Life on the line

We seem to have normalised standing in long queues as part of daily existence.

It is high time one of Nepal’s research organisations conducted a multi-pronged research on the sociological and economic imperatives of standing in queues in government offices. In fact, "in" is often the wrong preposition to use when we speak about service seekers’ relation with government offices, as they are often always made to stand outside windows. So much so that if we think of a government office, chances are that we imagine ourselves outside of one of many windows while public officials sitting cross-legged on their rickety chairs peruse our documents. Come rain or shine, service seekers have to stand outside the window to get their work done. The window of a government office thereby becomes the frontier that divides "us", the bureaucrats and "them", the service seekers.