Indians have a love hate relationship with lines, mostly hate

Selfish Altruist
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Standing in lines is an unavoidable part of living in a civilized society. Lines help create an order in which people avail some service and help avoid chaos which will ensue if everyone tries to avail that service at the same time. In the 9 years that I lived in the USA, following lines almost became second nature to me. When I relocated to India, I brought back my acquired behavior of following lines with me.

My childhood recollection was that Indians do not follow lines. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a lot more places now try to follow the line discipline. However, lines in India do not work the same way as they do in the USA.

If you are standing in a line in India, you should forgo your sense of personal space. People standing behind you will be pressing their belly against your back. I think the reason people do this is to ensure that no one else could squeeze in between the gap. As an added bonus, you get to know what the person behind you had for their last meal as soon as he or she burps.

I think that Indians have lost the gene responsible to give us the ability to stand in lines since it provides no evolutionary advantage. Observe any line in India and you can easily tell that people have been forced to stand in it against their will. A line in India is only as strong as its weakest link. As soon as one person breaks it, everyone breaks it.

A discussion on lines in India cannot end without a discussion on line jumpers. Just stand in any line long enough and you are bound to witness someone cutting in. I have done absolutely no research on this topic and based on that, I would categorize the people standing in Indian lines into three broad categories in terms of how they feel about line jumpers. First category of people are so habituated to line jumpers that they don’t even realize when someone jumps ahead of them. The second category of people are the line jumpers themselves. They believe that this is an existential skill. The third category of people know that this is a problem, but look at this as a godsend opportunity to practice inner peace.

Waiting in lines for buying pop-corn at the movies, I have learnt that one good tactic to thwart line jumpers is to hold your arms wide, to give the perception of a bigger body size. This trick also helps block the way for line jumpers to get around you. If someone still manages to jump ahead and you feel confident that you can take on them in a one on one fight, by all means, confront them. If you think that the line jumper can kick your ass, better swallow your pride and just wait for your turn.

Surprisingly, there are times and places where lines do seem to matter a lot. As an example, take the lines that people form at the airport boarding gate. These lines often start forming an hour prior to boarding. Sure, everyone has a preassigned seat. Sure, the plane can’t fly without boarding all the passengers. But why take a chance. A plane isn’t like a train or a bus that you can run after and catch.

I will end this post by sharing my favorite line jumping experience in India. I was once standing at the checkout counter of a bookstore at the Delhi airport, waiting for the person in front of me to complete her transaction. A decent looking and well-dressed man, in his mid 40s walked up to the counter and squeezed into the small gap between me and the first person in line. I politely told him that I had been waiting in line ahead of him. He looked at me with an air of arrogance and declared , “I don’t think so.” The clerk interjected and tried telling this person that I was indeed ahead of him. At this point, the customer started yelling at the clerk. I told the clerk that it is OK for him to bill this other person first. The clerk looked at me thankfully and then proceeded to bill him. He looked at me with a triumphant smile and said, “Hum jaha khade hote hai, line wahi se shuru hoti hai (The line starts where I stand).” I couldn’t help but laugh. I could feel my line gene racing towards extinction.

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