The sports utility vehicle whizzed past my car as if the driver was trying to intimidate me, only to slow down again about 20 metres ahead of me. Probably he is in some sort of hurry, I convinced my raging ego. But the truth slowly dawned on me. The toll gate was approaching and the driver was preparing to choose a lane to avoid delays. There were four lanes, each earmarked for different vehicle types, and it was unclear to which one he was heading. The vehicle twirled into one or the other of the four lanes and finally, to my surprise, he entered the ‘Fast Tag’ lane. As I chose the least populated lane behind three other cars, I keenly observed the SUV. It was evident that he did not have a Fast Tag but he somehow managed the billing person to get his vehicle across. Smart guy, his mom should be proud of him, I sneered.
Indians do not like to follow queues, and we have developed our own indigenous methods to jump queues. In fact, in many of the Indian languages, there is not even an alphabet sounding like the English letter ‘q’, and so our dislike for the queue seems historically entrenched. In a country bustling with a 1.3-billion population, queues are often felt to be a deterrent to the normal pace of the day-to-day life of Indians. Studies have shown that in highly populated zones with inadequate resources to handle them, organised queues may be counter-productive in terms of wastage of collective waiting hours and undue delays for the people.
Indians are well aware of the importance of tackling queues, right from their childhood. In fact, apart from regular child-rearing tools, children are also taught specific methods by many parents on how to jump queues in a busy place, or rather, how to avoid queues, so that the kids find life to be easier as they become adults. Unfortunately, I have witnessed some children being disparaged by their parents for not being smart enough to learn this basic life hack. It is as if a big question mark hangs over the future lives of such kids.
For the moment, let’s keep the discussion on the need for queuing up and the legitimacy of skipping queues aside and focus on getting ourselves right in executing this life hack of ‘jumping’ queues. With years of experience at the receiving end, let me share with you some tips on the art and science of jumping those eternal queues in India.
First, before entering a queue, try to assess the number of queues that are available and the billing clerks in the different tills. This act should be performed unobtrusively from the moment you start collecting your grocery items. Some of the billing clerks are nimble, smart and experienced enough to get the products across so rapidly that their lane never becomes tardy. The technical excellence of the billing computer and the biller’s ability to have cash across all denominations, also have a significant bearing on how rapidly the queue moves forward, though this is an unpredictable variable. So, as you reach the billing zone, find the best queue with the best biller, and you are likely to stay blessed.
It is also important to judge the number of products that have been bought by those standing in front of you and also roughly estimate their quickness in handing out the requisite amount of cash, their memory skills to remember the credit card PIN and their dexterity in filling the grocery bag with the things garnered. If you turn a blind eye to this highly scientific exercise of evaluating the characteristics of the queue, the billing clerk and the ‘queuers’, then you are likely to linger in a sedate beeline for a long time. Mind you, this is the most legitimate way of rapidly advancing in a queue in India.
Now on to some nefarious ways. If you are going as a pair, you can ask your partner to stand in the other queue and periodically assess the queue, and once when either of you reaches the billing clerk, the other one can just walk away. If you are going as a family, then it is merry time as more people can fill in as many queues as there are members of the family.
Secondly, as you join the queue, try to look at all the people standing in front of you. There is a one in a hundred chance that you may know someone in the queue – neighbour, friend, friend’s friend, enemy’s friend, distant relative, client and so on. Grab the opportunity. Just walk across, greet that person with a big smile and start a conversation. Very likely, when your friend gets billed, you will also be able to get your grocery billed.
Thirdly, keep a few products in your hand, while the rest can be placed in a basket down. This technique can be especially useful in a crowded billing zone without a standard queue system. Try to keep eye contact with the person making the bill while putting the few products in your hand on the table. The billing clerk may sometimes choose to bill the lot with fewer products, and may feel overwhelmed looking at the overflowing basket of your compatriots. So, very likely, he or she may look at you. Seize the moment, smile, and then, bingo, your billing is done.
There are more iniquitous methods such as elbowing or muzzling your way to the front of the queue, or using a loud, boisterous voice to invite the attention of a gullible billing clerk, or feigning an illness/ physical handicap to expedite the process — which I would advise you strongly to refrain from.
I have explained several fairly genuine ways of jumping queues without eliciting an indignant look from the other ‘queuers’, which if followed religiously, can guarantee success in most instances. Still for the naïve few like me, such acts are impossible to learn and master, and you always have the feeling that you may be committing a serious mistake when you skip the queue. Don’t worry – this is the time to listen to a song, flip a few pages in a book, chat with your friend, illuminate your kid’s knowledge, or just gawk at fellow human beings.
India is a country where chaos is the natural order of things, and we seemingly even need a certain lack of orderliness for a smooth co-existence. Let it be the traffic system or the parallel cash-based economy or our multi-religious, multi-lingual co-existence, an exact orderliness or a strict rule-based, lawful existence may well wreak havoc in our lives. While a Utopian situation of ubiquitous queueing may happen in India in a few decades, till then let us just enjoy the unique Indian queues where some linger, some fret and fume, and a smart few just skip and bypass them. Happy Queueing!
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