The Violet Tube Prance

 The exercise was to explore and curate the experience of traveling in the Delhi metro on the violet line, with Kashmere Gate as the beginning, up till Escorts Mujessar and back. Tiresome and a little too mundane in between, we completed it nonetheless. To be honest, we had no clue what we were to expect from it, hence the narration thereby turns completely subjective from here onwards.

It was a humid day and all of us huddled into a semi crowded metro in the violet line. As told, we tried to be ‘as dispersed as we felt we were’ which was in groups of 2/3 for the first 10 stations. Usually I would refrain from travelling in general coaches if alone, but that day I had company, so I entered a general coach with my friends. 

Being no stranger to uncomfortable stares, I noticed how men, especially, reacted to my friend’s colorful attire which is a definite jibe by heteronormativity at my said friend’s non generic clothes. As always, I felt sad at how toxic masculinity pushes most men into a space of non exploration in terms of fashion and expressing choice of outer appearances. A middle aged man, a little too ‘intrigued’ by us, moved closer to listen to our conversations and even check my friend’s phone while he checked his messages. Even my obvious stare back didn’t move his eyes away, clearly invasion of privacy seemed a redundant concept to him. I stopped paying him any attention further. I joined into a rant of mundane adulating issues with my friends.

Moving along, at a short distance was a young guy who had a newspaper in front of him. It felt good to see such a sight amidst the otherwise ping-ping of smart phones and dangling coils of earphones from almost everyone’s ears. But even before I could finish my thought, I saw the guy click pictures off of the newspaper, ‘content’ are what I thought( Sigh). Who am I to blame! I myself only read newspapers only when I visit home and the hard copies of BOLD information guilts me into reading them. Like that guy on train, I too rely on people who sometimes transmit news through social media. Guess I am too part of the smart addicts club.

As the metro moved over-ground and cruising through the privilege of an upper view of the city, I noticed the usual transition between glass paneled buildings (with probable over priced coffee while everyone pretended they had the best job) and also children playing with tire tubes on the side of the streets, with absolute 0 care to the speeding vehicles who probably drive with lesser caution to their (children) safety but more to their vehicle. I start mulling the concept of development then. Playing food for thought is when we reach Sarita Vihar. Lying to south east pocket of Delhi, this town is highly industrial and has posh localities as well. Limited to viewing only from the moving metro, first I noticed the All India Institute of Ayurveda, whose existence I wasn’t aware of earlier, and in about 500 m distance, was an old age home. Now 500 m more distance was a thermal plant situated. The obvious irony here is also the common thread combining the three: health. While the first institute is built for bettering health, the last one isn’t a facility that is supposed to exist in amidst of a residential area, I believe. The old age home seems like the irony of it, existing in middle with very little to resist or complain.

The metro kept moving further and I tried to expand my ‘content’ and experience (?) as well. Inside the tube, it felt like the presence of earphones were more than the actual number of people. Or maybe my mind was exaggerating in order to amplify my line of thought. It somewhat went on like this: the use of earphones began with two intents-assist in hearing music better, which was earlier restricted to walkmans and i-pods but slowly smart phones began their hegemony all over. The second intent was to offer privacy to whatever one was listening to. Like all others, the good side of an invention can easily turn into evil, as very often visible. We saw the rapid growth of earphones turning into accessories and mandatory equipment in our attire. From noise cancelling headphones to replacing speaker phones, we weren’t that quick to realize the transition of assistance to dependency. I cannot imagine how many times a day I ignore the warning box my very SMARTphone displays about increasing the volume above the recommended level. I am optimistic I am not the only one and in a large demography of millennials, earphones are meant to do singular job-disconnect you from the world. For all we desire is isolating our thoughts and feelings from an ever growing chaotic environment we created ourselves. Hence we call our earphones savior now. This also makes me think of what would be the next couple generations grow up with?Mass impaired in hearing conceived at birth because the parents’ disconnection had turned survival instinct? Ironically I continue wondering all of these while cranking my volume to the maximum for the Dreamcatcher tune. It was my disconnection jam, you see?

Another very common phenomenon on a metro is people dozing off and even snoring loud enough for an entire coach to hear. Hell I have even witnessed people sleeping while standing up! How one does that is beyond my comprehension but definitely deserves some respect as well as sympathy as to how awfully tired one has to be to fall asleep upright. I too have this ability to fall asleep while on a vehicle in motion but I definitely prefer to be seated or lie down comfortably first. What is unusual is how sleeping people are found at metros at any time of the day. Even if one is finishing sleep during the morning or dozing off while returning from office, how does it explain people sleeping during rest of the time of the day? Exhaustion is a definitive reason and sleep deprivation another. This, points towards the growing amount of people suffering a burn out at an earlier age in the last decade or so. Health definitely occupies a bottom place in our priorities list.

