Q, U & V

It is said that the letters following the letter ‘Q’ in the word ‘Queue’ are not silent but waiting for their turn in the ‘queue’ silently. Queues were not that silent some years back. Today there are no queues as everything is booked online. The sad queues we witnessed in April & May this year were not the queues we ever wanted to see.

Growing up in a very middle-class environment, not everything easily came those days. In the area we lived water was a precious commodity. Drinking water was not supplied directly to houses. We had to fetch it from the common taps in the streets at untimely hours. You could see people lined up near the tap when water was supplied. Queue for drinking water.

There were other alternatives too. Just opposite my house was a well belonging to the city corporation. There was also a tank attached. Every day a municipal employee would come twice a day to pump the water from the well and store it in the tank. This was supplied with 3 taps underneath the tank. Apart from drinking, this was main source of water to hundreds, and you could see people again flocking to the taps. Queue for water again.

On the right side my house was a ration shop which used to sell rice, grains, sugar to the ration card holder. There was also kerosene sold associated to the ration card. This kerosene vendor lived on the left of my house. Every 2 days in a week, kerosene was sold. Again, it was a huge queue in front of my house. People used to place their old tins, mugs and what all to reserve their places in the queue from night.

Those 2 days in a week was chaos in front of my house with people fighting in the queue. Major part of the population there still had no access to cooking gas. Using electric stove meant unaffordable electricity bills.  Hence availability of kerosene was directly connected to your livelihood and your cooking. 

The verbal fights, in different languages was not a treat to the ears but improved your vocabulary. The modulation, tone and dramatic tones in these fights were straight from movies. 

Little further from the house were bus stops. Again, we could see big crowds queued up. Once the bus arrived, there was no trace of the queue. Many a times the last the person in the queue would be the first to board the bus. Last IN (queue) first IN(bus). 

We never saw queues for liquor in our times. Spirits were always high in supply. The lockdowns in the last 2 years have given us those rare sightings too.  

I could go on and list the different queues the previous generation spent the good part of their lives standing in. These Qs(Queue) were good part of us (U&V).

Many lost their lives in this year’s second wave waiting in queues to get beds, oxygen, and treatment. Some of them had to wait in queues for their last rites too. They deserved a lot better.