| September 24, 2008 | Wednesday | Ramazan 23, 1429 |
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The power of ‘please’
Most middle-class Brits adopt a peculiar, roundabout way of asking hired help to do something for them. This circumlocution does little to aid clear communication. The other day, as we were driving off for a walk in the hills near Devizes, the lady wife said to the guy who comes once a week to sort out the garden: “Graham, if you are in the mood to do a little cutting, I’m tired of driving off with bits of this bush.” She was referring to branches of an overgrown shrub that were intruding in the parking space, and kept getting caught in the car door.When we returned, Graham had gone, and the offending plant was exactly as we had left it. I pointed out to the lady wife that even by her standard, she had made her meaning completely obscure. I have heard this sort of thing repeated time and again: in a restaurant, a straightforward request is prefaced by a string of barely comprehensible expressions, such as “I wonder if I could possibly ask you to please get me a glass of water when you have a minute…”
When we are in Sri Lanka, this creates even more problems, and I am asked to re-phrase the request. Actually, when we are there, I encounter another kind of problem. Naturally, locals assume I’m one of them and start addressing me in Sinhalese, forcing me to explain where I am from, and why I cannot follow them in their language. However, after a couple of days there, the lady wife starts making the same assumption, and asks me to translate for her. I have to remind her patiently that I have not yet mastered Sinhalese. Actually, this little exchange takes place each time we are in Sri Lanka as the waiters and shop assistants simply do not understand her meandering requests, and I am called in to cut through the clouds of oblique waffle. As she goes through her practised routine, I can see the hired help’s eyes glaze over until I say: “My wife would like a glass of water, please.”
But I would rather have this well-meaning, if confusing, form of politeness than the rudeness so often on display in Pakistan. My blood boils when I hear an eight-year-old yelling to grown-up servants to fetch him something instead of getting it himself. In restaurants, the over-bearing manner in which waiters are often addressed makes me cringe.
Friends insist that they get better service and food when they eat out with me in Karachi than when they are on their own. They put this down to the fact that I occasionally review restaurants, and managers and waiters therefore try to curry favour with me. The truth is far more prosaic: I take the trouble to remember the names of people who serve me at my regular haunts, and I am pleasant to them. Indeed, I make it a point to consult them, and generally involve them in ordering the meal, asking them what dish they would recommend that day. It costs me nothing, and a little respect ensures my friends and me attentive service, and hopefully, good food.
In our part of the world, so many of us take servants for granted that we often forget they have feelings, too. Unfortunately, far too many employers treat them like slaves. I hear very few people say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ to staff. And all too often, they carry these bad habits when they travel abroad. I have been asked obliquely by English friends who spend time with visitors from our part of the world why they don’t make requests more politely.
This kind of muted complaint is even more embarrassing when made by somebody close to me. A couple of years ago, my step-daughter Tabitha and her sixteen-year-old friends were making some extra pocket money by waiting on tables during the Henley Boat Race week. This is one of the premier sporting and social events of the summer, and caterers set up large marquees by the river and serve elaborate meals. Kids pick up large tips to finance their summer vacations, and often, well-heeled diners are waited on by their children’s friends.
On returning from her waitressing stint, Tabitha complained bitterly about a large group of desis who had been very stingy about the tip after making many demands during the meal. “Must have been Indians or Bangladeshis,” I said defensively. But I knew it could easily have been a group of Pakistanis.
The sad fact is that we are so accustomed to armies of servants that we just do not value them enough. Indeed, people in our part of the world take out their insecurities and frustrations on those lower than them in the pecking order. And because they have so few options, servants take this kind of rude behaviour. Not so in the West. I remember when we were in Paris as kids, my mother spanked my younger brother for something or the other. Our Hungarian cleaning lady said she would report my mother to the police if she ever saw her hitting one of us again!
Although I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I do think we in South Asia tend to be less sensitive to our staff’s feelings than other people. Years ago, my father was based in Somalia when it was still a liveable place, and when he returned from work, his driver would come in, sit in the living room for a few minutes, have a glass of water, exchange pleasantries with us before leaving. Mr Mahadashti was my father’s driver in Tehran a few years later. Always immaculately dressed in a suit, his smiling, avuncular figure was in and out of the house, as though he were a family member.
So what is it about the subcontinent that makes us so foul to our help? In the old days, servants were part of the family, and I am glad that my parents have taught us to be courteous and respectful to them in our home. But all too often, contemporaries forget the most common courtesies when dealing with hired help, whether at work or at home. I’d just like to remind them that it costs nothing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
