As a courtesy to your fellow passenger, may we suggest...

Some of us might be able to complete the sentence in the title of today's post; we have seen it so often on a label stuck to the mirror in aircraft lavs.

It struck me when I was on board two days ago, that Europeans take this suggestions far more seriously than we Indians do. I was waiting to use the washroom and getting impatient as time ticked by for some time after I had heard the flush. A minute later, a European gentleman stepped outside, giving me a nod and a smile on his way out. As I closed the door behind me and looked around, I noticed the washroom was in immaculate condition, as if a cleaning crew had just departed. There were no water droplets in the sink nor anywhere on the floor. The toilet seat cover was folded down, the mirror spotlessly clean and no paper towels half-sticking-out of the waste receptacle.

I could now 'see' what the gentleman had been doing for the minute or two after I heard the flush. He was being considerate to his fellow passengers.

I am not going to present in graphic detail, the washrooms we find ourselves in, on some flights in our country, but lets us suffice it to say, that most components in the little lav are not dry. And the condition of lavs at railway stations and bus stations - well some things are best left unsaid.

Here is another example. Imagine that you are in line at a buffet for lunch at a nice hotel. You grab a dinner plate from the stack and then place a bowl on your plate for the dal. The bowl will slide in and settle down about an inch from the sloping edge of the plate. Now you ladle the dal into the bowl. How often do you manage to fill up your bowl without dropping any dal onto the plate? I have to admit, I have not been very successful at this exercise.

Contrast this with my experience at lunch yesterday. We were in a workshop all day at a client office and lunch was scheduled for 1 pm in the corporate dining area. There was a long table set up for us with white table cloth and napkins and the silverware laid out. We went through the soup and salad course, then the main course and then dessert, going back and forth between the buffet and our table each time. A server cleared out plates after each course. And here's the thing.

The table was pristine every time we came back to it. There were no bread crumbs, no odd pieces of salad and not even water droplets anywhere on the table cloth. I struggle to remember the last time something like this happened at a buffet in India. Let alone the dining table, there is a bit of a mess even at the spread after a few people have been there - spots of dal, water and flecks of salad all over the place.

Why is it that Indians are always in a hurry? It think it is this. Doing things quickly seems to take priority over doing things well. Products made in India need another statement on the product label. "Made in a hurry". We need to change this mindset if "Make in India" is to succeed in any meaningful way. Perhaps finishing schools might be a good start.