Page 18 - Seniorstoday July 2022 Issue

Matunga called Sundar Vihar, and the wait The Brits, the Germans and the Swiss
was almost 25-30 mins. But the food was good
and worth the wait. Some bloggers ought to
write a column on food queues that are worth
the wait. Today, with Swiggy and Zomato,
why do people queue? Or maybe simply make
a booking with the timing at which you are
supposed to be there. Some restaurants will
not accept a booking. They expect you to reach
the place and wait in queue. I refuse to go
there. We Indians have developed our own
queue culture. We make friends with the guys
around us and for sure there is a chap who is
standing in for 12 family members.
Sometimes restaurants make it a marketing
technique to have people waiting outside just
to show how popular the place is, posting
pictures of people patiently waiting in line
on social media just makes the restaurant
very desirable. The key thing with queues
is to follow whatever rules have been set
by the venue. Do you want to line up? Are
you supposed to put down your name and
number? Do you want to leave your number?
Some restaurants have a manager who write
your name and number down and fit you in
whenever an appropriate table is available.
Eventually all of us may want to eat the
delicious matter-paneer or butter chicken that
place has to offer but only some of us have the
ability to sacrifice time and the patience to eat
at the venue.
The British have perfected a queue culture.
On a clear Sunday morning, outside a well-
known eatery in London, I counted 25 people
and the queue stretched from the footpath to
around the corner. I have seen rich Indians
patiently wait outside Dior, Hermes and Louis
Vuitton. These are the guys who are used to
being waited upon by an army of servants and
a slight glitch or a flight delay can have them
grumbling and groaning in frustration and
calling for the manager.
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pride themselves on their sense of order and
fairness, and suffer through queues with
proud stoicism. But this is not the same
for Spanish or Italians, who don’t find the
prospect of waiting quietly for one’s turn
vaguely redeeming. They tend to look for
excuses to cut the line, if that fails, they scream
and shout. The common Italian way is to push
to the front saying that they have a question
for the man at the counter and then quickly
conduct their business a lot like us Indians.
In some places, it has gotten so bad that you
now have a ticket number system in place of a
physical queue.
We have always had a history of a queuing
culture however, Covid-19 has further
changed the rules (not in a proactive way),
through a combination of business closures,
staff shortages and overall changes to the
processes of booking almost anything.
Unfortunately for some of us who don’t have
the time, energy or patience for standing
in lines, these rules are probably here to
stay. Ironically, not only are people willing
to queue up but businesses feel that they
generate greater awareness with the buzz.
Some businesses deliberately structure
their logistics in a way to encourage queues
because of the positive impacts of being seen
as ‘desirable’ and ‘aspiring’ (Louis Vuitton,
Hermes, Dior, and Rolex, to name a few).
And finally, the ultimate queuing
expectation — if you were to get invited
to a Parsi wedding or Navroz dinner, the
experience is hilarious. At the appointed time
the elder of the family requests everyone to
join in the dinner celebrations, “Jamwa Chalo
Jii” — and on cue, as if the final school bell has
just rung, people make a beeline to the tables
to find a seat; and halfway through the meal,
you have someone standing behind your chair
— waiting for you to vacate it!