Sorry, You Are In Queue
Sorry, You Are In Queue


The long meandering queue outside the station for auto was unprecedented. Kavitha, a regular commuter from Churchgate to Dahisar, usually just had to get down at the Dahisar station and there would be about four or five people standing in the queue at the auto Stand. Within a few minutes, she would be on her way back home, which was a good ten minutes drive. What she saw today was amazing. There were at least fifty people waiting in line, which meant maybe an hour of waiting time. There was no way out for her, as the BEST buses did not travel near her residence. She was completely dependent on the autos and so she stood in the queue waiting patiently for it to move forward. Not having anything else to do, she spent her time observing the people around. Half an hour passed and the queue was moving forward albeit at a slow pace.
Just then, a woman walked forward and tried to join the queue in the middle. There was an immediate uproar. The harried commuters, most of them returning
home tired after the day’s work were not going to stand for such nonsense. They refused to allow her to jump the line. She tried pretending to be someone’s friend, someone’s acquaintance. In fact, she tried everything, pleading, screaming, crying, but to no avail. She came over to a man in front of Kavitha after trying to convince many people in front. The man just brushed her away, muttering beneath his breath, “Na jaaney kidar se athey hain yeh log?”
Kavitha could understand his frustration. Here they were waiting in queue for more than half an hour and this lady just wanted to barge in. The next person she targeted was Kavitha, who already tired, gave her a piece of her mind.
“Sorry Ma’am, there is a queue. Go and stand at the end of the queue and wait your turn. If you had not spent time trying to irresponsibly jump the queue, you would have saved at least fifteen minutes,” she said and turned her face away not waiting to see her reaction.