Indicator

Two briefs briefly noted, carrying some import. 

         Tall, lazy stroller passing the table offers:

—    Welcome to Malaysia.

Inevitable surprise and caution.... Didn’t look like a beggar straight off.

         —…. I saw you yesterday here, the man assures, switching a look and tilting his chin toward the inside of the eatery.

         Almost certainly we had not spoken. Difficult to recall on the visuals alone. An Anglo-Indian was best guess, reminding a good deal of one of the Bosnian neighbours back home.

         Leaving after paying for the thosai dinner at Muthu earlier one waiter stops another on the turn to the main eating hall. The pair is of an age — late twenties — size, colouration. The senior, as demonstrated by his action, appears a tad younger if anything. (Age highly deceptive in the fast-track maturity the living for these lads engenders; one might add fifteen or fully twenty years for a cosseted Westerner to bring him to parity.)

         The senior has stopped the other carrying the tray, chapatti with chutney and two curries. 
         Brief exchange. 
         The platter can only have come from the roti maker in front; even so Senior has some kind of doubt and proceeds to lay his thumb length-wise on the wafer to check—the heat? Couldn’t be anything else.... Gives the OK. Yah. Go on, deliver.

         Dutifulness and high responsibility if anything. 
         The diners at Muthu would not complain even had they witnessed the action, wherein lies some of the import here.