Standing in a queue is like getting raped for a lot of people!!!

I had to go to the Kochi passport office recently. I was there early morning 7.45 as advised by my brother. Already the queue was like 500 meters long. Again according to my brothers advice I chose the help of one guy who was sitting out side to help people fill the form. I asked him for a form. He told he won't sell the form by itself. He will fill it for Rs. 70. I told him to go ahead and he did it for me pretty fast. I rushed in to get a position in the queue. It was hard to find the end of any queue as a lot of people are standing towards the entrance. It took me a while to find the back of the right queue. While I was standing there, I went through what the other guy filled for me and found that he just filled N/A and NIL in many places just to do it faster. Even the items which were already in the old passport were done like this. I had to go through and correct them.

Now comes the love of the people in this part of the world to stand in a queue!! I have only heard about the rush in Somalia when some bread loafs were delivered there. I got to see it in real time here. Even the middle aged ladies were fighting to get inside a queue. There are guys who try to go straight to the front and squeeze themselves up to the front of the queue. And there are some ladies who who do the same in the knowledge that men won't tell them to go back that often.

The crowd is like 300 or so in a hall probably built for 50 people or so. So the air conditioner is of not much use with the heat generated from the bodies of all these people.

On the afternoon when I went back there to pick up my passport it was pretty much the same story. The officials announce the name of the passport holder on the public announcement system and the respective people need to go ahead and collect their passport. There is absolutely no need to rush or crowd as you can hear it from any part of the room pretty loud and clear. And the officials keep on requesting the people to stay away from the front of the counter so that others can come easily to the front and collect their passports when their names are called. But who is listening? When I went to the front to collect my passport, there are a bunch of guys crowded in the front as if some one is going to steal their precious passport. I had to crash through them to get to the front of the counter. Probably they are trying to get a feel of the ladies when they go to the front of the counter. That thought came to my mind as most of the ones who were doing this at this time were guys.