THE INDIAN QUEUE

Kaushik Basu is a distinguished Economist at Cornell University and a guest columnist for BBC. Since the elections, he has written insightful articles on the Indian economy and Indian society. Now, he has penned a witty and enlightening article about 'The Indian Queue', something which is not unique to India, but brings out some quintessential Indian characteristics into the open. He talks about his pilgrimages to the RTO and the at the telephone office and how the comments passed by people in the queue educated him, for better or worse, about some typically Indian attitudes. Later, he passes some interesting comments himself on the relationship between the queue and capitalism. One piece of wisdom which he gleaned from the tongue in cheek and well thought out, if illogical, statements of the people in the queue was revealing: "Individual rationality was alive and well in India"