Queues, Elbows & Personal Space: India vs the Pacific Northwest
At a DMV in Oregon, I once stood in a line so perfectly spaced it felt like an art installation. Everyone left a generous bubble around their bodies. Nobody tried to inch ahead. Toddlers were guided gently back into place. My Mumbai brain, trained on train station platforms where queues turn into fractals under pressure, kept waiting for the real line to reveal itself.
💡 QUICK INTEL
Focus: How Indians and West Coasters line up, jostle and share space
Big Idea: Flexibility vs order, not civility vs chaos
Watch For: “Informal lines” in India that look like clusters but have rules
Survival Tip: Read body language, not only floor stickers
How a line works in India
In India, a queue is less a single straight line and more a constantly edited diagram. At railway counters or temple entrances, you might see a main line, a side line for women, another loosely forming for seniors and a fourth made of people who know someone at the front. To an outsider, it can look like cheating. To locals, it is a dynamic system that reacts to gender norms, age, heat and pure survival.
Personal space is negotiated in inches, not feet. At a busy dosa stall, strangers might stand shoulder to shoulder, each mentally tracking who arrived when. If someone pushes ahead, there is often a murmur of disapproval rather than a loud scene. Eye contact carries a lot of weight. A raised eyebrow and slight forward lean can communicate, “I am next, and we both know it.”
Why the Pacific Northwest feels almost too polite
In Portland and Seattle, lines are carefully structured. Signs tell you where to stand. Tape on the floor marks distance. Cashiers apologize for delays that in Mumbai would not even register. When an Indian friend first visited a Portland food cart pod, she stopped three people away from the window, waiting for the closer line to form. It never did. Everyone simply waited their turn.
West Coast Indians often live in both worlds. At Costco, they leave a full shopping cart of space between themselves and the person ahead. Back in India, visiting family, they automatically tighten that gap until there is about a handspan between them and the next person. Your radius expands or shrinks depending on which airport you landed at last.
How not to lose your mind or your place in either system
In India, relax into the compression. You will stand closer to strangers than you might like, but that does not automatically mean danger. Watch the direction people face and how money moves. Those are better indicators of the real line than any painted sign. If someone truly cuts in front of you, a polite “Excuse me, I was here” usually works.
On the West Coast, resist the urge to fill every small gap. Line etiquette is part of the social contract. Cutting, even by accident, can feel like a personal flaw. When my mother visited from Mumbai, I quietly coached her at Trader Joe’s: “If you can read the label on their cereal, you are too close. Take a small step back.”
“India taught me that space is a luxury. The Pacific Northwest taught me that sometimes space is also a kind of affection.”
— Priya
The Verdict: Lines in India and the Pacific Northwest run on different software. Neither one is automatically better. Both are responses to density, history and expectation. Learn the rules of each and let your elbows and empathy adjust accordingly.