We reached out last station and boarded another metro for the return journey. The other side of the same route was now up for exploration. Enroute, a large ornamental piece of elevated land in the middle of an urban space caught my eye. Like the mantle piece at home that Maa would very carefully keep neat every morning, Mohan Estate seems to have decorated erected their own matle piece with a small mountain sized garbage dump right in the middle of the area. Just as the government in India slyly hid away (literally) slum areas with clothes during the Japan’s Prime Minister tour of Delhi, Mohan Estate too adorned the immediate sides of the metro with scores of showrooms of popular car brands like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, etc. As if it makes up for the not-so-hide_able centerpiece of garbage not too far behind.

One hilarious encounter did happen in this entire journey. So when the class was asked to also explore the ends of the metro coaches, most of us sat away from each other and at one point, scattered evenly. So while travelling from one end to the other, I would say hi or simply poke on the hand to each of my classmate and to any onlooker, it appeared as if I was waving and posing random conversations with complete strangers. The reaction was absolute hilarious and video-worthy (!)

The long metro ride had almost come to an end with discussing fashion choices and hunger pangs all of us had by far, then collected in the pit of our stomach. With recommendations of kebab places around Jama Masjid, we eventually had a large glass of juice outside college once we reached. The impending rain did trap some of us for awhile outside the shop but all in all, we had completed our task for the day. Delhi weather, I tell you.

love rides

 

The following write-up is a culmination of the writer’s experience through a two-hour long to and fro excruciating underground train journey from origin station to destination in the famed Delhi Metro. The field trip was organised as a part of the Literary Journalism course at Ambedkar University, Delhi.

LOVE RIDES 

More than halfway into the metro ride, a sense of déjà vu struck me like anamnesis. Was I here before? With you, you, you and you? I looked around that moving metal cage inside which we were trapped. The evening sun flooded through the glass walls into the aquarium. We were all fishes, brightly coloured fishes swimming through the train compartments looking for a way out.

I asked myself again, “why was I on this field trip?” Was it my teacher’s persuasion that convinced me out of my fear of claustrophobia travelling in long distance underground trains? Or was I just buckling under the pressure of academic mandates to agree for a writing assignment based on a to and fro Delhi metro ride, from origin to destination stations of an ever expanding underground railway network? The incessant mechanical announcements interfered with the voices in my head. Bomb warnings, do not litter warnings, do not eat inside the metro warnings, don’t smoke, don’t spit warnings, next station – Badarpur. I stood near the gates, to breathe in a mouthful of air everytime the doors slid open. I opened my eyes and I shut my ears by sheer force of the will. I thought again, why was I here. Or, why I didn’t want to, in the first place? I looked outside the expanse of the city, glad that at least this underground train was out of the tunnels, now speeding on mono-bridges.

Delhi, peeked out of its original habitat of desert babool shrubs. Just that now the brick and concrete has overpowered the wilderness. Delhi, whose parks and parking lots are shaped and manicured out of what once was impenetrable cacti. Delhi, the land locked capital city of a brahminical empire. We were so close to the ruins of Tughlaqabad, but we skipped it like pages of forgotten history. Even if Delhi Metro has a station there, it still takes an auto ride to reach that haunted city. The monotonous voice rambled on from in-built speakers, “next station blah blah blah, doors open on the right side”. The voice in my head wrestled to be heard, “why was I here”? Another voice rose from within, the self-critical reasoning assumed the role of a referee and intervened between the mingling sounds of screeching metal wheels and automated audio formats – “why are you here in the first place?” “Is it my city?” “Is it where I belong to?”

Metro is horrors because here I encounter first hand the city I so long to escape from.

My knees went weak and my heart shivered.

Travelling in the Metro is like probing the inner body of this mammoth city.

It is said that people of Delhi automatically become more ruly when they enter into Metro complexes. I heard “bhenchod, bhenchod” but in faint whispers. The people of Delhi laughed and sweated and exchanged gossip and lunch boxes. I looked around furtively. Some of them looked back at me. I lowered my eyes. It was the historic day of India’s 377 judgement. On the metro ride back I noticed a broken down building with a signboard that said, “Fags and Drags”. I fished out my camera but the vision was gone. I was disappointed. No one would believe me, I thought.

Apart from claustrophobia and alienation I felt from the Metro and largely the city, another thought descended upon me like dark clouds. What was I avoiding by trying to avoid the metro ride? I saw myself standing at the crossroads. Constantly having to choose between love and loneliness. I thought, “should I plug in my earphones?” It was my one and only way to shut the noises in my head and around me. Or should I gossip with my friends? Wasn’t I lucky? The whole pack was with me today. Out of the University’s crumbling four walls. And yet we found ourselves trapped again in boundaries both physical and metaphysical. I reached out to you, you, you and you.

