India, Aug. 15 -- It happened a few months ago. I was standing at a baggage check-in queue at the airport. The long wait had made me a bit impatient but I was somehow managing to hold on. Suddenly, a tall and burly man with almost a dozen people following him appeared out of nowhere. He pushed me aside and a few other passengers to reach the check-in counter by jumping the queue. Tired of waiting, I decided to take him on, "Why are you jumping the queue? Can't you see we've been waiting, too?" The man, double my size, stared back and said, "We are a group of 12. We need to go ahead because it's going to take some time to get our boarding passes." I confronted him, "How does being the leader of a group entitle you to break the rules?" "Mind your own business," he shot back and went ahead with his group in tow. I couldn't do much but fret and fume under my breath until an employee of the airline who was watching from a distance came to my rescue and offered to escort me to another counter to compensate for the delay, of course, by bypassing another queue. I politely declined and decided to wait my turn rather than earn the wrath of someone else. Such incidents are commonplace in our country. We haven't been conditioned and sensitised to follow a queue. Everywhere we go, we come across multiple queues instead of a single orderly one. Everyone seems to be in great hurry and given a chance, anxious to jump the queue. Habitual queue jumpers are always eager to get ahead by breaching the rights of the people who choose to follow the line. Similar chaos can be seen in banks, at counters of government offices and hospitals or for that matter even while getting off a plane or train. Any work that requires little time sometimes gets inordinately delayed because of the ruckus created by people who swarm the counters. I sometimes wonder if society as a whole is responsible for us crossing the line. In our country, a man who breaks and bends the rules to suit his whims is considered a hero of sorts as if only the meek and modest are supposed to abide by rules. Our movies are replete with dialogues like, 'Line wahi se shuru hoti hai jahan pe hum khade hote hain (The queue starts from where I stand)." Perhaps, we get a thrill by flouting rules or maybe it boosts our ego. Last year, a friend went to visit his son in Australia. When he returned, he narrated an interesting anecdote. His wife and he were waiting in line to buy tickets for visiting a museum. As the queue was moving slowly, the couple decided to take a breather by leaning against a railing that was a good two feet away from the queue. To their surprise, people standing behind them also moved along the railing to make sure that the elderly couple retained their spot in the queue. Following a queue teaches us the virtues of patience, calmness and fortitude. It's high time we followed the principle of 'sangat and pangat (community and selfless service)' propagated by Guru Nanak Dev ji to make our and others' lives easier....