In our society where everything moves at a snail’s pace, the patience of aam admi can run into tatters…. Wound up in bureaucracy, red tape, corruption, incompetence, technical failures and much more, the squeaky wheels of our system need oiling to lurch forward…..
Take for instance, the queues for bus tickets… Don’t be surprised if you are jostled and someone appears out of nowhere in the queue just ahead of you. Consider yourself gullible if you keep mum and step back out of sheer courtesy or to avoid any altercations. The person standing behind nudges you – a signal to ward off the intruder. Poof! As you furrow your eyebrows giving a ‘Back off’ look to the intruder inspired by the unwanted elbowing, the phantom scurries back, perhaps at the end of the queue which has turned even more meandering than before…….. Or heads back home sheepishly eyeing the serpentine line and hanging his head down as if in gallows.
It is one of those days where your electric home appliance decides to give itself a temporary annual break from its usual humdrum of heating the ‘elixir of life.’ With the temporary break stretching to more than a month, and unanswered calls to the nearest service centre, your patience registers a drastic decline. As you trudge your way to their service centre to wipe off their smileys from their lazy frames, you find a lone round faced pot-bellied man resting in high throne like seat.
A glorious earful for three minutes doesn’t seem to perturb his calm yogic look. Then puzzled as you seem to be, the pot-bellied man jumps out of his reverie and hands you a couple of forms from which you fill out the necessary one in great annoyance…. Before taking this opportunity of booking the man a generous appointment with an ENT specialist and an ophthalmologist, you happen to glance at the earphones lying at the side… Phew! You just mutter to yourself, “What a day!” as you head for the revolving door.
A pathetic plight for the aam admi whose tasks and trips pile up with unpredictable delays at counters and queues as they try to sort their numerous grievances only to hear “He/she is on leave today.” The next day also gets you a similar automatic response and the pattern follows for many days more. Numerous other mechanical replies are kept as backups such as “There are no lights today” or “Our systems are down” or “Repairs are going on” or much worse is “He/she has gone for chai.” As you ponder and wonder in that one hour waiting period about the most remote possibility of sipping chai drop by drop, the phantom strolls in……
Queues and counters; it’s all about troublesome trips, dreaded delays, form filling, blatant blunders and cranky crowd….
