By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam
There is no moment in modern life more quietly complicated than the one that arrives at the end of a meal, a cab ride or a hotel stay. The service is done. The bill has been presented. And now you must decide how much, if anything, the person who served you deserves as a small acknowledgement of their effort. It is, in theory, a simple act of human generosity. In practice, it is a minor psychological crisis.
Welcome to the world of tipping. Where economics meets ego and arithmetic meets anxiety.
Let us begin with the non-tipper. This is a person of firm principles. They have worked out, usually at some point in their twenties and never revisited since, that tipping is unnecessary, inflationary and vaguely colonial. “The price includes service,” they say, with the conviction of someone who has resolved a long philosophical debate. They fold the receipt, replace it in the folder with the quiet authority of a magistrate delivering a final judgement and leave. The waiter watches them go. The waiter does not share the philosophical position.
Then there is the Reluctant Tipper. This person believes in tipping but suffers enormously in the execution. They open the wallet and look at the notes available. They mentally calculate ten percent and decide that seems stingy. So, they go to fifteen and wonder if that seems excessive. They settle on twelve but realise there is no denomination that produces twelve percent cleanly. Eventually, they leave an amount that satisfies no one, least of all themselves. They think about it for the rest of the afternoon.
The Competitive Tipper is a different species entirely. For them, the tip is not about the recipient. It is about the tipper. They tip generously but ensure this fact does not go unnoticed. The note is placed on the table with a small but deliberate flourish. If someone else is present, the amount is mentioned, casually, in passing. “I always believe in looking after the people who look after us,” they say, in the tone of someone expecting a small ceremony.
The Anxious Tipper carries a mental table of appropriate percentages for every conceivable service situation. Ten percent for the cab. Fifteen for the restaurant. Twenty if the service was exceptional. Nothing for counter service. Perhaps something for the delivery person, though not if the app already added a surcharge. Possibly still a little, because the man climbed four floors and was entirely cheerful about it. The internal negotiation ends only when the door closes behind them.
And then there is the person who gives with the natural ease of someone for whom generosity is simply a reflex. They do not calculate. They do not perform. They look at the person who has served them, see a human being doing a difficult job for modest wages and respond accordingly. They are not necessarily wealthy. They simply have a quality that no amount of financial sophistication can manufacture.
The question of when not to tip has its own logic. When the food arrived cold. When the autorickshaw driver spent the entire journey explaining, at considerable volume, why the government is wrong about everything. When the hotel gave you a room with a view of a wall and appeared proud of it. These are reasonable grounds for restraint. Most reasonable people would agree.
But the more interesting question is who we choose not to tip when perhaps we should. The delivery person who arrives at ten at night in the rain, helmet dripping, carrying something you ordered on impulse. The woman who cleans the hotel room and leaves a small folded origami of the towel that you admire briefly before destroying it. The man carries your bags up three flights of stairs without complaint. Then, he wishes you a good stay with what appears to be genuine feeling. These people are not asking for much. They are not, in most cases, asking for anything at all. Which is precisely why the gesture matters.
We live in a world of considerable inequality. This is not a secret. The gap between those who eat in restaurants and those who serve in them has not narrowed. A tip will not resolve this. It is not meant to. But it is a small acknowledgement that the person across the transaction is not invisible. That their effort has been seen. That the extra flight of stairs, the extra smile at the end of a long shift, these things were noticed.
There is a beautiful idea in our tradition. It is that of dana, giving without expectation of return. The giving is done without performance and without record. Not the tip that announces itself, but the one that simply passes between two human beings, quietly and with dignity.
The next time you fold that receipt, pause for a moment. Think of the person on the other side. Then give a little more than you planned to. It will not change the world. But it might make someone’s day considerably less hard. And that, quietly, is enough.
Dr. R. Balasubramaniam is the Founder of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM). ‘The Lighter Side’ is a series of satirical articles meant to bring a smile by highlighting the funny side of everyday life.]
This post was published on May 27, 2026 5:05 pm