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.’