Last week I went to the post office. Not a very interesting topic to talk about most people would think. A little mundane for a blog, some might say. However, this is India and no trip to a government-run organisation passes without some kind of stress-inducing event taking place.

My aim was simple. To send off the paperwork for the Rickshaw Run. It had to arrive in the UK within 8 days and I had no doubt that the Indian postal service would ensure this happened.

On arriving at the Post Office I tried to find the end of a queue to join, which was difficult considering the number of people jostling for a position in such a confined area. Eventually I found some semblance of a line and stood at the end of it.

While waiting my turn I started to make some observations. Firstly, I noticed that only 1 person was serving, even though about 30 customers were waiting. Secondly, I realised that there were about 20 post office workers – or should I say people who are paid to spend every day in the post office – milling around behind her. None of them appeared to be doing anything productive and it would have made sense to me if they had helped out by selling some stamps or something. But what do I know.

After I had been waiting for 15 minutes the sole server stood up and went into the office at the back without a word of explanation to anyone. It transpired that she had gone for lunch. I expected someone else to take her place in order to continue dealing with the customers, but this didn’t happen. Instead, we all had to stand there for half an hour watching numerous staff doing nothing in particular, while she filled her face.

No doubt feeling refreshed after her lengthy lunch, the lady returned to her desk. At this point I made the stupid assumption that she would start serving people again. But no. Instead, she and the rest of her colleagues took the opportunity to give presents to each other. I have no idea what they were celebrating, but I’d been waiting so long by this point that I felt well enough acquainted with them to be deserving of a gift myself.

When she finally sat down again I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally she would get on with serving some customers. Again I was mistaken. This time she pulled out a variety of wedding invitations and took about deciding which was the nicest, having an in-depth discussion with her friend about it.

Eventually, I saw the look in her eye change. I could tell that now she was definitely ready for business. Alas, as she attempted to get back to work she realised her Internet connection wasn’t working. After much searching, and with the use of great technical expertise, she discovered the problem – it wasn’t plugged in. On solving this great mystery she did the right thing and went back to looking at the wedding invitations.

I am not the most patient of people in these kinds of situations, but the joy I felt when I was finally served more than made up for the pain I had suffered during the previous hour of psychological torment.

I generally think its bad form for a foreigner to criticise a country that is not their own. My response is normally, ‘well if you don’t like it, go back home’. I love India, but like a woman, that does not mean there aren’t things that annoy me about her. In the last four years I have spent about half of my life in India, and feel that this qualifies me to speak my mind without being seen as an arrogant outsider.

Posted by Andy on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 9:09 am.