Senior restaurant employee leaving India in spring, perhaps (9)
I believe the answer is:
headwater
'spring perhaps' is the definition.
'headwater' can be an answer for 'spring' (thesaurus). I'm not certain of the 'perhaps' bit.
'senior restaurant employee leaving india' is the wordplay.
'senior' becomes 'head' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'restaurant employee' becomes 'waiter' (restaurants employee waiters).
'leaving' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'india' becomes 'i' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'waiter' with 'i' taken out is 'water'.
'head'+'water'='HEADWATER'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for headwater that I've seen is " stream".)