Note to self: I have got to invite @Coloma to dinner some day.
This sort of thing happens in Asia a lot. In fact, it seems to be the norm in Asia, to the extent that “lines” even form for anything. One place where queues are more or less enforced are at the “official” (read “government official”) checkpoints, such as security screenings at airport terminals, passport and customs booths and checkers, etc. (Queues do not form at the terminal gate, however. When they start calling the plane to be boarded “by row” everyone gets up in a mass and charges – more or less – for the boarding gate.)
Even at the “official checkpoints” the queues can break down. On my last trip back from India I was standing in line at the velvet rope near the hand luggage screener, with an armed guard enforcing who can leave the line to proceed to the smaller line at the counter where we partially empty some luggage into trays, remove belts and phones and the like. So I got the go-ahead, as did the man next in line behind me. He immediately shouldered me aside and moved to the counter in front of me, as brazen as you please. I was not in a rush, have learned to expect this sort of casual rudeness in India, and was just sort of bemused by it all. However, the man who had been in front of me all the time, an Indian himself, had seen what had happened, and rounded on the interloper. He gave him such a (polite and quiet, but mad as hell) dressing-down that I thought I was watching a first grade teacher hissing at a fidgety student in an assembly. He scathingly informed the man that I had been in his place, that he had completely disrespected me, and that I might now tell stories of rude Indians for the rest of my life because of this. And only the three of us could hear what was going on. This was not a loud and embarrassing scene. But it was loud enough and embarrassing enough to the line-cutter! He tucked his tail between his legs, made up a story about how he thought I was going to some other (non-existent) line, etc. etc., begged my forgiveness and walked away, practically in tears. My benefactor apologized to me that I had to witness such rudeness and such a correction and even offered to let me go ahead of him. I thanked him, but declined his offer, of course.
So I’m here to tell the story of the super-polite Indian who would like all other Indians to be proper ambassadors of the place – and to take his example as my own. You’d better not cut in line behind me now, either.