By Ratna Manucha
To begin with, I am born in India, with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth. Oh no! It’s not what you are thinking…I’m not rich, cause that’s what silver spoon means, doesn’t it? But I’m definitely entitled. Read on…
I am so entitled that I don’t believe in queues. What does that word even mean? In fact, it’s not even a word, it’s just the letter Q with a bunch of letters lining up silently after it. Actually, forget I said that. We do believe in standing in a line, except we do it differently. Unlike the rest of the world, where people stand in line, one behind the other, we stand side by side, in total companionship, covertly, slyly and obliquely elbowing our neighbours till we manage to get a bit of our bodies fitted in so that we are all facing the counter.
It’s easier as now we can all talk at once to the hapless person at the counter and obviously the one who gets heard first, gets served first, cause the poor helpless, frazzled person hasn’t a clue as to who came first! That’s entitlement for you. You see, we Indians are all equally entitled, but who is more entitled than the others is a matter of debate.
I am so entitled that when I walk into any store, I expect the person at the counter to stop what he is doing and serve me immediately. ‘I have arrived,’ is my silent communication to the world. ‘Notice me! Serve me first.’ No matter if he is already serving another customer, I am the more entitled one and that goes for all my fellow Indians. Each thinks s/he is a teeny–tiny bit more entitled than the other. Why? Just because. And it’s by virtue of this entitlement that we don’t believe in queues.
Case in point. So, the other day I walked across to the neighbourhood chemist for my supply of vitamins. Needless to say, I sandwiched myself between two others as near the cash counter as I could manage, as the line was from one end of the shop to the other… horizontally. Remember that bit about horizontal queues? That’s us. I kept thrusting the prescription into the cashier’s face. By virtue of my entitlement, I’m also very impatient. ‘I don’t have much time, can you please hurry up?’ I remarked. A rude guy to my right looked at me straight in the eyes and asked, ‘Would you say the same thing if you were shopping for clothes?’ What a totally silly question. It made me smirk. Of course I wouldn’t. I would be so busy feasting my eyes on all the gorgeous prints and caressing the different fabrics that I would in all probability miss my lunch and not even notice. Now, on the other hand, loitering at a chemist’s shop facing itty bitty boring looking boxes with unpronounceable names is just not the same thing.
Last week, as I was standing at the cashier’s counter at the bank, waiting for him to cash my cheque (yes, I don’t know how to use the ATM, stop sniggering), both my elbows propped in a proprietary fashion on the counter, keeping the other customers at arm’s length, literally, and feeling quite proud of myself and my ingenuity, when someone more entitled than me (a man in a blue uniform with a gun hanging loosely over his shoulder – the friendly bank security guard, who does all the bank work and other sundry jobs, except guard the bank’s entrance) thrust a piece of paper over my shoulder into the cashier’s face…(has anyone ever bothered to check if his gun actually works, but I’m digressing)… ‘It just needs to be stamped,’ he says by way of explanation. While I debate whether to protest or not, the paper has already been stamped and quick as a wink he slips another piece of paper from right under my nose (‘This account has to be closed it’ll only take a minute’), to the cashier who is sitting in his cubby hole of a counting house, all this while, trying unsuccessfully to count MY money.
While I am floating on my own little heavenly cloud of entitlement, I must fill you in on a little secret. My entitlement also allows me to haggle and wrangle good bargains, especially with my fruit and vegetable vendor. After all, a bunch of coriander handed over free with the vegetables or an extra apple thrown in for good measure never hurt anyone. But the joy it brings me is indescribable! Somehow, I can never accept the price of an item as is written on its price tag, my favourite question being, ‘any discount?’ and then looking suitably admonished when the salesperson stands his ground firmly.
My entitlement also allows me to follow IST (Indian Stretchable Time) and have scant or little value for others’ time. If I say 11 a.m., I actually mean any time between 11.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. You are expected to understand that and not wait. On the other hand, I don’t think you’ll be waiting, cause like the rest of us you too believe in IST, so even if I do land up dot at 11 a.m., I bet you ten to one you won’t be ready! Hah!
My entitlement allows me to push, shove and jostle if I am travelling in public transport. There’s no such thing as space constraints or invading another’s space…just like the queues, if there are seats for twenty people, have you ever wondered why there are more than twenty sitting on them? Many, many more? Like I said before, we are all entitled and so we adjust. We elbow, shove and with hand gestures and apologetic smiles, push till the poor passenger is pressed against one corner of the seat, while three others make themselves comfortable. And then we listen to TikTok videos on our phones with the volume turned up. And wonder why the others aren’t laughing while we’re getting hysterical. No sense of humour…
I am also generally the first to unclip my seat belt the minute the plane touches down on the runway and stand up the second it grinds to a halt, open the overhead luggage loft, pull out my carry on bags and plonk them on the seat or on the aisle and stand for the next twenty minutes huddled closely together with the other equally entitled passengers breathing down each other’s necks, like the animals in Noah’s Ark waiting to get off the Ark…only in this case it is a plane. You see, us Indians, we are the entitled lot. We have to get off the plane first, we have to be first in line at immigration…there’s no time to waste…it’s in our genes.
Kya karein! Hum toh aise hi hain, bhaiya!
(Ratna Manucha is an academician, storyteller, poet, columnist and author of fact and fiction. She lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place.)