My anxieties dissolved around me. The aquarium turned its colour to purple (or was it just dusk?). I let the smiles enter me, take hold of my existence. I could breathe again, even inside the tunnels. I did not follow strangers, lights or the voices in my head. I followed you. Laughing, exchanging glances and gossip. At the end of the journey, the distance between you and I gradually and slowly extended. Standing at the base of the escalator I reached out for you, but you faded from my vision, moving away, slowly, dramatically. My fish in pink and blue.

Much later, out of my trance, out of the underground rail network, some of us were stuck at the juice parlour. The desert city had chosen to rain at that precise moment. You, you, you and I huddled together to save ourselves from the showers and the spray. The two-hour class had spread itself beyond four for them who did not carry umbrellas. “Who got us stuck here?” asked the voice in my head. “Juice was Jolly’s idea”, somebody said.

“I saw some broken down party place, Fags and Drags”, I said.

“I saw it too”, Jolly said.

“Fuck 377, can somebody legalise telepathy, connection, heart to heart, can somebody legalise basic, minimum  love in this forsaken city?”, the downpour diluted the voices in my head. I looked around for a rainbow in vain.

Ladies and General of the Delhi Metro

The numerous metro lines that run across Delhi are like colourful veins that keep the city’s heart pumping. Before moving to this city, which was almost five years ago, I was told by numerous relatives who reside in Delhi that to truly experience the city, one has to experience the metro. This, and that Delhi was unsafe for girls, the rape capital of the country. I moved to Delhi in the burning summer of 2013 with a very regular fear in my heart about my safety. I tiptoed around the city, avoiding any corner that had two or more men standing in a group and avoided the city on the whole after sun down. As someone who had never been around large groups of men being in a girls’ school and then moving to a girls’ college, I was petrified of them. Plus, the news had also “informed” me that men in large groups were dangerous. With the Nirbhaya case still fresh in mind I swore off buses and decided to take a metro ride to go and meet my aunt and get me some home cooked meal. Better be safe than sorry!
I remember anxiously getting into the large crowded building lined with autos, rickshaws and always a Café Coffee Day. The serious grey walls and single, straight files of people familiar with their journey was intimidating. People passed through the security checks and ticket panels like trained machine parts helping in the smooth functioning of this well-oiled machine. They were so accustomed to this routine that they could do it with their eyes glued to their phones or between the pages of a book (the two most common sights on a metro). I, on the other hand, felt like a dysfunctional part of this machine, slightly rusted. I observed closely, the ways in which people got the entire process done and I focused on copying them. Balancing the change and my wallet in one hand, my bag on my shoulder and a bottle in the other hand, I stood in the ticket line. I was embarrassingly clumsy and walked into the male security checking booth. “Memsahab udhar,” the guard pointed in the direction of the women’s booth. I walked sheepishly towards it and made sure not to make eye contact with the lady checking me after my blunder. The girl on the gateway next to mine put a blue card against the counter and the gateway in front of her opened to give her way. Did the ticket guy give me the wrong kind of a ticket? What if this grey plastic disc wasn’t the ticket? I got anxious regarding how to open my gateway. Panic was slowly rising in me. The fear of coming across as stupid refrained me from asking for help. The line behind me was increasing with a few people getting restless about the delay. A boy behind me probably sensed my crisis and offered help. Reading the boards and following the arrows, I climbed up to the platform. I was super relieved to see a pink poster stuck on the ground that said “Women Only”. I remember thinking how pretty the poster was with white flowers sprinkled on the pink around the cursive calligraphy. Suddenly I wasn’t anxious as I followed other women in the women’s compartment. Metro rides are going to be hassle free, I thought.

Now half of the “Women Only” sticker on the floor has faded and with that, my uncertainty and hesitation as well. With my head bowed down to my phone or kindle I pass through the gateways and go to the platform without seeing any direction boards. I stand on the dull pink sticker that reads only “Women” now till the metro arrives and I mechanical climb onto the women’s compartment as soon as the metro door opens with a beeping sound. Sounds are my cue now. Sight can be used for other important stuff. I take the violet line daily from Nehru Place to Kashmere Gate. Yes, it connects to Kashmere Gate now. It is my daily route; monotonous and insipid. The metro empties a little at Nehru Place, fills in at Moolchand and Lajpat Nagar. Hardly anyone gets on or off at JLN or Khan Market. A chunk of the crowd gets off at Central Secretariat and I finally get a seat at Mandi House. I make space according for the incoming and outgoing crowd without even looking up. I don’t feel the need to be super alert all the time and I am so familiar with the process in these five years that all my self-consciousness has vanished in the thin air. However, one thing that still remains is that I religiously travel only in the women’s compartment. As far as I can recall, I have travelled in the general compartments twice in five years. One of those times I was accompanied by two male friends which made me feel safe and the other time I was with my father. Otherwise, I always preferred the last (or first) ones reserved for ladies. Prevention is better than cure and fear of safety is stronger than missing a metro because one could not reach the ladies’ coach. And life in the metro went on.

