Thanks for the Tip.

          A friend told us how expensive ‘labour’ charges were if one has delivered a baby. Doctor’s fees and ward/bed charges are inevitable; then you pay sometimes nurses, but definitely the ayahs when you leave the hospital. She said: “You have to budget for the discharge-time expenditure. If you give below their expectations, you leave behind sour faces. It’s unnerving.”

          Bai Goanna said, “At least you don’t suffer if you don’t pay them, you’re going home with a baby and not likely to come back. You know, there are places where you have to pay an advance tip – call it speed money--  to get a bed-pan.”

          Strange thing, this tip business. A bell-boy working in a hotel told me he earned more than his salary through tips. His total monthly income was more than mine, I concluded.

“Tax-free, too,” Shri Husband said, to add to my chagrin.

 “Besides the tips, he told me he got books that the guests left behind and sometimes clothes and goodies like fur-lined jackets and hair-driers,” I said.

“Those goodies,” Shri Husband added, “Might be possible, but not probable time after time. Why would a tourist carry along fur-lined anything to Goa. And I thought hotels provided hair-driers.”

Bai Goanna intruded: “You know, if it were such a profitable job, people would queue up to become bellboys, waiters, cleaners.”

When I go to get my hair trimmed, I ask ‘how much’ at the end of the trim and hand over exactly as much money as told.

“No-oo,” Bai Goanna groaned, accusing me seconds later of being cheap. “You have to give a tip. You have to keep some lesser denomination notes to put into the pocket of the person who cut your hair.”

“The pocket?” I reacted sharply. “Do you expect me to fumble around tight jean pockets to push valuable paper inside them? The notes will get crushed. What if the staff is wearing a salwar-kameez?”

“No, baba,” Bai Goanna said with the tone she uses when she’s pretending not to be irritated. You have to put it in the pocket of the apron or white coat that s/he’s wearing.”

Shri Husband clucked, shaking his head, and mumbled: “The things she’s ignorant about.”

Bai Goanna continued, “Gratuities… that’s the correct word for tips, by the way… are expected. They are the norm. So if you don’t tip, you’re considered not just a miser, but eccentric. If you’ve paid the gas-delivery boy the full amount and got the receipt, he waits, staring at you until you hand over that little extra. If you don’t the next time he’ll drag the cylinder and your nice floor tiles will get scratched. No matter how hard the fuel companies are trying to streamline deliveries with technology, tips still work to avoid delays.”

Shri Husband went on simultaneously: “Electricians, carpenters, plumbers, white-goods technicians, all quote a certain amount for the billing. What they actually get is a little bit more. For the transport, for the chai-paani. Tips and bribery are actually the same thing, one’s given after, one before... Money, gifts or favours for job done or to be done. Check arms-dealers, bankers, ministers. Same meaning, different words in different settings.”

When Bai Goanna and Shri Husband talk at the same time, I get confused. “What did you say?” I asked both. “Nothing,” they chorused.

          I’m told by my well-travelled friends that in faraway New York and not-so-faraway UAE, taxis use meters, as they do in Mumbai. After you’ve paid your fare, you have to say “keep the change” as we don’t in Mumbai- unless you’ve lived long years abroad, earned in currencies with steep conversion rates, or want to show the driver/your relatives just how much money you can spare without blinking. In Goa, the fare, the tip, the tips for future trips, are all included in the money quoted/negotiated/bargained before sitting in a cab.

          “What about those behind-the-scenes cooks, operation-theatre helpers, who have no way of getting tips?” asked Bai Goanna and in the same breath answered: “there is a service charge, though.”

          Shri Husband said: “If you want to give gratuity to only the person serving you, then the service charge won’t help. Actually, if the service charge in put on the bill and you pay by credit card, that money will go to the owner of the business, not to the person who served you.”

          In a country where, for fulfilling promises, even gods are given baksheesh of coconuts/ store-bought sweets/ pieces of clothes that are later auctioned, it’s accepted that mere humans will also follow the lead. Some devotees prefer to fast instead of offering gifts, which doesn’t work in any service industry. Imagine saying: “You gave me a great pedicure, for the next three Wednesdays I won’t eat fish.” It works only with god/desses.

          I said: “It’s unfair that counter-staff selling cloth or shoes or giving appointments at call-centres don’t get tipped. Even doormen and postmen get gifts.”

          “Teachers, too,” said Bai Goanna with some feeling. She gives tuitions and regularly gets presents when her wards work hard for their marks. (She in return gives them something for the trouble they’ve taken to get satisfactory results, thus neutralizing the ‘tipping’.)

          We asked a restaurant-owner about tips. He said: “That’s one way the staff can earn more than their wages, no?” We pounced on him, begging him to confess that that meant they weren’t paid fair wages.  

          Tips help you to get birth/marriage/death certificates and all events in-between. That’s why the zipped coins section was invented and, in spite of plastic money taking over our lives, continues to be there in most wallets/purses.

If I pay for a professional service, say at a lawyer’s chamber, and don’t get a receipt for it, can I call that payment a tip? Does that amount get declared to the taxmen? If a professional does free or concessional practice, can it be put under ‘deductibles? Easy to ask questions, difficult to answer.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in