Queue Strategy

Dear dedicated reader,

After an extended trip to Bangalore and a late night trip back on the public bus, the exploits of which included extended arguing with the man at the Surat station inquiry window at the and delicate negotiation of the water-logged station bathroom, I am happy to be back in Kadod. The anonymity of being “outside” (as they refer to it here) was replaced immediately with the home-town affection as some boys hanging around on their doorstep late at night greeted us with a warm “Hello madam!” as the rickety bus pulled away.

The students are still in exams, which is how I am able to afford the luxury of a few days away. Wandering outside of Kadod, despite having traveled pretty widely in India, always brings new revelations as I am able to size up my travel destinations against the security that I find in the village. This particular journey made me realize that, on account in living here in Kadod, my cultural growth in a particularly important area has been somewhat retarded and I will have to give more effort in the future toward its development, as simply a matter of survival. The area of which I speak, is of course, plain uninhibited pushiness.

This quality is essential in a country where queues (as lines are termed in British-cum-Indian English) exist merely in the realms of abstraction. I don’t have much opportunity to wait in lines in our sleepy town – there isn’t much to wait around for. As a result, my Westernized “queue strategy” (so termed by the popular comedian Eddie Izzard) has no cultural relevance in this context. To put this in perspective, let me share the recent experience that for me brought this new revelation sharply into focus:

While in Bangalore, I thought I’d entertain myself one morning by going to the movies, a luxurious waste of time that I sorely miss living two hours from the nearest theater. The latest Hindi film blockbuster “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi” was punctuated with an intermission typical of all movies shown in India (even Western ones which don’t share the same Indian penchant for length). I decided to take advantage of the time given for a bathroom break as I knew it would be at least an hour and a half till I’d have another such opportunity.

The bathroom itself was unremarkable: stalls set up in neat rows down a good-sized room. There weren’t enough, obviously, but there never are, and as a result of the intermission and the lack of supply there were a good number of women standing around waiting in what looked to me to be a short line. I stepped in behind the two women standing in this fashion and waited with patience as stall doors opened and one of the women disappeared into the now empty stall.

All of a sudden, I felt a rush of air by me as a stylish looking girl in skinny jeans and a vest whooshed in just as the next stall door opened and occupied it as soon as it was empty. Then a few other girls swooshed in, right past what I regarded (foolishly!) as the line and began to camp outside of stall doors, knocking every so often as if to tell the people inside that time was of the essence and what right did they have to be taking so long anyway?

I looked around puzzled, my sense of order somewhat shaken. Just at that moment, the woman standing in front of me whom I had previously regarded as my ally in holding our queue ground abandoned me to this mass chaos as her friend emerged from a now opened stall that was snatched up by one of these recent intruders. I now saw that my Western eyes had interpreted the scene quite differently than how the landscape of this innocent bathroom appeared to the casual Indian observer.

Well, what was there to do but woman up out of necessity? As soon as there was an unoccupied opening outside a door stall, I staked it out, trying to look as aggressive as the others, punctuating my defense with some half-hearted door knocking (though for me, this gesture felt a little ingenuine and a result I think did not carry the same punch as that of these seasoned veterans).

My power play for stall space worked and I was soon back inside the movie, using the remaining minutes of the intermission to contemplate wryly how even the smallest of social conventions require the eye of cultural translation. And of course, once my eyes had been opened in this way, I started seeing the analog everywhere: In the way that I had to push my way towards the counter at the Barista on MG Road (equivalent of Starbucks), holding my money in my outstretched hand in a menacing and obvious way as if to say yes, I do actually have the means to purchase my order and I will fight for my right to do so; or in the way that, on going out for dinner at what most Americans would term a hole in the wall but is actually a quite well respected and famous Bangalorean dosa haunt, my boyfriend and I were instructed by the man at the entrance to literally camp out over a table, hovering until the coffee came and then sitting down at the table, squeezing in to the bench before the current table residents had even finished sipping at their filtered coffee or paying the bill.

On our journey back to Kadod came the culmination of this lesson, my assessment of what I had learned as it were: trying to fight for our right to ride the public bus back to Kadod. We’d been waiting for an hour to catch 9 pm bus which would put us back in Kadod around 11 pm. When the time for departure came, the locals were crowding in around the bus door with seasoned skill that Melissa and I could hardly negotiate with our large backpacks until I made a strategic cut in front of a pushy man holding a large box that got us the opening onto the bus stairs and ensured our ability to board the standing room only bus. Relieved that we’d made it, I felt we’d passed the test with flying colors.

Perhaps we would have gotten away with it to if we hadn’t fallen for a different social convention: plain old well-meaning polite helpfulness. Just as we’d secured our place standing near the door of the bus, we saw the helpful inquiry window man who’d laboriously gotten us to this point motioning for us to get off and talk with him. Assuming it must be important, we relinquished our places in the now completely full bus, with hoards of hopefuls still pushing to get on behind us and stepped off.

“What is it?” We asked, somewhat flustered.

“I just wanted to tell you that there’s another bus at 9:45 pm,” he said, patting the side of a bus parked parallel behind him and smiling. “In case you wanted to take that instead.”

I let out a low, frustrated groan as I looked at him incredulously and watched the mass of people pushing into the 9 pm bus. We tried to push in as well, but it was hopeless.

“Drats.” Turns out I still have so much to learn.

Best,
Cat