A few stray thoughts on having taken two flights in one week. What I find amazing is that people when they have to take flights are always on this hurry hurry thing. They try their best to jump the queue at the check-in, restlessly shifting from foot to foot thinking to themselves, These staff are idiots, how long does it take to check in one passenger with 15 kgs? When they complete the check-in they attempt to jump the queue at the security check, let me go first, hello there are only 10 people in front of you and yr flt is a good 90 mins away, wheres the hurry? Yet, they hurry. Then the boarding call....Oh yes, here too they want to be ahead, so they can sit in the bus first. They try to pretend they are with someone else and worm their way slyly into the main line that has formed, and people are good mannered but they get irritated too so they just frown at him. Now once in the bus he wants to get closest to the door, a privilege meant for the last one in, but this first one in couldnt give a damn, he wants to be first in first out! On the flight, as soon as the seat belt sign goes off he rushes to the toilet, yes, he wants to be in the toilet first!! And once the plane lands he wants to be at the door first too...but look at the tragedy, at the conveyor-belt his baggage is probably the last piece to come rotating out of the grand canyon. Itni jaldi bhi kya hai, sahab? Cant you sit back and enjoy strolling into place everywhere? This madness of coming first starts from parents. In Dubai, at the Indian High School where I was a lecturer, after an annual exam was over, I got into the school bus. I found a teacher sitting in the first row with her little 7 year old daughter. The teacher and the daughter were both crying. It was a sad sight and I thought someone must have got hurt. Although I didnt know her, I went to ask her the reason for her tears. Between sobs she told me, and yes, this is a true story. I told my daughter that she had to come out first in the exam. Sob, sob. I waited. She went into the exam hall, answered one question in the question paper and submitted it. She did not answer the other questions. Sob sob. I was still intrigued. I saw what she did and asked her. She said, Mom u told me I had to come out first, so I came out of the exam hall first. Yes this was a Keralite school-teacher who was teaching her child the madness of coming out first. A mania in India. Come out first. Go in first. Be first at the toilet. Be first first first. Any idea why we Indians are such a messed up lot?
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 03:30:27 +0000
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