Karmaquences
Never attribute to karma that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
American Germaphobe India Saga (part 13)
This is an ongoing true story (that starts here) of a work trip to India where I, a spoiled, frightened, American germaphobe, desperately cling to my waning sanity by finding humor in the fear.
Life is a cornucopia of new and nefarious lessons. Indeed, I’ve been learning new things all week that I never would have had I not come to Bangalore. For instance, I can now confidently say that rat-hair-free dinners followed by good deeds of self-acclaimed generosity are key to a good night’s rest.
Not really a lesson I feel I needed.
But, if all goes according to plan, my stay here — and hopefully its relentless flow of exotic lessons — will be coming to an end in just under 12 hours. And key to this plan is checking out of the Noxious Orchid Hotel and never, ever coming back.
Right after breakfast.
KARMIC DOUBT
“Never attribute to karma that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” — Scott Hamilton
“I heard that.” — Karma
It’s been a week and aside from what I am dismissing as totally circumstantial evidence, I really haven’t yet experienced any obvious proof that karma is real.
I’m quite aware of the risk in saying this, and in fact I can almost sense the universe stalking me with increasing urgency as it, too, hears the ticking clock of my impending departure, and it didn’t spend all week loading its karma gun for nothing.
I’m therefore understandably anxious to check out, as the Sinister Orchid hotel is pregnant with karmic potentiality.
But first: breakfast. I am a man of priorities, after all.
I’m actually looking forward to my last breakfast here at the Pernicious Orchid. My breakfasts here have been generally pleasant experiences, mostly self-serve other than the need to ask someone to cook my egg, cheese and chili-pepper omelet, and I happily expect this morning will likewise be void of over-eager wait staff, especially since Bob, the waiter whom I over-tipped last night, works the night shift and is already a memory fading into the annals of ancient anxieties.
But as every experienced pessimist knows, happy expectation is not only the root of inevitable disappointment, but, worse, it lulls the naïve into a false sense of comfortable security.
So, you can imagine my surprise when, upon walking into the restaurant, distracted by my dreams of imminent omelets and satisfying solitude, who do I find greeting me with a prize-winning smile ripe with unnervingly obvious anticipation?
Bob.
The same Bob the waiter who just last night received an unusually generous donation from this tip-confused tightwad. Bob the even-more-grateful-and-now-my-best-friend-forever waiter.
He sees me enter and his face explodes with a hideous, radiant joy that I can feel from a distance like a penetrating radiation burn.
“Diet Coke?” he asks as he practically runs to meet me. It is not just an interrogative greeting, it’s an excited expectation. Bob’s got a gleam in his eye that is making me very nervous.
I could argue that this isn’t what I paid for but that would be ironically incorrect.
KARMIC REALITIES
Now, I realize that there are some who will attribute this to karma. These unlicensed dealers of spiritualism will pontificate that the universe seeks balance, and that I should surrender myself to the karmic currents of the universe’s energies as they ebb and flow toward a balanced, nirvanic state.
I don’t buy it.
In fact I submit that the universe prefers imbalance as its natural state.
Allow me to explain.
Here at the Austere Orchid, at least so far as I’ve experienced, the restaurant wait staff operate on different principles than do those in America. They don’t seem to consider it their mission to fulfill your culinary needs in a timely manner. More often than not you need to flag down a waiter, and once you do have their attention, there’s a reasonable chance that upon leaving your table the waiter will do anything other than fulfilling your order.
This behavior can be frustrating and even infuriating to those accustomed to American waiters eager to earn a well-deserved tip. But I was able to quickly adapt, having honed my restaurant patronage skills for years in the finest branches of the McDonald’s franchise.
I even got used to it. Accepted my fate, you might say.
But now, thanks to last night’s cosmos-unsettling tipping action, things are different. Bypassing any semblance of balance, the pendulum of Bob’s quality of service has swung to the opposite extreme. Bob is making an unusually high number of rounds through the restaurant’s dining area, going out of his way to frequently pass by my table and ask if I need any more Diet Coke. I’m quite sure that I could have scored a 12-pack were I prepared to take it with me today.
Now, you might point out that this is a good thing: I’ve been given the unexpected gift of attentive service.
Yeah. Sure. The glass is always half full for the person who isn’t forced to drink it.
Not only am I feeling harassed like a celebrity plagued by an eager fan, I’m also worried that since I over-tipped him last night, he’s likely anticipating that I’ll next set him up for the weekend with another generous donation. I do not intend to, though, especially since all I’ve got in my wallet are 500 rupee notes and the breakfast bill here is going to amount to a whopping 200 rupees at best.
Balance shmalance.
What to do? Well, as I see it there are two options. I can tip him what amounts to roughly $7.50 on a $3 bill, or I can go back to not tipping. I really don’t want to reward him more than he deserves, since in truth all week he’s been earning the “service charge” already on the bill, and not much more in my opinion. However, what I do NOT want to do is deal with the inevitable awkward look of eager anticipation turning into surprised disappointment upon him opening up the bill fold, followed by the inevitable self-imposed pressure to placate through inadequate explanation.
So just like last night, when I finally get the bill, I watch him out of the corner of my eye until he is about to go into the kitchen. I then quickly sign the bill to charge it to my room and, leaving no tip, exit as unobtrusively but as rapidly as I can, like a man escaping from a restroom with a stopped toilet after one too many failed flushes.
Last night I felt good leaving the restaurant. Now I feel like a jerk.
KARMIC AFTERTHOUGHTS
One chuckle I did have to myself in the midst of this breakfast adventure was due to an older Caucasian guy sitting at a table near me. As best as I could tell, he was not from around these parts. I am sure of one thing, though: this dude was either very brave or very foolish — or both. His breakfast included baked beans and coffee. Coffee is itself a bit of a laxative, but combine that with the explosive potentiality of the water here AND that of the baked beans, and this guy was fueling up for an experience scientists will be talking about centuries from now when they exhume the petrified and preserved bodies, frozen still in the position in which they were sitting and eating breakfast when the extinction level event occurred.
But I plan to be long gone by the time that bomb drops.
Stay tuned! I’m now just beginning my escape from Bangalore. All that’s left is to check out of the hotel and survive one more day at the office (and its inevitable mystery lunch), a trip to the airport, and a successful journey through airport security and customs.
What could go wrong?
Answer:
