Page 16 - Seniorstoday July 2022 Issue

First Person

We are like this only…

Indians don’t understand the etiquette of queuing, writes Vickram Sethi

We’ve all heard these all too familiar words You were issued a ration card, a gas card,
countless times — You are in queue please a milk card — everything was in so much
wait… aap kataar me hain, kripiya pratiksha short supply that getting it was a survival
karein… Aapan jya number war samparkh concern and not queuing. By the time one got
karnyas prayatna karath aahat, toh yaa vali to the front of the queue, the stuff that one
vyast aahai kripiya thodya vel nantar phone had queued up for was exhausted and hence
kara, parri pacchho call karo. Or: this is ABC overtaking the others was a requirement. We
hospital, all our operators are busy, please had to push our way for almost everything. It
wait for someone to attend to you shortly (in was an acceptable practice although now milk
the meantime, you can continue having your and food grain are easily available. But the
heart attack).
Indians don’t understand the etiquette of
queuing. International travel surveys often
list Chinese and Indians as uncouth travelers.
We are a push, shove and grab nation.
Particularly when it comes to queuing we
have a FOMO complex (fear of missing out).
How did we become like this? Our parents
in the sixties had to contend with a series of
shortages – no milk, no sugar, no butter, no
food grains… one had to queue to get rations.

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