On September 6^th, 2018 when our class had to go on a field trip for a class assignment. The trip involved us travelling on the violet line, from one end to the other, that is, from Kashmere Gate to Escorts Mujesar then back to Kashmere Gate. We all assembled at the metro gate ready to start our journey. It was not a journey that strayed from my daily routine so I walked on my daily path to the violet line area conversing with a friend and guiding the ones who did not travel by this line regularly. Keeping to my routine, I stood near the pink sticker and got inside the women’s coach. I sat down on a seat and covered the entire journey till Escorts Mujesar on it. This was my comfort zone. It felt pretty regular till my daily getting off station, Nehru Place. A girl with her earphones on was watching a popular romantic Hindi television show on her phone. How was she getting any signal here? What network connection did she have? Two women were talking about their household chores and one woman was setting up boundaries for her over-active kid who hung around all the poles in that coach. This was such a mundane sight that I could hardly notice anything that was worth writing about. The humdrum of my daily route made my observational skills numb. It was only after Nehru Place that I started to look outside the window. The view was unfamiliar and unfamiliar always made me uncomfortable. I had never travelled past Kalkaji before. The buildings, the trees, the roads were subtly changing with each metro station. As I got down at the Escorts Mujesar station with the rest of the class, something about the view reminded me of my hometown Lucknow. A specific area of Lucknow that wasn’t completely residential yet. There were wider open grounds, less houses. The metro station was so empty that we were the only group creating a little hustle bustle.

It was time to make the return journey, I really wanted to find something that would strike an idea in my mind. That would speak to me. After much deliberation with my own self I decided to board the general coach of the metro for our journey back to Kashmere Gate. Our entire group dismantled to find their own little details to focus on. I sat on the corner seat near the charging point and noticed that for the very first time I was the only woman in that coach. All the seats were occupied by men. Three young men stood leaning against the metal poles situated in the centre of the coach. An old fear rose in me. A fear that I had put at bay with the help of my old friend “caution” who was introduced to me by my mother. My eyes automatically searched for a female in the coach to ease my sudden restlessness. As soon as I saw one of my classmates casually leaning on the seat in the very next coach, a subtle relief washed over me and I sat back on my seat ready to observe. However, instead of observing around me, my mind got preoccupied with the abrupt and uninstigated fear that I just experienced. How was it that one coach of the same metro made me so comfortable and at ease while the other had me on the edge. The consciousness and the hesitation I had in my first metro ride returned unknowingly after five years. Just then, a middle-aged man in a bright red shirt occupied the seat just next to mine. The man was talking on the phone in a raw Haryanvi accent and even before he was about to sit down, I sat up straight again and shifted more to the left of my seat, increasing the gap between him and me. This action on a two-seater space with hardly any room to shift was a subtle sign of my constant edginess. Even though the man was extremely polite and was standing up and offering his seat every time one of my girl-friends stopped to chat with me while they were scanning through the metro, I could not shake off the uneasiness. He was busy watching a music video on his phone if not talking to someone on it every now and then, oblivious of my awkwardness. A part of me wanted to get up and go to my safe space; the ladies’ coach. More than half of my journey went by trying to be careful not to brush up against his shoulder. I sat very still and very straight. I was adamant not to leave my seat because I did not want my fear to guide me and box me up in a singular box. However, the fear was still there. At Jangpura, when an elderly uncle entered the coach booming with criticisms about the economy and the government, I swiftly got up to offer my seat to him and placed myself in a non-crowded corner of the coach.

I observed a number of things on that metro ride but this feeling that I had was something that got stuck in my mind for long after.

The ladies’ coach, “Women Only”, was no more than an air-conditioned cage which I walked into willingly because fear. The so-called “general” coach was actually a men’s coach if you think about it with one or two women sitting there in their allotted seats under the green stickers. Most of these women were accompanied by their male peers or relatives. If, by chance, they happened to be alone, they were careful to look down on the floor or phone and not make any eye contact with the fellow male passengers. They were cautious enough to put on earphones throughout their travel and sit straight with their bags in front of them on their laps. They often crossed their legs and refrained from sitting back comfortably. These were like the unsaid codes for women sitting in the “general” coach; the masculine space. I realized that Delhi Metro’s claim of a woman’s safety is a huge illusion made of glass that would break the moment a woman decided to travel in the general coach. If a woman makes a choice to not sit in the first or last coach of the metro, her safety was not guaranteed. A feature of the Delhi metro that felt like a boon to me, suddenly felt suffocating. It was another way of pigeonholing women under the context that the outside world was dangerous for them. Haven't we heard similar arguments for several other things like going out of the house or going out at night? Making a separate coach just for women is a solution but an utterly short-sighted one. It propagates the archaic idea that women need to be separated from men in order to be safe or to even feel secure. Creating a safe space for women should not necessarily mean creating a space where men aren’t allowed to enter. These “pockets of freedom” are merely an illusion. They act like small concessions in the public sphere which is otherwise entirely dominated by men and even functions on their terms. The presence of a conscious and scared female in the general compartment of the Delhi Metro, waiting for her station to arrive as soon as possible, is a proof that the claim of safety for women is a hollow one.
This deliberate compartmentalization of men and women in the capital’s most sort after public transport creates a risky rift where there is no possibility of forging a decent human connection. There is always a danger in such separation where the former might see the latter as a distant object while the latter’s fear enables a predatory perception of the former.
I mean I could have just had a mini interview with the man seated next to me for this piece, but my fear washed over that possibility. 

