Get in line

Wait, what's a line?

Photo by Shashank Hudkar on Unsplash

My birthday takes place in the summer, so I never got to experience the joys that came with a school-time birthday. Not a complaint, just a statement of fact. Homemade funfetti cupcakes, kids all singing to you, and maybe some special treatment from the teacher. It all looked like fun to me! One of those extra special things the teacher often gifted the birthday kid (along with a super dope new pencil!) was to be the line leader. Now, if this wasn’t the upper echelons of school yard society, then I don’t know what was.

The line leader got VIP access to THE best parts of the playground. You know they’re getting on one of the three swings that doesn’t have a huge mud puddle underneath. The line leader got to legally boss other kids around. “Hey Daniel, I said line up from tallest to shortest. Stand behind Tabitha!” And the line leader frequently got to hold some visible token of power to ensure they stood out from the non-birthday peasants they ruled over for the day. In one grade, the teacher gave a whistle on a nylon string. In another grade, the teacher handed the line leader chalkboard erasers. The line leader would hold that whistle or set of erasers like a queen would hold her jewel encrusted scepter; with both reverence and also supreme domination.

Lines were necessary. Lines were control. Lines were the ultimate organizer in a space of chaos. When you grow up understanding the line and the important role it plays in everyday life, things feel comfortable. Want to get a ticket at the movies? Sure! Enough for everyone. Just stand in line. Want to check out at the grocery store? Sure! Let me get in the shortest line since I’m in a rush. Want to go through TSA? Well, want isn’t the word I would use, but hey, we all need to do it, so just stand in line. You’ll get through!

There is a certainty with a line. You see all the people ahead. You try to forecast how quickly folks are moving and about how long it will take until your turn. Likewise, you turn to look over your shoulder at all the people behind you, doing the exact same thing. Lines work because we believe they work, but what happens when there isn’t a line? More so, what happens when the idea of a line doesn’t even exist? Enter: India.

Now, we’ve been in India for about 7 months and one thing that still gets my goat is the lack of line etiquette. I think it varies from place to place, but here in Tamil Nadu, there is basically no such thing as a line. If you are waiting on something patiently and believe you are the first person at the counter, then you are naive! You will soon find yourself to be at spot 8 or 9, with a confused look on your face and high blood pressure.

(Please note, there will be no pictures accompanying this post. Much like the Chupa Cabra, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster, my Google Photos account has no high resolution photos proving the existence of lines in India.)

My first experience with this was on a previous trip to India in 2020. In the airport, men are commonly given a separate line from women in the security areas, so I placed my backpack on the security belt, along with luxury handbags and high-end carry-ons that the women behind me brought. I stood with my stepmom in law (who is Indian) and my two young daughters as we slowly shuffled into the semblance of a line. There we were, a cute little group, next to be called into the tiny curtain shielded stage where a female officer would check us for contraband.

The female officer opened the curtain with the flair of Boy George at a Halloween party, and waved us toward her with her security wand. As we approached, a woman from nowhere cut across diagonally and practically galloped ahead of us. What was this? What was this madness? And at an AIRPORT?! My cheeks were roasting with anger, and I just let instinct kick in. “Hey!” I yelled. No reaction, and she was getting closer to the curtained stage! “HEY!” I shouted again, only this time I punctuated every letter with a loud and echoing clap of my hands. Everyone turned to look at me, including and most importantly, the woman who was actively cutting. “You! Get to the back of the line!” I pointed at her when I said “you” and gestured the “get outta here” backward thumb hook when I said “back”. Anyone could have understood what I was saying at that moment. She sheepishly head wiggled and brought her palms up facing me as if to say, “What’s going on? What are you talking about?” Oh, but she knew. She KNEW. One more clap and I yelled, “You! GO!”

Unbelievably, it actually worked. She walked not to the back of the line, but sort of meandered line-adjacent a few ladies behind us, and we got to take our rightfully waited upon turn. Granted, the airport security line in a foreign country was probably not the best place to accomplish this feat, but that’s the hand I was dealt, folks.

Afterward, my stepmom in law, Carol, spoke up. “Wow, Chosun! I didn’t know you had it in you to do something like that. Even I wasn’t going to say anything.” Carol was born and lived in India until her 20s. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 35+ years, though, so she has hearty experiences from living in both cultures. There are things she puts up with in India that would really bother her in the States, and vice versa. Carol was going to let that slide? Was I being a jerk? We then had a conversation about lines (or lack thereof) in India. I had no idea this was a thing, as that had been my first experience with it.

Well, fast-forward to now, and I have had a ton of experiences with it. Each time it happens, I say something. I let the person, or people, know they are cutting in front of someone. I get the same reaction each time. It’s kind of like a “yeah, I know you were here first, but, like, I don’t want to wait. Duh.” It’s very shameless, and I am not here for it.

I’ll wear the sarees and kurtas. I’ll eat the sambar and dosa. I’ll use my horribly accented basic Tamil. I’ll do just about anything and everything to assimilate to this beautiful and vibrant culture we’ve immersed ourselves in. However, I refuse, I REFUSE, to accept this as normal and okay.

The airplane tickets are numbered, Ma’am. You don’t need to cut my kids. The hotel already has all of our bookings, Sir. You don’t need to cut me. The bathroom stalls are all full, Ma’am. No one is going anywhere. The luggage will come around on the carousel again, Sir. You don’t need to knock me out of the way for your suitcase.

Those all just happened two weeks ago, on our return trip from the states, for winter break. Every single one. I spoke up on every single one. I’d just gotten done pushing away the world’s largest suitcase from the very spot I was previously standing, and telling the man who heaved it off the conveyor belt and into my actual body, “Sir, I’m just going to push your luggage over here and away from where I was standing, so I may also collect my bags!” He was quite unbothered. I was fuming.

My oldest daughter, 14, gently placed her hand on my shoulder after the luggage incident and said, “Mama, try not to let this bother you. Just accept it.” Such wisdom. My husband Ravi then said, “Yeah, babe, don’t even stand over there. Don’t even deal with all the people. Just wait until the crowd thins out.” Such wisdom. My oldest son, 16, was on the other side of the carousel, and he called to me, “I’ll get them Mama. Don’t worry about it!” Such wisdom.

Was my stubbornness on subjective rude behavior ironically turning me into the very person and exact quality I was raging against? I asked some Indian friends about it the following week. Was cutting in line rude here? Profoundly and overwhelmingly, the answer was yes! YES! It’s rude as crap. People do it because they think their time is more important, or they are more important than you, and it’s been sort of baked into the culture. Every man for himself! It’s just inconsideration, plain and simple. People in India are largely non-confrontational, so “poor behavior” goes unchecked on a large scale. Or, when you do say something (like me) it just gets ignored because people don’t want to engage. It’s too confrontational.

Until the concept and acceptance of a line becomes a mainstream part of culture here, I guess I will continue to speak up for myself, continue to be ignored, and continue to fight the petty fight. Wish me luck.

For your entertainment, this is a real-life conversation between Ravi and his Tamilian dad about how to say, “Excuse me, can I pass you,” when trying to go past people blocking your path: OPEN SCENE

Ravi: “Baba, what do I say to people in Tamil when I am trying to walk past them?”

Baba: Perplexed by this never-before-asked-question. “I guess you would say, ‘Ungala thaandi pogatuma?’, which literally means ‘Can I jump over you?’, but no one says that.”

Ravi: “So, then, what do you say?”

Baba: “You don’t say anything. You just push them.” Deadpan face. #TRUTH

Ravi: ???

Baba: <goes back to reading newspaper>

CLOSE SCENE