4/27/2024 0 Comments Standing in a queue meaning![]() When others jump the queue no one says anything. When you’re finally the second person in the queue the guy in front of you develops a complicated problem that takes half an hour to sort out. When you switch to the other queue the original queue gathers momentum. When there are no obstacles, the queue moves quickly and when you buy the right ticket the teller has no change. You’ve to go to the refund counter where 1 and 2 apply When you do get the tickets they are the wrong ones and therefore a) you’ve to go to the tail end of the queue to get them changed or b). When you reach the counter in time the tickets are over. You always reach the counter at lunchtime or closing time. You discover you’re in the wrong queue only when you reach the counter. The length of the queue is inversely proportional to the time you have to stand in the one. Multiple queues follow the Murphy’s Law, “Whatever queue you join, no matter how short it looks, will always take the longest for you to get served” and thus, it’s safer to stay put in one’s queue rather than go around looking for a quicker way to get to your goal. Much to the disappointment of the people waiting in the queue the shutter at the ticket counter would suddenly and unexpectedly close down. No sooner did the ticket-vendor open the window to sell tickets than a dozen or so of mustachioed hooligans suddenly appeared from somewhere to leap across heads in the cage to worm their way atop tens of the queued heads in the cage to the ‘counter’ to walk away with a wad of tickets to be later sold in ‘black’ to the same disgruntled lot that was imprisoned for hours in the narrow cage. The rare exception of standing in the queue was the claustrophobic type forced upon the 3rd class cine-goers in our childhood in the famous ‘iron cage’ of the Palladium cinema in the center of Lal Chowk, Srinagar. ![]() As the strong belief in the existence of good and fair play is simply lacking, a typical Kashmiri cannot think of wasting time in a queue. Perhaps because of the grasping propensity to profit by the industry of someone else without we ourselves producing anything (ditto the bird-of-prey does when it swoops down upon the toiling kingfisher and takes from it by force the fish it has wrested from the waves by the exercise of his strength and talents) perversion of the economy has gone deep into our DNA. The extreme hatred for standing-in-the-queue is something unique with us Kashmiris. Whether it’s the union cabinet standing in a queue to send-off or to welcome the president or prime minister the queue is everywhere. Queuing is such a national trait that the Indian athletes are invariably found in the queue to finish. The world records in the queue whether the longest, the fastest, the most patient queue, all belong to India. This however doesn’t include the time that takes in commuting before they reach the tail end of the queue. Indians on average spend 12% of their lives in the queues. When people get on the bus, to buy a ticket, they’re again waiting in the queue. ![]() It may be an everyday story once people in India wake up in the morning and are off to catch a bus to college or office… (but it’s definitely not so in our beautiful valley). Everyone amongst us has had to go through the ordeal of standing in the queue at some point in time or the other.
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