Viewing the city through Benjamin's eyes... and Delhi Metro

“For the first time in the history of architecture, an artificial building material appears, iron. It serves as the basis for a development whose tempo accelerates in the course of the century . . . the rail becomes the first prefabricated iron component, the precursor of the girder” wrote Walter Benjamin, in trying to understand the French capital- Paris as the centre of planning and urbanisation in the 19^th century.

I remember reading these lines; squished like a squirrel in an overcrowded metro compartment, while frantically scrolling through the essay in my mobile. At Chandini Chowk, I went back to Benjamin’s words and marked them in bright yellow. I made a note- the only note in the entire PDF- while

travelling in the e-rickshaw from Kashmiri gate to my college campus, which now says – be a Benjamin. Look at the Metro you just travelled in, and even the city, through his eyes. Note how he writes the transition of France, Paris from a post-revolutionary state to the newly emerging urban capital.

I was trying to draw parallels, between Walter Benjamin’s experience of his city, and mine. He spoke at length about the dawn of modernity, the birth of the new Era. I focused on the brightest, most glaring symbol of development that my city had to offer- that which slithered across Delhi’s uneven, apparently planned landscape. The Delhi Metro was a turning point in the national capital’s historical narrative- a development, or should I say a post- Nehruvian redevelopment that was transforming the city.

The first metro ride I had taken, as a part of the family picnic, was a middle-class experience of modernity, the wonders of technology at such a large scale that was made accessible to everyone. As I grew older, the DMRC launched many new projects and a new metro station came closer to my home. By the time I left school and went to college in 2014, Delhi Metro had become popular and easily accessible among the Delhiites. I took the Yellow Line, which connected south Delhi to north Delhi. What had been a sight of wonder to my eyes had quickly turned into a mundane routine within the first few months. Until I looked beyond what was visible, to what was not.

The first time I had travelled over ground was from Qutab Minar station in Yellow Line. The metro raced past lush green lawns of farmhouses’ in Chattarpur, and the sight continued till Arjan Garh which was three more stations away. Then began the DLF city, the ultra-modern corporate cum residential complex built by the real estate giant, worth crores. I had never seen it before - the sheer beauty of such a brilliantly planned city.  Then came the big, bright malls with twinkling lights and massive banners in MG Road station – like a siren luring me in to indulge in brazen consumerism. This was the Delhi Metro showing me the wonders, a paradise, that which was visible.

I had seen it before, the other side of Delhi, the not so paradise, so to speak of. The Metro took me there as well; it took me on a ride from its centre to its periphery, revealing its gaping flaws and imperfections on the way as I took the Violet Line the other day. It connected the interior parts of south-central Delhi with the NCR region of Faridabad. The stations became elevated from Lajpat Nagar and I heaved a sigh of relief as the Metro moved out of the dark tunnel and into the light.

There was something to be said about human behaviour, or my perhaps my behaviour, as I gladly stopped looking at others faces and got up from my seat to look outside. So did my co-passengers, who I noticed were no longer scrolling through their mobile phones or sneaking glances at each other. We were all happy to look outside, than at each other. It was a sight, a characteristic I had become familiar with –this was me, and the multitude of people around me simply trying to overcome the sensory overload of daily life this metropolis inflicted upon us every day. We took on a blasé attitude, and rationalise everything around us to create a protective layer inside the small jam-packed compartment. So I look outside than listen to the girls who were actively complaining about boys, or the lack thereof in their college.

Homes stacked like matchbox one on top of another - with patches of green cover here and there were a common sight till we reached the Okhla station. The transformation had begun now. Small factories popped up in my view, with pools of stained water stagnated in open tank-like structures.

I believe the most memorable sight, strongly etched in my mind is that of the Badarpur Thermal Power Plant. It comes into sight from Sarita Vihar; its soot-stained chimney’s a looming reminder of why the buildings at the background were perpetually cloaked in smog.

The coal-based power plant, supplying power solely to Delhi, had been ordered to shut down by July 2018. According to the report published by Centre for Science and Environment, the Badarpur Plant is the most polluting power plant in India- contributing 8 percent to the capital’s power supply but producing 80-90 percent of polluting particulate matter. I google to check whether it has shut down or not as it passes by in front of me; an official from the National Thermal Power Corporation, under which the power plant functions, had released a statement confirming my initial thought- it would not shut down until the sub-station in Tughlaqabad becomes operational.

