Today's tip

I am always the one in the group that insists on giving a generous tip to the waiter in a restaurant. It irritates a lot of friends, who, to be honest, can easily afford the little set aside for the person who patiently served us food. If we have no qualms in giving a 10 per cent of our bill amount to a snooty waiter at a five-star restaurant, why doesn’t the bearer at our local Chinese restaurant deserve a similar treatment? He forks out your Schezwan noodles and ladles your sweet corn soup even without you asking him to, so would an extra Rs. 20 to your bill be too much of an inconvenience?

Eating out often the past few weeks has made me appreciate waiters, all over again. They are strangers who help you eat your food better. He is part of the entire tradition that allows you a culinary experience, which magically does away with the chopping, cleaning, cooking and scrubbing. Yes, he is paid to do the job, but shouldn’t you hold the person who brings the plate to your table with a certain level of respect?

The one I encountered yesterday at a popular vegetarian breakfast chain was a little on the irritating side in the beginning. He hovered over our table, not letting my friend and I truly appreciate the greasy masala dosas our rumbling stomachs had demanded. But his attitude, I noticed, was seasoned with care, caramelised by a certain level of maternal involvement in my breaking bread, that I found endearing, after I got over my initial impatience at his constant presence.

I looked at him properly for the first time since my friend and I entered the restaurant like savages, brûléed from the sun. He looked into my eyes and asked if I wanted more pineapple juice. True, he wants more business for his restaurant, but here is someone who had noticed that the excessively sugary concoction in my glass was fast dissolving into a mere froth. He had taken notice of this even before I realised my straw was sucking at foam and not juice any longer. He crossed the length of the restaurant with tissues when he caught me silently debating about the need to walk up to the green-tiled washroom five steps away from my table. He indulgently chuckled when I told him that I was too lazy to wash my hands, and gently chided my friend – a person with high blood pressure - for taking so many medicines at such a young age.

When food was ingested, life was restored and it was time again to wage a sweaty war with the sun, he materialised at my side to help me with my chair. When I left a tip for him, it was neither as an afterthought, nor was it an action of mindless practice. It was not even out of a need for being shown gratitude which would swell my ego. It was for the short slice of mom-away-from-mom experience he had offered me. For choosing my table to serve me. For not holding a grudge against me when I left behind sticky crumbs like a toddler on a high-chair. For, most of all, forgiving my dismissive attitude when his enthusiasm in the beginning was too intrusive for an urbane conversation with my friend; for to my friend I can speak with at any time, but to the waiter who had just waited on me? If I am lucky, another time perhaps.