Gatecrashers at New Delhi Airport

freenote

Ah to be back in that crazy land .i watched two guys entertaining themselves by spending a day in a railway booking office which happened to be extremely slow , they were queue jumping just to see who they could wind up . One was disabled and the other a war veteran and they would work as a team , and not a lot of people reacted ,just a few crumbles everone kept very polite ,except these two Westerners ,we took em on and won and enjoyed the entertainment .

lotus blossom

it happened to me quite a lot when i was last in india, but i got a bit bolder each time. usually. i'd just stick my arm out, sometimes with a look, sorta like this it generally worked, but my reaction (to these acts of disrespect) depended on my mood and the amount of energy i had to deal with it, or on how hot of a day it is - like the time in the train station in pondicherry at sweltering high noon...

best not mention the politeness that we have in the US (as compared to india) - when i did that here i nearly got hung out to dry...

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wonderwomanusa

I was on an Information line at the Delhi rail station when men started pushing in front of me to the window. The first guy got away with it. When the next guy pushed in and interrupted me, I said, quite loudly: "Just a minute buddy, I'm talking here, not you, now get in line." He looked totally gobsmacked ... and boy, did I ever feel good!

capt_mahajan

yes, best not

lotus blossom

PeakXV

I think the same pot-bellied guy with the paan-stained mouth butted in front of me once in Delhi too. I grabbed him by the shoulder (wanted to grab his ear lobe) and physically turned him so he could see the length of the line that he had so violated and inconvenienced. Then the whole queue started to cat call and shout their feelings towards him ..... whereupon he put his tail between his legs and went to his proper place.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

shashank.aggarwal

This happens a lot in Delhi, in queues for telephone bills, electric bills, tickets everything..

and the worst part is, it happens in queues of temples also, sometimes I feel people want to cheat god as well...

But thankfully whenever someone raises his/her voice it actually works..situations doesn't get out of hand and people get back into line..this is also confirmed by experience of most other members here..

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Travelogue - Around India
Random Reviews

SitaParityaga

Don't you love hit-the-wall stories like these? I have laughed so hard.....my meltdowns seem to always involve an airport. I can (almost, hehehe) keep an even, well-travelled, patient, "look beyond current circumstances, see the "devine truth" kind of attitude, for many spontaneous events....but the airport..no no no.

fsg..

Does everyone know what a "scum" is! Beautiful word to describe the experience of getting your seat. It does feel like rugby! Ouch!

Get in line. Even if you don't mutter the words yourself: Come on, anyone who has grown up in a "get in line" culture thinks this as a reflex jerk in their minds. You're either too tired, too weak, too sick, too intimadated, too beat down or have already acheived sainthood to not have that thought!!!!

The same guy was in front of me in the casual car pool lane today, on my way into work, but being a lady, I just elevated my voice and shamed him until he left the line. Public disgrace can work as well in Oakland as it sometimes does India!

Nick-H

I've told it before, but my favourite, at the BSNL telephone office, some guy comes to interupt the conversation I'm already having with the guy at the desk, "This will only take a minute."

I told him, "This will only take a minute, and my minute comes first!"

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Papaji

People in this country keep switching between being complacent and being restless a lot more frequently than they do elsewhere..

PeakXV

Must have something to do about "before" & "after" the masala hits the blood stream.

bent_gate

Always had my share of tiffs with the line cutters. Some Indians are terrible at it, to the point of embarassing the rest of us conscientious Indians.

It's reflective of bad manners taught to them while growing up. By their parents and their grandparents.

While largely in the west, things are a bit more organized, here's a story to explain that individuals will be badly behaved immaterial which culture, if not for the top down rules affecting such behavior.

Reference to driving on highways. In Spain and France (the two other countries I know of), one uses the speeding lane only to overtake.

United States on the contrary has one of the worst of the driving sense of the western world (atleast to the extent I am aware of). A ton of blokes assume they have the right to be on the speed lane, immaterial what their speed is. This morning I followed an older brunette for good ten minutes, while she chatted on the phone (illegal), got her make up together, while I just couldn't find a way to overtake.

This just goes to reflect that individuals will behave badly, if the top down rules don't indicate that there could be potential for rebuke or penalties if you don't conform.

SidVicious

yeah ive had similar experiences at all airports in India, once got into a scuffle at Bangalore with a local looking dude who wanted to push his entire family's 100 pound luggage trolley ahead of me...

made him buzz off to the end of the line...

rikko

Indians have a solution to stop anyone else pushing in...stand so close to the guy in the front that basically they are touching each other...check out any ticket line...train, cinema etc.

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Amrik

joseph10

What i experienced many times on domestic flights is people pushing themselves into the bus, once the bus reaches the plane they are the last ones to come out because there in the back.
Funny is that this repeats leaving the plane, they are the last ones to reach the belt. Many more examples are there.
Once a few years ago i wanted to be polite to an old lady letting her enter a train before me as im raised to respect elderly people. Well, she blocked me while eyeballing me in a bad way and all of a sudden she seemed to have 30 family members squeezing themselves in.

It's like it is in the system of many Indian people that they don't even think about it.(everyone does so why shouldn't i do it) and if i'm not a bit brutal sometimes i don't get nothing and won't reach nowhere. Hopefully it will change but it will take quite some time i think...

I allready spend quite some time here but i will never really get used to it.