The Queue

Travel on a flight? especially the all so no nonsense Jet Airways with its ‘Business traveler’ with their ubiquitous lap tops and their all so busy lives that they cant even spare eye contact for the next person despite the fact that they can smell their neighbour’s expensive deodorant, hear them taking in those raspy breaths and guessing just what kind of food do they prefer? And because I have been treated many a time the same way- I now have learnt to give the world err the Jet traveller back his ( the ‘hers’ are different) due. But as I noticed , on a recent flight- we can all be just as common as the man who openly scratches his b…ls while waiting for his next overcrowded bluen line bus ,( apparently it – the scratching must be the most effective use of time coz one sees a whole lot of them doing that, I cannot profess to having experienced the satisfaction of using time so effectively..)

Seat belt lights were off- and with as much dignity as one could muster, I walked to the loo at the end of the aisle. (Alas –its still economy) . the queue had built up-I was 7th in the line and I stood, juust a little carefully. Feet away from one another so that I could maintain balance ( After all that damn dieting- I still have heavy bones () and since there was no dashing dude nearby, had to be doubly careful). The line had the ingredients of a potboiler – a 17 year old pretty nubile thing, a young handsome man, a 50 yearish man with a weird hairy wart near his eyebrow and… you get the flow. So after I had waited a whole 2 minutes ( that’s a tick tock of 120 secs and man, when you gotta go- you gotta go!) , the door still hadn’t opened for a change of guard – the girl, like many of her generation- voiced rather shreekily: ‘ What are they doing in there?’ I was a little taken aback – like many of MY generation, I have been reared with a mind set of ‘anticipate and accept’ - so the question hadn’t even arisen in my mind but her shrill, petulant declaration ( since she was 1st in the line, I assume it must have been a far longer tick tock for her!) did set of a trail of thoughts’ “I hope there is something interesting happening there.. like 2 lovers who cant keep their hands off one another, or is someone just so depressed that they cant even muster up the energy to get their backsides up & about, or has someone discovered this rather annoying zit on their face that they must examine rather closely after having suitably got the right facial stretch in place, ...”

Unfortunately, the girl didn’t get any immediate response but the ‘liners’ did relax just a little bit- shift in body weight from one foot to the other, loosen the shoulder blades, and finally smile- there is nothing more unifying than the understanding that Maslow needs hierarchy does make sense – atleast at a base level. While we waited rather patiently- we got talking and linked up as an ordinary Indian , having been brought up on diets of ‘its good to know people’, does. Politics was the hot thing, the trust vote was holding the entire nation in abeyance, and Singh must have been biting his nails to still become King. Indian Cricket – like a spoilt child who knows how to throw a tantrum and get attention, had once again made its way to everyone attention, the weather – travelers from Delhi to Bengaluru seem to get a perverse pleasure in knowing that they leave behind some humid, warm sticky weather- the Delhi citizen while he cannot live without his Pandara Road butter chicken is probably the loudest. I smiled and bonded with everyone around and the pressures of the ….waiting and the flight seemed more bearable.

I have travelled in so many modes of transport – 2nd class train, blue line, white line, pre paid autos and taxis and had become habituated to the perpetual queues that exist for everything in our over crowded nation. How many emotions did I experience there- despair for just missing an empty bus, anxiety coz an seemingly decent middle aged uncle was getting too close and a complete sense of accomplishment for stamping quite effectively on his toes, anger when someone would barge into a line, overwhelming joy when the temperamental Dilli auto wallah agreed to take me at my price, ….. Sometimes the queue forced us to bond, sometimes it was about proving and asserting one’s authority, many a other time it was testing your own endurance and patience... At the end of the day the discussions would border around the very same topics that occupy most Indian mindspace…politics, weather, cricket, prices, …only the spice levels would be different.

The efficient and bearably pleasant hostess realized that there was a problem and knocked rather assertively on the door and we sheepishly acknowledged that the loo had been vacant all that time. It was back to business as usual.