Even as Rini Simon Khanna - it is her voice we hear inside the metro making announcements- tells me to please stand away from the doors, I press closer to catch a final glimpse of the power-plant. As we neared the outskirts of Delhi, luxury car dealerships mingled with homes made of bricks and cement with asbestos covered roof. I knew that they were made of bricks without any obvious assumption because the homes were not painted upon, or even fully made.

I finally turn to look at an almost empty compartment. We had neared the last station. As I turned to sit back, I saw my friend trying to initiate a conversation with an old woman and her little granddaughter. I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, but the little girl appeared shy, giggling at my friend. I looked out again; we were at Mewla Maharajpur station. Gone were the wide roads and flyovers weaving across one another, with manicured grass decorating the sight. Now we were passing through thin main roads that branched off into narrow alleys.

My friend was trying hard to engage with the little girl. She finally got a mouth-full of some excited words in Gujarati from the little one and a Namaste, as they got down the metro. I go back and sit,

“I didn’t get much from her” she laments. She was rationalising her attempt at conversing with two strangers, trying to mine in as much information as she could. I too, was doing the same as we got down at the last station.

The Delhi Metro has taken me places, revealing the city for what it truly is - the division of labour and class. If the upward view from Yellow line took me to the Delhi that looked like paradise, then the violent line took me to the dim underbelly of the city. The latter produced the necessary conditions, to make the former dazzle in glamour and appear the way it did.

Walter Benjamin was right; the appearance of iron and railways had introduced a new wave of urbanisation and industrialisation. These were the twin processes that have gone hand in for centuries, keeping the capitalist ideology as its central logic. As I take the Delhi Metro – a space of constant surveillance and discipline- to various parts of the city, what I see is the obedient nature of commercial transformation which Delhi has undergone, while its inhabitants assimilated themselves as cogs in this machine of so-called everyday life.

---------X--------

Reference
Benjamin Walter’s The Writer of Modern Life

In the Belly Of the Metallic Centipede

The journey begins with descending stairs hiccupping in the midst of its projectile vomit. Us, the semi-digested morsels suspended in mid-air. The long metallic centipede slithers to a stop at Kashmere Gate. A throng of people rushes in as another rushes out. Head-on collisions and elbows wedged into your torso are inevitable. The spoils are there for all to see.

For those going in, a shiny seat, and for those heading out reaching their destination in record time.The train lunges forwards, my stomach churns like at the drop of a roller coaster. Travelling nearly 80 kms an hour, the chrome bars shift and realign to the movement of the train. At Lajpat Nagar, I emerge from the cavernous tunnel into a thick landscape of the city. The horizon is dotted with the tips of telephone towers and lids of water tanks. Electrical cords hang from above and wires seem to be strewn across the sky.

Heading south-east, above ground to Faridabad, the city opens up and peters out; circling birds, low-level dwelling and the occasional shopping mall whizz past me. There's a prickly feeling at the nape of my neck, I turn around to notice a man in his early twenties with brown highlights peering into my eyes, finger on his lips, the wispy outline of a moustache, his name etched on his forearm with Henna - Deepak.

I watch three young men in their early twenties sitting cross-legged on the metro floor. As the train rolls to a halt, two of those men steal a quick glance at the doors to make sure that the prowling security guards do not notice them. It seems so absurd to me that the DMRC does not permit people to sit on the floor. I am taken back to the times I spent on buses in Bangalore. During the rush-hour, on the bus from Vasanth Nagar to Jalahalli, one would often not even find a corner to pack themselves into. A kind conductor would extract you from the crush of people and ask you to sit on big battery cover next to the driver’s wheel. By the end of the trip, you would have a burn on your backside from the heat of the battery.

I enter the Ladies Compartment to feel alive. In the other compartments, people look at me with dead eyes. Almost as if they see right through me. They look, but don’t stare. Some women dare to sit on the floor from the origin station to the final one. Others scan the seats, as they enter through the doors, to see if there’s enough space to squeeze in a single ass cheek, and if there is, with the wave of a hand, they would say, “thoda side ho jao.” Thoda side ho jao sounds a lot like the oh-so-Bangalorean refrain “swalpa adjust maadi”; please adjust a little.

Just as the announcement that cautions people from drinking, smoking or eating in the metro, the cabin has filled with the smell of someone cracking open their tiffin - jeera aloo-  saliva slips down the back of my throat. Advertisements of skimmed milk, oral contraceptive pills and bleaching creams dot the compartment. A few weekends ago, when I was travelling from GTB Nagar to Hauz Khas, I had encountered a conflict between a man, who’d dared to stroll into the womenprivate-publiclic space. They snarled at him, reminding him that he would be fined for entering their space. Unknowingly, he had strayed into the private space created for women in a public transport.

