ETERNAL WAITING LINES (14-Aug-2020)

Often, I remember the days when as kids we played a game called ‘statue.’  Between two friends, the first one to say ‘statue’ to the second transformed the latter to freeze in that moment, and it lasted into eternity.  Unfreeze was only after the first friend allowed a break!  Modern times present a variation where waiting lines freeze in an eternal state like a mass spell of magic!  Admission lines to schools, counselling for professional courses, marriage hall formalities, and a few more test one’s patience, on the flip side though.  On the positive side, it offers an opportunity to be human once again and a quick chance for collaboration!

Marriage halls create a waiting atmosphere and are a natural abode for gossip.  Eavesdropping is then akin to a rush of adrenaline.  Like it matters - “Do you know if this is arranged or love marriage?” to “How did the groom’s father manage this ostentatious wedding with his paltry government salary, did he receive bribes?” to some good remarks like “they make a lovely pair, an ample proof that marriages are made in heaven!” to a quick scan of the environment to remark “all family members are well dressed and decked up, I wonder where they purchase their wardrobe!” are rife as we stand in utter gaze in perpetual lines to wish the newly-wed to whom we are mostly strangers.

Waiting lines then into the dining area is a story in bewilderment.  A candid evaluation of the food being served to a stream of suggestions, in between a quick brave act to grab a bonda or a sweet dish being transported, starts right then and there.  “Shouldn’t they serve a few more fried items with the papadum,” “shouldn’t the person add more ghee to his Obbattu (Puran Poli) and add hot milk so it tastes even better,” “oh come on the obese guy there is having another sweet, while we’re waiting forever,” and finally “jump for your slot right behind that guy, he has little quantity of mosaranna (curd-rice) left to finish in his plantain leaf” were just a few tactful remarks from friends as we waited.

The grocery store check-out lines are forever and offer a variety in snooping.  “Look at how much this lady has collected in her trolley,” to “Where is that product stacked, she has piled up a dozen of them and I looked in all aisles to no avail,” to the ever-nervous who hops to the next check-out line, a` la hopscotch, only to be left behind in the race.  My wife and I stood in the line at a store in USA; fed up of the indecisiveness of the person in front of us I thought I whispered into my better-half in Kannada “this dumb fellow needs to decide and move fast!” to which I heard a voice in Kannada from behind the rack “There are one too many and one in front of me!”

The ones that challenge my patience are the lines at highway toll booths.  I swerve my vehicle to the left and then to the right before my strategic movement into another line as I announce my grand entry as the ‘Eternal Murphy.’  Murphy’s law rears its ugly head my line moves the slowest.  I am a live testament, wherein my daughters’ have christened me with a middle name as ‘Murphy.’  Will FASTag alter my destiny…. must wait once again to discover an answer to this million-dollar question?!

If these lines are not for a patient wait in eternity, then where is the fun quotient in life?!