Idhar Udhar Ki Baat

“ Papa kya garibon wali batein karte ho!(Papa, you talk like a poor man!)”    My son threw this line at me when I mentioned that  at a dinner our host had slipped a ₹500 note as a tip to the waiters.     Now, there were only four of us at the table.    It wasn’t a big party, and the service was nothing to write home about.    The tip felt less like generosity and more like a performance—perhaps to impress the waiter, perhaps to impress us. Or maybe just to impress himself.      I have a congenital defect: I feel physical discomfort when I see money being wasted—by anyone.     My family groans every time I ask the waiter to pack the excess food we ordered.     They look at me as if I’m a source of insulting them in the eyes of public.     A few days ago, I took a ride in a friend’s car worth over ₹90 lakhs.     When he casually mentioned that the vehicle has to be sent 300 kilometres away ...