"From Kitchen to Classroom" - A Teacher's Blog

5) ARGUING WITH "SILENCE"

I solemnly declare that following are my true experiences which I am putting forth without malice and exaggeration. On the contrary, I am indebted to each and every individual, who has behaved the following mentioned ways. Their names have been deliberately kept anonymous on their requests, as they are modest enough for limelight.

A few days back I was in the middle of a “Street Quarrel” involving me and my buddies alongwith. It is best that I do not detail the reasons, because if anyone is interested in it, I recommend them to visit my street and spend a few hours at my hotel counter. Their curiosities will never remain unrewarded. Street quarreling is the original and the most captivating sector of my modern town. Every people and each group and individual of the society were, are, and will be fascinated by the techniques of mastering it. It has been passed on from generation to generation with new skills, practices, procedures and performances. The people here firmly believe that such type of Communication skills and powers needs to grow and they have always put their best efforts to keep it continually to growing; the functions of getting instantly angry, instant verbal skills, mob gathering and innovative profanity is improving as the demands of society increase so to fulfill the thirst and urge for development continues in this competent world. No wonder films and afternoon tele-serials are a part of the edification and slang learning universities for my town people. Most of the vocabulary jargon's are improved by occasional business visits around the neighboring states.

You may be a saint throughout your life, but in my town you are a part of the almighty’s plan to find yourself in the middle of such drama at least once in your lifetime, where you lose your sainthood for the day. So as I was saying I found myself playing a character in one such drama a few days back. But as I had “been here and seen everything” I simply kept smiling at the whole incidence, which irritated my buddy, who was the instant chosen hero of the drama. He kept scolding me later on for keeping mum and smiling like an idiot throughout the scene, which otherwise would have been a super-duper hit spectacle. Somehow I have been simply enjoying such actions throughout my childhood. Now recently I discovered that I enjoy it more if I am in it and if I choose to keep my mouth zipped. I think the credit for such perseverance and patience which I get in such situations comes specially by growing up watching my dad who with his diligence, had failed the best of the “street-smart” intelligence, with his single and simple weapon of “silence”. Ironically I have been told that as a kid I was the one who had his mercury continuously boiling and kept the kitchen utensils flying all around with my temper. God forbid, I would have done a PhD in this area, if not my dad hadn’t set a living example.

I had observed all my life that silence is such a powerful armament in such situations that our confronting hero doesn’t dare to touch you till you keep mum. In my town, this particular tactic is out of curriculum and is genuinely considered as weakness and cowardly. Because it’s not that anybody wants to loose such “heroic and epic battles” but it’s all about the character which will later on persist. That character which will be the most talked about event for the day, week, month or the year, depending upon the intensity of his heroism. Hopefully by the grace of God - nothing lasts more than a year, everything in our market comes with an “expiry date”. Pity! that I still consider “Silence” as the best option even if the preeminent of the intellectuals have a opinion otherwise.  

So after things cooled down my friend asked again with much annoyance, those questions which are decidedly common in such situations like “How the hell could you keep quite??” “Did you not hear, what he was saying???” “How dare he challenge me and my past generations???” “I will show him more than what he wants to see of me???” etc, etc, etc. Those 10-15 minutes could be compiled into an absurd- street library. What wondered me always in such situations are – Aren’t these the kids born to some parents who right now sitting home harbor high ambitions towards this man, who right now is a foul mouthed kid barking on the road? Who may be the teacher of these highly reactive, responsive and energetic youths, what will he do if he is here?? What will I do if these are my kids or students?? Could not this energy and the 'urge to win over at any cost' be diverted to something creative and productive? But then in my town idiots like me can only raise questions in some small gatherings and get called themselves great and revolutionary. Nothing official or practical about it.

Once in such gathering a wealthy stinking rich “Seth” had asked me “Tell me sir, all you Lecturers, you are so highly educated, intelligent and then why are you not rich?” Amassing wealth throughout his life from past few generations had made the “education gene” in him highly recessive. I honestly replied “Tell me O Seth, you are so successful in business, rich and wealthy, but why are you not intelligent?” He avoids my presence till date.

Growing up in a town filled with such “intelligent morons” it was no surprise why my dad retained me in University education business till no any further such activity was possible in this country. Against my fathers will and due to lack of skilled or unskilled labour I had rejoined the hoteling after completing my PhD in Microbiology, a subject which had analogy to hoteling (await for this in the next blog). As an unpaid servant of the hotel and a peanut salary at my college, life was beautiful. Because when you are not paid, then you are 'unbound' and you dictate terms. 

Coming to our core point of keeping 'silent' in that street fight, when my buddy bombarded me with such questions my reaction towards him was the same, which, my dad had taught all his life and  I had did earlier on the street. I just kept quiet and smiled, because I only knew “Why” I did like that and 'that' reason I share with you all via this blog. I got that “Degree” of calmness by watching “Gems” at my hotel counter. Their behavior, their attitude and their doings, their approach are extreme examples and teachings in life to whom I am highly indebted to and could follow a two page write up under the title "Acknowledgements"declaring in person each and everyone, whom I can never forget in this life.

