Sunday, August 29, 2004

Aram sey

There's a humourous piece on the BBC about the "Indian queue" and one man's adventure to renew his driving licence in Delhi.

The article reminded me of my most recent visit to India last November. We wanted to transfer some funds and withdraw some money. We arrived at Siliguri's State Bank of India and joined the appropriate queue. After 30 minutes of waiting we arrived at the counter only to be told we were in the wrong queue and to please go stand in line at another counter on another floor. We went up a floor and stood in line. Another 30 minutes or so went by and we reached the counter. The clerk, with much pomp and circumstance, stamped various documents and then asked us to go to counter 12 on the floor below for some kind of authorisation. Counter 12 had another queue attached to it and with a sigh we joined it. At the end of this queue we got our authorisation and were told we had to see the manager for his authorisation. The queue to get into his office was also long, but at least there were chairs to sit on. And so it went on.

By the time we completed all our banking, it was 4:30pm. We had arrived at 10am.

Lengthy queues are a way of life in India and the best defense against them is resignation. On a trip through Rajasthan in 1996, our train broke down somewhere in the middle of the state. A few enterprising villagers sprang out of nowhere and set up a tea stall on the side of the tracks. I joined the queue, grumbling under my breath. The man in front of me turned around and said simply, "Take it easy, this is India, aram sey." It was a good thing I took what he said to heart because our train was stuck for 24 hours and all we could do was chill out, play cards with the conductor and exchange stories and jokes with our fellow passengers. It's one of the best train journies I've ever had.

Other links today:
+ Five things you probably didn't notice in The Shining
+ Exquisite, century-old postcards from around the world
+ 30 minute video mashup of Planet of the Apes and the Twilight Zone

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