Patience: India's greatest virtue?

A lot of people don’t like waiting – especially people from cities (like New York) and countries (like America) where everything is served up *fast*. But in India, time moves slowly: people don’t walk, but amble; traffic doesn’t speed, but sputters; plumbers don’t arrive, but call to say they’ll arrive tomorrow; public works projects never finish (if they start at all); shows start two hours after they’re supposed to; court cases lag for years; trains depart fourteen hours late. The amazing part is that, from what I’ve seen, many Indians don’t seem to mind waiting. They linger over cups of chai and amuse themselves with card games and conversation. They live one more day without hot water. They don’t protest when the government doesn’t deliver on promises of better sanitation or building public parks.

(Here’s a side note. Those last couple of examples show how the great Indian capacity for waiting – while it may be the product of some fantastical inner peace – doesn’t always work in Indians’ favor. Perhaps if ordinary people demanded more immediate action from their elected officials, and were less contented to wait behind endless rows of red tape, the government would learn to be more efficient. Perhaps if consumers refused to employ lagging plumbers, those plumbers would realize the importance of showing up on time – and of actually fixing the plumbing, instead of solving the problem partway in an effort to guarantee themselves future business.)

(And here’s a second side note. There are a few situations in which most Indians are scramblingly impatient. Lines have this effect: people will wait on line at the train station or the bank, but they’ll cram themselves against each other as if physical proximity to the service counter will speed up their waiting time. This makes most lines in India highly, highly uncomfortable for the person who values a few inches between herself and the people behind and in front of her in line. Sadly for India, I haven’t yet learned to bid adieu to such worldly attachments as personal space. Indians are also incredibly impatient when it comes to public transportation: they’ll push and scramble to board trains, leave planes, and find seats on the Metro. This leads to a lot of crushing and some minor, good-natured violence.)

In any case, I have started to love waiting. My reasons are simple, really, and I’m sure you could read about them in any old self-help book: we all lead busy lives, so every now and then it’s important to *just do nothing*. In that respect, then, a wait is a blessing. It’s an opportunity for a person to lift her eyes and look at everything going on around her – to observe people, places, interactions, and signs that perhaps she wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. It’s an opportunity for her to think, imagine, dream. It’s an opportunity for her to reflect on just how much she really wants (or needs) whatever it is she’s waiting for. She waits, she breathes, the world turns just fine.