The Cripple and His Talismans by Anosh Irani

Moon. A good waiter knows that. In fact, I made a mistake. I did not follow protocol. When you enter, you should look around as though you own the place and, with an air of disdain, select the table you wish to sit at as though you are doing the owner a favour by gracing Lucky Moon. Then you remove the pack of Charminar, Gold Flake or 555 from the left pocket of your white shirt (it has to be a white shirt) and place the pack on the table as though no one else in the country can afford cigarettes. When you know for certain that someone is watching you, you remove a cigarette from the pack. Tap it twice, only twice, on the tabletop. (One tap suggests you do not know what you are doing, and three taps or more suggests you are copying the actions of someone else.) The waiter arrives, and if he is sensible he will not speak. He will observe, wait upon you, as you put the cigarette to your lips, light it with a match and stare at the flame as it pulls away. You blow out smoke as if it is your gift to this earth. Then you lean back against the chair. Only then —
only then
— may the waiter ask for your order. And even though you have the same item every day, you deliberate.
    Today I did not deliberate. I am ashamed of myself. I will make up for it by wasting the waiter’s time.
    “Anything else?” he asks.
    I deliberate. I have mastered the art of deliberation through years of schooling. I look at the glass showcase near the entrance. Colgate toothpaste, Parachute oil, Haman soap, all the splendours of the modern world are displayed before me. I notice that the waiter is getting impatient. So I lean back on my chair and look at his face. I do not look directly into his eyes, but at his nose and ears, so that he gets uncomfortable. He starts shifting. I clear my throat as if I am about to deliver a speech before Parliament.
    “Bun-maska la,” I say.
    “Just one?”
    “Let me think,” I say. I put the only hand I have to my chin. My school friends would be proud of me. I miss them. “One,” I tell the waiter. To me, it is important to be low class.
    I look outside and see a few parked cars. All old Fiats. Is no one rich anymore? I used to come in a bloody Mercedes. But then, my parents never loved me. So it was a fine balance. I used to water the tires of the Mercedes with my friends. Let us paint the tires yellow, I would say, but no hands. So we would all put our hands in the air and spray. My driver would be most upset. I will tell Daddy, he would shout. But it’s not
your
daddy’s car, I would reply. Then our spray painting would go all wrong because we would break out into peals of laughter. Those were the days of a privileged existence.
    The sweet buttered bun I ordered soon arrives on a small steel plate. I can detect the waiter’s finger smudges on the surface of the plate. There is very little butter on the bread; it is more a thin film than a coating. The cutting is still hot. I blow into it before my first sip. The sugarcane machine has started. The flies and mosquitoes have grown accustomed to its clumsy rotations as it spits out crushed shoots of cane. I eat the bun-maska without dipping it in the cutting. The waiter is in the back boiling some more chai. I call out to him with The Kiss.
    The Kiss is an unsentimental gesture in this case. A man’s lips purse to produce a sucking sound. The result is a universally accepted means of beckoning. But The Kiss cannot be used to call women. Bus conductors, drivers, beggars and friends respond well to it. If you call a woman that way, then her handbag will slap your face.
    The waiter responds to my kiss but not too kindly — his Hindi movie walk commences. I place my handy brown bag on the white tabletop.
    “Waiter!” I say defiantly. “There’s a fly in my soup.” My transition from low class to highbrow is sudden, but the situation demands it.
    “What?”
    “Did you not hear me? There’s a fly in my soup.”
    “This is not soup.”
    “It tastes like