Shared taxi's and Extended Famlies

If it didn't happen so many times, I would have not noticed it. But it was the third time during this trip and I figured it was something worth mentioning...
As you may know, the way to get around in many developing countries is a shared taxi. It is usually a seven seated mini van that is filled with ten people or more.
Skinny? Age 12 or younger? Last one on? You are sitting on a lap.
The trick behind these shared taxis is to be on of the last ones on. If you are the first one, you may have to wait 30 minutes or more until the taxi scout find more people to fill up the rest of the seats. I learned this the hard way after being hurriedly scooted into a taxi van in Ghana with the utmost urgency, only to learn that I would be sitting in the nearly empty taxi with no air conditioning in hundred degree weather. In my trips to Africa I developed a skill for hanging around the taxi, ordering tea, and spending time until the last minute when I could jump onto a nearly full taxi (but not the last one, see above) and take off. This skill eventually developed into a unconscious habit.
So while here in India I have stepped away from a taxi for a minute to get a Chai, or snack and come back to the taxi to see it nearly full. I find myself thinking where did these people all come from. I can not convey how uncanny it is to experience. I felt like I blinked and there was a minivan full of people. To explain this phenomenon I subconsciously searched for frames of reference.
While here I had been pondering how a country like India gets so populace. Could it be the abundance of food? The lack of genocidal wars? Early establishment of centralized government? So, following along this mind direction, for a brief second I thought, India is so full of people, that shared taxi's just fill up in an instant. However, I was not satisfied with this simplistic explanation. I looked at the contented of the taxi and there was a diversity of ages. Small kids, teenagers, people my age and my parents age. Then as I saw their behavior, they all seemed to know each other. This was all the observation I needed to conclude that the reason shared taxis fill up so quickly is that entire families are getting on at once. Furthermore, they are not American families consisting of two parents and a kid, but Asian families that consist of grandma, grandpa, uncles, cousins....
For the remainder of my time here, I will be sure to grab a seat while I can get it.

Intercultural Tip: Unconscious behavior was once a conscious response to a particular circumstance. When circumstances change, your unconscious behavior will need to be brought to your conscious.