“Without tea.”

Last week, I and my friend David Nathan from the United States were in the Indian Coffee House, Palakkad after a three hours trekking in the Western Ghats.

David wanted to order for food himself as he had the feeling that I was not good at communicating while ordering at restaurants!

“ Fine. But David …..” I started but David did not allow me to complete.

“Here the menu is displayed in English!   That’s cool! Dilip, just watch me how I order good Indian food”.

David went through the menu and said:

“They have two kinds of teas. One is just “Tea” and the other “Without tea.”

When the waiter came round, David placed the order:

“Hi, gentleman.   We would like to have two plates of Masala Dosas and two cups of ‘without tea.” David continued looking at me “I haven’t tasted ‘without tea’ anywhere in India and hope it will be OK.”

I knew that there was no drink called ‘without tea’ b
ut the restaurant people instead of printing “without sugar” had wrongly printed “without tea.”! I wanted to point out this to David but the moment I said

“David there is confusion……”

“Dilip, there is no confusion.   I have no confusion and the waiter has no confusion but sadly you have.   Please do not confuse him.  Just relax and be cool!”.

Hot and crispy ‘masala dosas’ came and we enjoyed eating them.   Finally, came the two  cups of ‘without teas’! I was observing David when he started drinking the teas.

“Ah, it is just ‘chai’ without sugar! It is not a special drink as I thought!” David sounded slightly disappointed.

“When a customer orders for tea the waiter will ask “With or without”?  Non diabetic customer will say “With” and diabetic “Without”.   What the waiter wants to know is whether the tea needs to contain sugar or not!”  My explanation made David laugh aloud.

While we were leaving the restaurant, I heard a customer ordering for tea:

“One strong tea for me, please”

“With or without?”

“Without.”

“ David, that gentleman has no confusion and he is going to get a “without tea”!