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.