Tu chal ke toh dekh, peeche seat khali hogi

1:50 p.m.The sky above the rickshaws looked clear. The road from the back gate of  AUD  to Kashmere Gate Metro Station is one of those roads where you can see people walking in the middle of the road, carefree. This road is also where rickshaws ride on the sides. A large section of the road is taken up by parked cars of the shopkeepers (and builders) in this area.

Like a great day, this day also started by noticing how high the sun stood and its brilliant heat. The class of Literary Journalism was taking a field trip and Delhi Metro was the field. The students stood at Gate no. 7 and little did they know that escalators were going to remind them of inertia that day. We were standing at the station’s entrance gate, near the entrance of ISBT bus terminal, a lot nearer to public toilets, beside a paan peek stained wall, under the hoarding which proclaimed Kejriwal’s mission and a mostly clean outside.

It is this vivid and varied outside that makes me marvel at the inside that is Kashmere Gate.

Kashmere Gate Metro Station is an area of great research for me personally. It is the largest metro station in Delhi and the only 3-line interchange metro station in India. I always thought that it would be in the race and thought Rajiv Chowk might emerge as a winner in the ‘largest’ metro station category. However, I was wrong. Recently, I started reading the signs of it too – Kashmere Gate has Burger King, Chayoos, McDonalds, 2 WHSmith stores, Sahitya Akademi bookshop and a few more eateries. There are 8 exit and entry gates to this station. You can easily get lost inside and outside this station. It is only when I got lost at one of the exits that I got to know about the enormous area this station is built in and is still being built. Once inside there are levels to this metro station but once outside you realize that the escalators were bound to trick, lifts were bound to ease you and those coloured footprints only made your life easier inside the station, not outside. It is at this station that I have been maximally asked questions about line interchange, directions, gates, exits, how do I reach so and so place.

Silver of the Metro

At 2:14 p.m. I boarded the Violet line going towards Escorts Mujesar, navigated through the silver of the metro, zig zagged around the poles and found a seat. Someone while pushing his friend to the later coaches said tu chal ke toh dekh, peeche seat khali hogi… His words had the wisdom of an experienced traveler. These experiences are what I used in the journey because I went all the way to the last coach. Later coaches had comparatively fewer people. I took out my notebook to write the timings and the record the time at which the metro makes a stop at each of these stations. 

At 2:26 p.m. A man asks me to interchange seat on Mandi House. I sit opposite another man and notice how the voice in the metro has increased and there is a loudness in it.
At 2:30 p.m. we reach C. Sec and I notice that 30 people are looking at phone. Those who are not using phone have closed their eyes or are staring straight. There is no one I find with a physical book in hand or anyone reading newspapers.  My neighbor looks into what other people are doing in their phones; he shifts his gaze on my notebook and reads. I stop writing and shift so that he knows that I know. But he doesn’t catch the movement, I think.
At 2:38 p.m. we reach Jangpura and there is a tired feeling that sets in the coach. Two women walk inside and remind me of my relatives when they meet in metro as they say– Tu Baith, Nahi Tu Baith. They both sit beside me and talk about material of suits and what is the latest stuff in the market of suits. One of them also asks about what the next station is after every few minutes, the other woman calms her by telling her Abhi nahi aaya.

I was looking at how people cross their legs and occupy seating spaces

My neighbor looks into my notebook and I write that down. I do not attempt at hiding it because I too was reading the conversations of other people. And still with all this reading, talking, it was the loudness of the male voice that kept drowning out the voice of the women beside me.  
At 2:40 p.m. we reach Lajpat Nagar, the metro goes over ground into the light of afternoon and the light suddenly makes the coach seem a little more spacious. While the train was on its way to Kailash colony, the gates along the line blocked my view. All I could see were these white terraces with numerous small dots on them – dish antenna, brightly coloured buildings, orange, red, white, cream coloured houses and telephone company towers, which make regular appearances through out the journey.
At 3:07 p.m. I reach Sarai and the metro feels lighter as we were reaching the end. I recorded in my notebook the camaraderie- winks, small bits of leg pulling and the loudness of HAHAHA.

Near Badarpur

So many times, it felt as I looked outside, how metro was travelling on a border – as if I was reading the world from two edges and none will be as true as what I am reading them right now to be. The distance of this reader was evident. There is no zooming in or zooming out while reading these kinds of scenes. It felt like following a trail or a linear narrative, as you make your way on the sides. I was noticing the edges. If to my left I saw a green cover, then to my right I only saw red bricked houses. If to my right there were corporate towers or posh localities then to the right there will be short small dirty red houses whose localities and lanes still made space for a little bit green. However, these stretches kept alternating. There was not a clear belt or specific rule that the houses on my right side were always in rich localities. These sights kept taking turns and were never limited to left or right side. But whenever these contrasts appeared, there was never a hint of one class making a dent against another class. It looked instead the case of accumulation – one class collected on one side of the flyover, another class collected on the other side of the flyover.

                                                 

At 3:21 p.m. I notice the absence of a person, sleeping in the seat opposite me, resting his head on the glass. He had just gotten off.
At 3:30 p.m.  we reach Escorts Mujesar and through the doors across me I notice a clear separation between a well built, cleanly, painted houses on one side and zone of red brick houses with a Maruti Suzuki plant irregularly sticking out.  

At 3:45 p.m. I boarded the train once again to reach Kashmere Gate. Through out the journey what kept me on hooks was that I would notice a book. Despite all the reading I was doing, no one asked me why I was writing or what I was writing. I went from coach to coach but could not find anyone reading books or newspapers. This was quite contrary to the experience I have had on yellow line. I have always found the presence of physical books, even if it is a Homeopathy book on yellow line.

Could not find books

At Bata Chowk an old man walked in and took the seat under ‘for old and disabled’, even though there were other seats he could have taken as the metro was empty. The older men in my coach were all standing or seated in the corners. There have been times when I have been asked to shift to seats for reserved for women. There have been times when I consciously make the choice of sitting in middle or in between two people just so that there is more visible presence of women – so that more women can find spaces in metro. While going from coach to coach I was looking at this visibility perhaps but visibility of books. I was also looking to find a book dropped by ‘booksondelhimetro’ but in so many years of traveling in metro, almost every day, I have never found a book.

At 4:33 p.m. we reached Kailash Colony and the rain drops started slashing against the window pane the general mood of the metro also changed. People leaning on the doors noticed the weather and chattering rose. I was looking at hoarding of Modi on one Petrol Pump, near Harikesh Nagar when someone remarked ‘Aaj Bharat Band hai’?

No one answered. Some fumbled in their pockets and checked for phones. I was perplexed, but finally as I reached Kashmere Gate, I was desperate to check whether the weather at Badarpur Border had picked up with that at Kashmere Gate.