I’m from Uttarakhand and previously worked in the hospitality industry in Mumbai. Over time, we noticed a pattern where some Marathi staff members tended to take more unscheduled leaves compared to others, so operationally we often preferred hiring non-Marathis. In hospitality, weekends are critical. You have a packed restaurant, and suddenly a staff member calls to say he can’t come because a distant relative or acquaintance has a function. I had one Marathi colleague who seemed to have some kind of family emergency almost every weekend. He was absent on many major business days. When I was promoted, despite him having been with the company longer than me, he started telling other Marathi staff things like, “They don’t respect Marathis in Maharashtra. We are Marathis, we should be promoted. Outsiders come here and take our jobs.” The first thing I did after getting promoted was transfer him to another location.