QUEUE SERA SERA

I read an interesting quote sometime back which said "An Englishman, even if he is alone,forms an orderly queue of one". The quote though sarcastic, took me in a pensive mood to ruminate over the phenomenon of queues. Indians have an unbreakable nexus with queues, and not only have they learnt to live with it, but have found out ways to mitigate the pain of the stultifying process of waiting in a queue.

To be honest, its with the advent of education only that this QUEUE-LOROFORM is sprayed on us. I can still recall the sound of my teacher shouting at the top of her voice- "All the students go to the assembly in a straight line", " Hey you, walk properly in a queue", " Dont you have any discipline that you're walking waywardly??", and of course my personal favorite: The gospel of most teaching manuals- "Keep silence when you walk in a line". Oh God!! now that's callous. Its not an exaggeration but place yourself in the shoes of a young toddler of today; a toddler who's already engrossed in unravelling the mysteries of his/her lost teeth, who carries a bag that's double his/her own size,who cant figure out whether his/her english teacher is worse than the hindi one or is it the maths teacher who beats them hands down, who already has the onerous task of becoming a Tendulkar, Abdul Kalam and SRK(mind u all of them and not just one of them) in the future, who faces the diurnal conundrum of whether to resort to pokemon on tv or CounterStrike on the PC once back home after a long day in school, who has to settle for a mediocre kurkure packet when he/she is adamant to eat out at the new pizza outlet around the corner, who has to not only remember the latest chartbusters by heart but also maintain a staunch general awareness aptitude by reminiscing the show timings of Cartoon network,pogo, hungama, disney and god knows how many channels. Now isn't it unfair to expect from a little child, who's already preoccupied with so many grave obligations and has so much to discuss, to keep quiet in a queue and also to make sure that the movements are minimal. My sympathies to them. Wish this big bad world could understand their point of view for once.

So we become part of the queue movement since we learn to stand on our feet and the instances with the queues start queuing up. What starts as a discipline developing excercise, becomes an inevitable humdrum in our lives. For me, queues are synonymous to just one thing- a saturnine period of wait which just goes on and on and on.Its the same as how the long lost lovers in our hindi potboilers put it "Ek Ek pal sadiyon ki tarah lagta hai". Sorry to steal the thunder away from one of the most sought after lines of love birds, but it describes my predicament perfectly.

And the situation exacerbates for a lackadaisical ruminating person like me ( Ah!! forget the euphemism- i mean a lazy bum like me) who gets impatient on seeing a queue and the pain grows in direct proportion to the length of the queue. But as they say " The more one whines, the more ill luck shines". I've been part of this excruciating process quite a few times of late. But this is not about me only,i shouldn't be parochial.I'll try to give a general perception and will try hard not to let my personal grudge intervene(tho i may fail sporadically). people start the quest of queues right from the time of getting admission in a school, then to fill the fees, to be part of some fancy children's club because the neighbour's kid is part of it as well, then in college for every x, y and z reason. But the real winner are queues to get some document verified. For each document u need to be part of a queue, to get them photocopied u're part of a queue, to verify them you're again in a queue and i'm not even getting into the scenario where your request may be rejected at any of these places and you've to be part of it all over again. Phew!!!!

So be it banks, courts, RTO,bus stands,hospitals,temples, bill payments or movie tickets, we witness ourselves being part of a queue at some point or the other. The latest rage being the auditions of reality shows. Just to see thousands of people flocking up, standing one after the other, waiting for eternity until their chance comes,makes me fall in admiration of these brave souls who're ready to fight out heat, hunger,fatigue, boredom and sometimes obnoxious company. They have the audacity to come and stand a day before, just to make sure they are not in the nether half of the line. Kudos to these people, they deserve a medal of honour.

Fancy the gentleman here who has found a thing to cheer about even here.



The famous Mumbaikar spirit that the entire world talks about has this striking knack of forming queues. i was flabbergasted to see the way the mumbaikars arrange themselves in a queue anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Its a commendable trait where one can witness people conglomerating one after the other and they never even crib about it.

But queues do give us the opportunity of witnessing some really interesting people. We encounter a wide gamut of people of varied psyche, backgrounds and temperaments. While some are too engrossed with their mobile phones coochy cooing, some dont leave the chance to discuss the fallacies of the Political system or the underperformance of the cricket team, some keep losing temper intermittently to indulge in vituperation (#$%@^*$#@%) meant for the officials, while some get the solace of finally finding a listener and they dont hesitate in putting their hearts out. On many occasions, people gel so well in the ghastly waiting period, that they end up exchanging email id's ,contact no.s (the more ostentatious ones flaunt by asking directly - "Are u on orkut or facebook"??). Take that for human networking!!!! We hear jokes, we have guys who keep searching if there is a pretty face in the ladies line and we've people like me who just have one thought in the mind - "Mera number kab aayega"????


Like it or not, queues are an integral part of our lives, and no matter how tech savvy we get by making everything online; queues are here to stay, atleast for our generation. There is no denying the fact that it is a sign of discipline and of an organized setup.So either i keep cribbing about the sheer pain in the neck that this phenomenon is or i take a cue out of the books of the people who somehow manage to make the wait a fun process. I feel the solution may lie in me being less QUE(UE)RULOUS and envisaging the scenario to be on the other side of the queue i.e. being queued up for.