Lined Up in the Queue

You can be standing in front of a door of an ATM machine. Someone will brazenly walk right in front of you as the previous person exits the vestibule.  He or she will pretend not to see you…until you stop him! The fellow may express his sorrow. He who does not have any idea about allowing personal space to the fellow citizen does not also care about his privacy while the latter operates his bank accounts to draw cash from the ATM. He will simply be on your head within the vestibule flouting the privacy required for operating your bank account and would pester you nonstop to either surrender your turn in his favour (irrespective of whether you finished with your transaction or not) or in an avuncular tone advise you as to how to operate your transaction and even suggest the amount of cash you should draw. Tell this fellow to refrain, and he will simply be with his hackles up to dismiss your request with scorn.

During college days one of my friends (he is now holding a senior position in the government) dared to stand in front of a cinema in the city to buy a ticket. In the maddening rush as the unruly cine goers jostled each other, the hapless fellow managed to elbow his way through the crowd to push his hand into the ticket counter. The ticket seller seated behind the grill handed over the ticket to him. As he pulled himself out of the crowd after a great struggle, to his astonishment the sleeve of his shirt covering his right arm, was torn asunder to leave no trace thereof. Imagine the plight of the poor fellow!

In front of the butcher’s shop, ration shop, bus stops, hospitals, politician’s houses, peer fakirs, holy places etc a throng of unruly humans can be seen jostling and grappling at each other with out any consideration of sex, age, education and even status. The rare exception however was the claustrophobic ‘qyamat say qyamat’ long queue forced upon the (3rd class) cine goers in the famous iron cage of the Palladium cinema in Lal Chowk, Srinagar. No sooner did the ticket vendor open the window to sell tickets than a dozen or so of mustachioed hooligans suddenly appear from some where to leap across heads in the cage to worm their way to the counter to walk away with a wad of tickets to be later sold in ‘black’ to the same disgruntled lot who were straitjacketed for hours in the narrow cage. Much to the disappointment of poor fellows waiting for their turn the shutter at the ticket counter would suddenly and unexpectedly close down to disperse in desperation to hunt for a ticket in black. 

Standing in a queue requires patience and discipline and self respect and respect for others. It calls for a strong belief in the existence of good and fair play as also a vigorous and reliant character. The little consideration to moral values/ethics as a result of the acquisitive/rapacious tendencies seems to have led many of us to hate standing in the queue. And the latter is some thing that unites India. Every Indian or a tourist visiting India has had to go through the ordeal of standing in the queue at some point of time or the other. For the common man it is an everyday story once he wakes up in the morning and is off to catch a bus to college or office. When he gets into the bus, to buy a ticket, he is again in queue. The same process haunts him on his way back. While having lunch, to pick up his plate from the canteen, he is still in queue.

The turmoil that a person goes through, while standing in a queue, is unmatched. When you see your life going at a glacial speed and to know that even after hours of patient waiting, you are still not the first in line, all hell wants to break loose. But then the sanity prevails amidst all the pushing and shoving, or one may lose the privileged spot that he occupies and may be sent back to square one. Life is a cruel thing for everyone in the queue and the willingness to get over with it is what gives people the strength to stand in it for hours while the discomfort one is facing is rising with the minute. And that too when one is made to stand in a "paunch to lumbar" queue (the analogue of what in the automotive world constitutes "bumper to bumper" traffic) without any personal space that has evolved over the ages to keep at bay transgressors, looking for breaks in the queue.

Several years back the Pune based Advanced Gerontcrats enterprise estimated that Indians spend 12% of their lives in the queues. This however does not include the time that takes in commuting before they reach the tail end of the queue. The world records in the queue whether the longest, the fastest the most patient queue, all belong to India. Queuing is such a national trait that Indian athletes invariably in the queue to finish. Whether it is the union cabinet standing in a queue to send of for to welcome the president or Prime Minister the queue is every where.  The record queue include the 3.2 kms long queue in Delhi to collect MTNL bills a decade and a half ago.  The fastest moving queue in India was recorded at a movie theatre showing the film ‘Hot Nights’ in Hissar, Haryana. It took a mere 5 minutes and 40 seconds for 581 people, all men, to buy tickets and enter the hall.

Queues nevertheless are the largest physically existing social network in India. It might be a complete stranger that you pick up a conversation with without knowing his religion, caste or economic background. But then the loquacious Indians just can’t remain mum. Queues form the backdrop of many a great conversation in India. Whether it is the bus coming late, the rise of traffic incidents, and political parties playing the dirty game of politics or the ouster of a great player from the Indian cricket team – the topics may be far and varied but the argumentative Indian definitely have a point of view of his own.