India, April 19 -- Atithi Devo Bhava! - the guest is equivalent to God. This was once not merely a tagline but a living ethos in Indian hospitality. Somewhere along the way, that ethos became a relic, and consequently, the meaning of an apology has become a travesty. What was once instinctive, immediate, human, has been hollowed out into something performative. What stays with me from two separate experiences at two luxury hotels in Bengaluru, is not the specifics of what went wrong, but the absence of what should have followed. In both moments, the apology never truly arrived.

In the first, there was a near-accident, the kind that demands, at the very least, immediate concern. But the moment passed in silence. No one stepped forward. No...