In case you stumbled on to this website and don't know yet, PD, MT and I are in India. India is the land of hospitality. I have never been called "sir" so many times without the words "you are making a scene" attached to it. (If 21st century Fox lawyers want me to stop using that joke I will.)
We have had lovely drivers, lovely warm people who have assisted us at every turn. However, one of the country's biggest issues is poverty. I think all of us know that. For every upmarket middle class family there are three someones working menial jobs. As such tipping from foreigners is an additional source of revenue. We get that. What we cannot get is the additional service that causes just a bit of hinderance.
Case in point, we went to a restaurant yesterday for Lunch. Delicious food was ordered and served but therein lies the rub. The chicken curry came in a big bowl, and as we attempted to serve it, the server (Houdini's Indian cousin) appeared out of nowhere, asked permission, and before I could say no started serving all of us. Nice touch but what it did was freak us out. Were we supposed to wait every time we ran out of food? Was it insulting to serve ourselves? This led to us doing covert ops. With one person keeping lookout, the other would serve the third quickly. With the amount of the serving was pre-determined the entire op took under 2 seconds to pull off. The revelation from this was, while we complain moan and whine about the lack of service industry in Canada, to come to a country where it is heaped upon you, I find myself complaining yet again.
But this problem started to get endemic soon. I went to the washroom at a bar yesterday. The attended opened the door, saluted me, walked in behind me, waited patiently till I finished peeing, turned the tap on for me, saluted me, operated the button on the soap dispenser, saluted me , gave me paper towels, saluted me, turned the tap off, saluted me, waited for tip, when he saw none was forthcoming, he stopped saluted me. Yes, I come off in this story as a bit of a dick. I get it, I get that people need to work. And this employment probably pays very poorly, and the tips probably supplement his income. I don't know why I didn't tip him. I think the culture shock of someone watching me urinate probably did me in.
coming soon: Humanyun's Tomb and Vijay the Autorickshaw driver.
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