the unbearable difficulty of queueing

No, its not about the queueing theory. It can't be I don't know what the queueing theory is. Damn! Its tough typing queueing in. I've lost my sense of spelling (sniff sniff). Anyways,
An MCQ for all you entrance exam junkies,

What have we not inherited/adopted from the brits
a) cricket
b) the english language
c) super huge buildings like the Rashtrapathi Bhavan
d) the ability to form an orderly queue

and the answer is (drum roll............) D....if you didn't get that do not despair...help is on the way

Lemme start with a simple example which just happens to be a brutally true story (ok the brutally shouldn't be there..but what the heck, this is MY blog). I was at the train station the other day to pick up a friend and being the law-abiding (ahem) citizen that I am, I proceeded to the platform ticket counter where there was a grand total of one person buying his ticket. I walked up leisurely and noticed from the corner of my eye that someone else was approaching this counter. But, fleet-footed as I am (ahem again) I happened to reach a micromilli second before this other chap, but, he wouldn't have any of it. He shoved his hand across my beer belly and tried to get his ticket. All he got was me being ticked off!! I gave him a piece of my mind (and then took it back.. I need all I got!!) and proceeded to have an unnecessary argument in front of the counter. Finally we both walked away platform tickets firmly clutched in our palms each convinced the other was a fruitcake.

So, do we have a queueing culture? I mean is it in us? All of us? Hell no. Take the movie Rang De Basanti. Good movie. Many people loved it and rushed off to the nearest ammo store to stock up (kiddin..kiddin). I mean the movie instills a sense of pride of being an Indian and being responsible ( though I totally condemn vigilante justice). There was this story doing the rounds about people burning/tearing their H1B visas ( if you've read my previous post you'd probably know that there was no way I would check the veracity of that story) and stuff like that. But the funny thing is, for all that adrenaline pumping through the veins in the name of improvement, the queues outside cinemas showing RDB that I saw were all disorderly and many of these people were coming in to watch for a second or third time. I might have been confusing in this paragraph, but what I'm saying is we do know that we need to queue up but we don't bother. I wish that would change. Sincerely do.

Every year when the preeminent tennis tournament of the world, Wimbledon commences in June, we see telly pics of people literally camping on the pavements waiting to get their tickets the next morning. Not one of them breaks the order. You come first, you in first. You come 173rd, you in 173rd. I read somewhere that during the 7/7 bombings in London, the brits were so orderly during evacuation procedures that even a single individual formed a queue! I'm no brit-fanatic but I feel that we as a people must adopt this culture. We'll be better off with it. I'm sure.

word of the day: petrichor ['pe-trê-ko(r) or -tri-] the smell of rain on dry ground .....sexy word

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