I have another thing to explain, as it is easily my biggest frusteration with life in India. I encounter it every single day. At the canteen, on the bus, at the post office, and today, at the movie theater.
I call it The Queue of Self-Importance.
Here's the way it should work: Seven Germans join a queue (a line, for those of you who have never left home). The second person is helped after the first, the third after the second, the fourth after the third...until everyone has been helped in an orderly, respectful, and socialist way.
Here's the way Indians do it: Five people are grouped around the counter, all with their hands shoved over the register trying to get theirs closest to the teller. A sixth person comes in from the side, pushes his way to the front, kicks an old lady, bites his mom, and shoves his hand in the mix. The seventh person, being the self-important man that he is, with an obviously unique problem, enters and courteously pushes everyone else aside to be helped first. The teller then closes the window and sits directly behind it for tea. They will reopen again at 13.30 for precisely 30 minutes.
This happens every day.
Flown by mariposa at 03:36 PM on February 20, 2005
