ALL THE ANSWERS PLUS A CAESARIAN SECTION

I worked at an Indian restaurant in the evening for many years. Essentially, it was for liquor and tobacco money, seeing as my daytime job covered all necessities.
No, liquor and tobacco are NOT necessities, they just seem so.

I am not enough of a people-person to go up to tables and pleasantly chat customers into murghi makhni, alu saag, puris, and achaar, plus cutting chai or soda-pani & whiskey.

The Indian climate, Rajput miniatures, and Urdu poems are complicated subjects about which I probably know far too much already, let us not speak of those.
No, I don't know any swamis or fakirs, and I am not a spiritual being.
Please don't tell me about the ashram you visited.
Nor starvation, Calcutta, and camels.

Your allergies to dairy, gluten, peanuts, citrus, and legumes suggest that you may be in the wrong place, unless you are trying to kill your very white suburbanite bourgeois self.
In which case you have my wholehearted personal approval, but I'm not speaking for the restaurant or the other staff.
Please go back to that ashram that caters to Americans.


My function at the restaurant was to add up figures, take money, and guard the cash register like a rabid dog or homicidal maniac.
Having lived in Holland, I am very good at being both a rabid dog and a homicidal maniac.
That, in a nutshell, is precisely why you need a Dutchman as your cashier or bookkeeper.

One can indeed be rabid without being barking mad, but it helps.

Rabid Dutchmen are NOT expected to make small-talk with customers.

Unless the customers are children.
Small people.


Indian kid: "Where are you from?"
Me: 'From the Netherlands.'
Indian kid: "Oh (long pause), are you actually alive? "

Indian kid: "Where are you from? "
Me: 'From the Netherlands.'
Indian kid: "You are playing cricket?"

Indian kid: "Where are you from? "
Me: 'From the Netherlands.'
Indian kid: "Aha, a Pakistani, is it!?!"


There's an element of repetition in restaurant conversations, much like an Icelandic honey salesman explaining his product to Londoners (gratuitous Monty Python reference).

Creativity is not advisable.

Indian kid: "Where are you from? "
Me: 'I am not of woman born, but from my mother's womb untimely ripped!'
Indian kid: "HOW SAD!!!"

Indeed.

I'm actually not from the Netherlands but from the Los Angeles area.
I lived in the Netherlands for sixteen years, from when I was two till my eighteenth year - that explains the accent.
No, I do not play cricket, it's a rather silly game.
I am not of woman born, but really was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
These are the answers.
In case a small person wants to know.



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