Watching from a Singaporean’s perspective, the Indian way of life…

the Indian way of life…[if I can be presumptuous to think I can describe it based on the snippets of moments I have in Bangalore]

While waiting to pay at the supermarket [small neighbourhood one], I noticed what is a common scenario.

The man at the counter where I was standing in line, was trying to sort a problem for the customer before me, he called out to his colleague at the next counter [only 3 counters in total]. That other person was not responding because he seemed to be in a space of his own, while ringing up a customer’s purchase [no, it was not because he was focused on his customer that he did not respond].

After several attempts to communicate, the one who was going to ring up my purchases, walked over to that other counter together with the customer who was before me.

That took about ten minutes. He then came to me and started to ring up the items in my basket, but a conversation started amongst the three cashiers about a customer who had just walked out. He was talking and ringing up my items at the same time – I was observing his multi-tasking abilities.

Watching the entire episode without understanding a thing, I noticed that everyone got involved – all the customers and the staff – seemed engrossed in the details of the exchange.

Being the external and foreign party, it felt like I was the only one not in the ‘plot’ or ‘script’ being written.

I could not even justify my impatience because it seems to be an aspect Indian culture. [took me more than 20 minutes to clear the cashier counter for 6 items, and no long queue.]

Another interesting aspect is the use of technology – it is after all a country of engineers bringing IT to the world. Every supermarket has some form of technology.

Up in Ooty [hills station], and in a very small grocery shop [like Singapore’s tiny corner provision shop], I was surprised that it is wired for credit card payment. Of course, one has to buy 200 rupees [SGD 7-8] worth of grocers.

Here’s another example, paying for 2 small facial products at a small ‘druggist’ [pharmacy] with no other customer in line, took about 20 minutes to complete the payment process. The staff was trying to find the product in his cashier system [hahaha, product inventory not uploaded yet!]

That is the way service is in India [maybe too sweeping a statement], ie technology savvy but not time efficient.

Generalising: if there was a altercation, or any 2 persons speaking animatedly, a group would gather. This happens in Singapore too. The difference, from my perspective, is that in Singapore, we stay uninvolved, like a spectator.  In India, [it is a broad brush statement] everyone gets involved like they are all intertwined, with the people momentary entering into each other’s transactional space.  It is as if there is no boundaries of who’s who – just one community completely fused together, momentarily.

Quite amusing and thought provoking….