in no position to show him the door.
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These are only a few examples of the ‘modus operandi’ of unbidden guests. While they last, they expect every courtesy that you would extend to a person whom you have properly invited and whom you look forward to meet. In case you can put-up with them with a cheerful voice, you are a good man. But in case your natural cheerfulness wears thin and you show the slightest irritation, you may be sure that your fame will spread as a stingy, haughty person whose heart is an island cut off from the rest of the work.