BEST IRRITATING MOMENTS CREATED BY A CUSTOMER-WHICH GIVES YOU AN EXCLUSIVE OPTION OF “REMAINING SILENT”

1. The customer (henceforth called as ‘HE’) never ceases from constantly inquiring rates of the same item which he purchases daily. He always starts with enquiry for a Kilo and ends up purchasing 50grams.
2. With experience this can be tolerated by any hotelier, but before purchasing his routine item he is ritualistic to enquire the prices of each and every other item on the display shelves.
3. If you think it’s nothing, wait it’s not ended yet.  Before buying that 50gram he must “test and taste” (thus waste) another 25grams, which if he doesn’t, he fears that he will be disqualified, by his wife back home as unskilled moron who has no QC skills and who just blindly picks up 'things' what are handed to him.
4. Then he asks for a plastic carry bag. He plainly rejects paper-bags, for it could not be hung on his motorcycle. A carrier-box attachment to a motorcycle in my town is considered a passe, something antediluvian. The bike is purely meant for 'style' and not for 'purpose'. No matter how hard you try to educate him about environment and pollution (you try because the matter comes from college teachings and he is a routine) he gives examples of how other reputed and rich shops are freely giving away, without hassles.
5. Then he coolly asks for one more carry bag (because he is a routine) to take vegetables home. Vegetable sellers of my town are more “eco-friendly” than shopkeepers and hoteliers.
6. When he comes to fulfill his culinary delights, no sooner than he lands on the “table” he bangs, scorns, thumps for an immediate service.
7. He eats to his hearts contents and “burps” directly in a right angle at you on the counter while paying bills. This is the only moment I wish my hotel was somewhere in Arabia, where belching appears to be done as a mark of appreciation or joy.
8. He has the birth right to go to any market without change in his pocket and always harbors 100’s or 500’s and now-a-days 1000's notes, which he takes out like masterly weapon even will his peanut bills.
9. In his dictionary “Service” is provided by none other than "Servants", and the owner is the biggest (read lowliest) of the servant in that ground.
10. He believes that the hotelier grows rich day after day only with his bills. This estimate truly coming for him, from the fact that he always sees the hotelier ‘Seth’ sitting on the counter under a fan, doing nothing.
11. For this esteemed customer a small additional charge of even Rs.1/- towards any item (may be a hike or extra charges), is the end of the world for him, and instantaneously the hotelier becomes a looter, no less than a dacoit and what not.
12. For him the taste of his favorite dish is always “Not like that it used to be before”. Least he knows that a man’s “taste buds” keep variating throughout the year and also keep changing with age.
13. He will have a small last piece of his dish (like Idli or Wada) and all of a sudden he will throw away his spoons and boisterously demand extra cup of Sāmbhar, when supplied (which usually is done free of charge), he will use only one spoonful and waste  the rest.
14. When meagerly charged for that cup – read point 11.
15. He believes that he is always billed extra and therefore he meticulously checks, enquires, inquires, investigates and verifies every item he savored. And once in a while when mistakes do occur due to our illiterate (but not so dumb) waiters, he raises his voice like a police inspector. Only to be recollected by our waiter, an item he forgot that he had consumed.
16. If served with tea, it’s his birth right to ask for a sample “Chivda” mixture, a newspaper and a matchstick for lighting his cigarette or beedi. No wonder my Dad and my Uncle, to much surprise of everyone in our family and friends, ran an “Udupi Hotel” which did not serve tea or coffee for more than 25 years. The legacy continues till date.
    
17. Only in an Udupi hotel he gathers the courage to eat, belch and declare while cleaning his teeth with our toothpick that, he has forgot to bring money and will pay later. His tone being such that the hotelier, for no particularly describable reason, feels guilty for his escape of memory. When you oblige he demands for fennel seeds (bade saunf), which you forward to him with pleasure.
18. If it’s your worst day, he will complain about the fennel seeds lacking taste.
19. He then tests your memory, by appearing again one day (somewhere in the future) thinking you have completely forgotten him, because he genuinely does. Least he realizes how good an actor you are who acts like nothing ever happened.
20. For some reasons of his own he will demand Idli and Upma at 9:00 PM, just because it is an Udupi hotel. Now 50 years down the lane three generations of hoteling and we, simply say ‘not available, your highness’, and have not dared to mention that these dishes are best served as breakfast.
21. He is a chatterbox when he arrives with his friends or family to eat Dosas and Uttapams. Due to occasional absence of mind sometimes he forgets his continuity of the process called as “eating” and ceiling fans are doing their duties above head, which instantly cools the paper thin south Indian delicacy. Then his senses suddenly come alive and he declares that “we are serving stale food” and “I can bet this is yesterday’s Dosa”. Remaining silent at higher levels is the only option.
22. With advent of technology he is a faithful husband, who calls his wife at our counter from his mobile device and truthfully mediates the availability of items, its price, its color, its size, shape (spare for what mentioned in point No. 3 said above technology does not permit it for his wife) wasting precious business hours, then he isolates himself in the corner for another 10 minutes (private conversation) and comes back and asks if the item could be obtained for less. When you politely say ‘prices are fixed sire!’ he claims that there is another shop, who is giving the same better and bigger and nicer at lower rates, and much to your relief he goes away.
23. Only to come back again in twenty minutes flat with point no. 22 repeated all over again.
24. In the middle of a purchase or eating process when he suddenly attends a mobile, pompously self-servingly as if he is the most important person on the planet and as if all (including the hotel owner, who occasionally has to nod) should pay attention to him while he talks inanely about nothing on his cellphone.
25. To end this never ending saga there are two of my all-time favorite. First one goes like this. He always pokes a joke to the hotelier - “You are lucky man that you have a hotel. And you do not have to bother about cooking at home. You are fortunate enough that you can eat daily in your hotel Eh? To one such declaration my father had coolly replied “Aren’t you too lucky enough sire! For you have the largest, biggest and the most reputed medical shop in the town??
26. Second one (I always loved this) is the sarcastic remark of many customers who declare with anguish over occasional price hikes with food items in tandem with the grocery shop hikes. They declare that this south Indian hotel-wallah is a looter, and he has over these years prospered and become rich with our (localite's) money and has built tall buildings. Again a cool "silent customer" the hotelier my dad was who totally agreed to everything he said and had inquired back “All these time Sire! What did YOU do???”

I ask for forgiveness for the length of this post, for my experiences at the counter are voluminous.