At train stations or sweet shops in Mumbai, Lahore, or Dhaka, people are often squished together, jostling for an employee’s attention. There may be elbow jabbing and shoe stepping because everyone knows it’s rarely about who got there first. It’s about who’s the most eager, creative, or assertive.
Many South Asians find their peers’ refusal to line up or wait their turn particularly frustrating. There are entire Quora and Reddit threads decrying the habit. In the West, meanwhile, queue jumping is a cardinal sin: when an individual cuts a line, someone is likely to object 54% of the time. That rises to 91% when two people do so. The act elicits such strong reactions because queues seem to be a “fair” way to wait for one’s turn. So why do South Asians disregard lines? Are they less fair or patient? Well, not entirely.