IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 120- GARIBON WALI BAATEIN (POOR MAN'S TALK)

“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 for servicing, I almost asked,

   “Kitna average deti hai (So… what mileage does it give?)”

    Thankfully, another topic came and I forgot the question.

    When I narrated this curiosity at home, my son delivered the verdict again:

    “Papa phir kar di garibon wali baat (Papa, that’s poor man’s talk again.)”

Then came the innocent follow-up question:

“Papa, will you ever buy a car like that?”

After mentally calculating EMIs, insurance, servicing, tyres, parking, and the limited usage such a car would have in my life, I replied honestly,

“No.”

His face fell.

So I explained gently,

“My friend is a businessman. He needs to impress people—and sometimes the police—with his big car and VIP number plate. That’s part of his professional toolkit.

If someone treated me like a VIP, I would feel awkward.

Also, his parents left him a fortune.

My father left me a loan of four lakhs on the only house he ever built—but he also left me something far more valuable: a sense of value for money.”

I try to pass that lesson on to my sons—sometimes through controlled experiments.

Five years ago, I took them for sizzlers at a defence facility—excellent food at a modest price.

The next week, I took them to a flashy joint in Connaught Place and made them order the same sizzlers—at four times the cost.

The review was savage:

“At this price, they even put a piece of kaddu (pumpkin) on the plate!”

Yesterday, to celebrate his birthday my son suggested going to an expensive restaurant for dinner.

I felt a quiet sense of victory when he ordered half the number of dishes he normally would at the army facility.

Still, my soul winced at the menu:

Butter naan at ₹180.

Tandoori roti at ₹100.

The butter chicken was good.

I used naan to wipe the last drop of costly gravy from the bowl. I couldn’t resist telling the waiter,

“Don’t add service charges to the bill.” 

I feel it is better to tip the waiter directly. 

The family gave me that look—the one that says,

“Kar di na garibon wali baat."

At 2:30 a.m., we all found ourselves in the kitchen, gulping water to deal with unusually dry mouths.

It dawned on me that the butter chicken had been generously seasoned with the ajinamoto to enhance the taste.  

And I remembered what my grandfather used to say:

“Majj vech ke ghodi lai,

Dudd peen tu gaye, lidd sutni payi.”

(“Sell the buffalo to buy a horse,

No milk to drink—and you lift the horse shit.”)

Sometimes, in trying to live large, you lose both your appetite and your balance sheet.

Note:- I have made another youtube video of an old story of the struggle of a woman born in poverty. Please watch and share your comments. 

Link given https://youtu.be/2xB2etd2Kmo?si=9AIVSueKb4UzKJSG