Yet another announcement. Amidst caution warnings about unidentified objects and bombs, was to report any “suspicious persons” to the Delhi metro staff. Who are these people that can be labelled as “suspicious persons” and can be discerned by ordinary passengers? What are the ascribed markers which makes one a suspicious person?

I think of the African diaspora, who resides in the city and makes use of the metro to get one from place to other. I think of the multiple times I’ve heard about students who have been racially abused, stripped and nearly lynched. I think of the time I took an auto-ride from Vijay Nagar to Subhash Nagar, and was told be wary of the “negro” by the auto-driver, who suspected them not only of kidnapping children, and eating human flesh, but also feared them for their bodies; the strength in their bones; their ability to fight back. You are a suspect for your name, the texture of your hair, your accent, the built of your body, and your place of origin.

Are Dilliwallahs proud of the metro and so of themselves? Urbanisation and colonialism have often been linked to the notion of civility and cleanliness with the regard to the question of public behaviour in metros and is most often articulated through caste or class. Is the aggressiveness that is associated with the quintessential Dilliwala getting chipped at the corner with the incessant announcements, which drill discipline, into those who ride the metro? Mirrored reflections dazzle the eye as I look around, their outlines separated from their owners, blurred turning transparent when the cabin arrives at the station.

I haven’t lived in Delhi long enough to be able to tell how it has affected the way that long-term residents conceive of space and time; whether new forms and ways of being are taking hold in the society. It’s hard to for me to distinguish the new cultural geography that is created by the physical imposition of the metro edifice on Delhi’s landscape. I can’t tell how many city-dwellers, small business-holders, street vendors were displaced as their neighbourhood was transformed into construction zones piled high with dust, corrugated metal sheets, cement and cranes. I can’t claim to understand the physical destruction and social disorientation suffered by many of the residents of these neighbourhoods; the constant construction and destruction of the city; as dislocation became relocation. I can only hazard a guess that the mafia, businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians are the urban planners of this city. All I know from the narratives around the construction of the metro is that it saved a city on the brink of its collapse. The latest jewel in the crown of ‘New India.’

A Coach of One’s Own: An Ode to the Ladies Dabba in Delhi Metro

A young girl wearing skinny jeans and a top, with a casual bag and a little junk jewellery gets off the rickshaw and enters the metro station. She gets herself frisked at the ladies security check, uses a prepaid smart card to check-in, and waits at the ‘women only’ side of the platform marked in pink before entering the ladies coach.

On the face of it, this is how I as a middle-class woman have experienced the DMRC almost every day to travel for my education and work since the last four years.

In an attempt to follow my past interest in locating gender in public transport, I took part in undergoing a field trip with my Literary Journalism class. This assignment made me realise that the ladies coach has been more of a personal life coach for me. All the puns intended.

The day was 6/9 and news had just broken out that Section 377 of the Constitution has been repealed. As my class was waiting at Gate No. 7 of Kashmere Gate metro station, I instinctively congratulated our instructor upon the SC’s judgement, only to be met with a pause. After reverting back the congratulatory wish to the entire class, he looked at me and said, “Celebrate yes, but don’t let it deflect your attention away from other things.” Oh, so maybe the world doesn't really change overnight for women and other genders.

As we make our way inside, to go to the last station of Escorts Mujesar on the Violet line, I enter the ladies coach out of habit despite mentally psyching myself earlier that day to enter the general coach on the pretext of the assignment. I find a seat near the periphery of the two coaches, and take out my little spiral notebook to jot down anything and everything I find worthy of thought and reflection.

The DMRC ladies coach accomodates around 361 commuters (43 seating and 318 standing).* However one can generally find more than 43 women sitting, even in a congested way as they do not have to worry about minding the body distance as they do in the presence of men. While we were moving towards progressiveness with 377 being out now, but a woman must still look left and right before taking a seat in the metro.

Soon an old lady appeared clad in a saree with her pallu covering her head. She was accompanied by a little girl no more of 10 years of age. I ask her if she wants to sit, preparing to get up. But she held out her hand and politely refused with a beaming smile. Her face contrasted with that of the entire coach who looked as morose as a child whose parents didn't let them adopt a puppy.

The lady next to me got up as her station had arrived, and the old lady sat next to me, and the girl standing near her lap. The little one saw me noting down the logistics of our trip with the corner of her eye. I bent a bit to reach her height and playfully asked her what she’s looking at. She giggled nervously and shook her head.

Photo Credit: Veni Ethiraj

“Aap school jaate ho?” my inquisitive self had awaken in this field trip. She shook her head in the negative. “Kyu?” I asked softly. I saw her smile fade a bit, and she just looked at me for a while before turning away. After two minutes, when I again saw her stealing glances at my notebook, I promptly opened the last page which was blank and held out the pen in my hand out to her. “Chalo main aaj aapko drawing sikhati hu.” I smiled and offered. Much to my dismay, she instantly gave the same reaction she’d been giving me all this while: giggled, refused, and now buried her face in the lady’s lap who I learnt later was her grandmother. Wondering if I’m scaring her with all these big questions, I decide to give it a rest for a while. I just remarked to the lady that I too was equally shy as the little girl when I was a child. The girl looked up to her grandmother, they locked eyes and smiled warmly at each other.

Photo Credit: Veni Ethiraj

As the train moved over-ground and the bright afternoon sunlight lit up the inside of the coach, I felt the mood of the people in my coach lighten around me. The girl had started acting playful around me, although it was still difficult to get her to talk to me. But I was very quick to realise that even initiating the conversation (whenever the rare time occurred of me doing so) was something I was only capable of doing in the ladies coach with other women. This kind of a community formation is something I cannot really imagine with a random man unless I had a very good and formal reason of doing so, otherwise the fear always lingers that it would be misconstrued in the wrong way. I wonder how and if the same applies when the genders are interchanged.
 

Meanwhile, I noticed a group of college girls that came in front of my seat and happily chatted away with each other- talking about boys while sharing a small packet of Kurkure. The ladies coach is no stranger to this little glimpse of sisterhood away from the male gaze. Of women gathered around each other, sitting on the floor laughing unabashedly, sharing food, and pouting for selfies without any hesitation; even doing their makeup or breastfeeding in peace. The ability to do all these things without being self-conscious lends to a casual atmosphere.

“Aurat hi aurat ki sabse badi dushman hoti hai.”? #NotAllWomen

But some men are definitely guilty of raining on our parade. Just four days after my field trip Hindustan Times published a report of how in 2017, 2081 men were caught travelling in the designated women’s coach despite there being a special security force unit employed at prime interchange stations like Kashmere Gate, Rajiv Chowk, Noida, and Inderlok to manage the crowd.

That is in addition to at least three pink floral signage on the platform. There is also a regular announcement in the coaches where male passengers are "requested" not to board the coach reserved for ladies and that “doing so is a punishable offence”, which amounts to Rs. 250 as specified in the information boards at the station.

I feel dismayed that how amongst all the other numerous coaches practically dominated by men, I often find the coach right beside the women’s coach the most crowded especially on the Red Line. Even if they don’t enter, one can always find men standing on the border of the ladies coach continuously staring at women to pass their time and a crowd of men spilling right into the first car on crowded days.

                              

 Wall Art outside Malviya Nagar Metro Station.

Artist Credit: Unknown

But why this unconditional love for the ladies coach and this protectiveness from these space invaders, you ask? Because this is a rare moment of a private space for women in the public transport, the first in Delhi if I may say so.

I remember how while returning back home, a woman requested me to tie the strings of her backless kurti which had come undone. And how another woman removed her jacket and just stretched her arms out in a noodle-strap crop top after a long tiring day. Yes, there was the occasional aunty who peers at you with moral judgement, and I find it irritating. But it is nowhere near the absolute threat of when a man looks at me. After all, there is a threat and there is the threat.

The first car in the moving direction is reserved for ladies, and I am so glad it is. Maybe it is called 'Reservation' because so many people almost always have their own reservations about it. 

But it is in this very space where I found my capacity to vocally protest as a woman for the very first time in my entire life. Yes, not in a street protest, not in a classroom setting, but in the ladies dabba. The ease and unprecedented authority with which I found myself routinely policing any male sightings for entering the ladies coach felt so extraordinary.

Stronger Together GIF by Laura Salaberry

But how is this different from other transport like a bus for example which also has the affirmative action of reserved seats for women? While travelling by bus, even protesting harassment is difficult. Since the co-passengers are mostly men, the female victim is not lent much support and it becomes more of an embarrassment than an effective means of redressal. Also, the offenders in a bus could easily make a dash for the road and run away out of our catch. In this sense, the metro is relatively a more controlled space with gun-toting guards present at every entry-exit point. The efficiency, well, is up for debate. But the mechanism is nevertheless there.

While it is also not always the case that other women echo the concerns of the victim in the metro, but in the ladies coach, they’re always in the majority. With these male passengers being a minority amongst all these other women, I get to experience what being in a dominant group feels like and the kind of strength it lends you.

This is probably how the men of the world feel all the time, I realise, as they majorly occupy most of the public spaces at any time of the day.

Though it is an artificial space as we have to eventually de-board and participate in real life gender dynamics, but the provision of the ladies coach and the momentary symbolic power it lends has translated into something more tangible: it has made me a little more bold to stand up for myself as a woman even on the road now, and a little less fearless to loiter around the city. 

 

*Shelly Tara, 'Locating Gender in the Delhi Metro' (2011) EPW.