Madness to the Metro Method

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The Delhi Metro has made the travel of many women, within the city and in its peripheral spillage, possible. A separate women’s compartment, well-lit premises and coaches, the presence of gun-toting security men, constant announcements which can be overheard through the phone, etc., create an image of safety, even if it is only an illusion. A 17-year-old unaccompanied girl travelling 44 kilometres within the city to go to college everyday would not have been readily accepted, even in 2015, had it not been for the metro. The ease of travel has now enabled girls from as far as Sonipat, Faridabad and Bahadurgarh to come to the city daily, to study or to work, something hard to imagine without the now familiar and continuously outreaching lines snaking over and under the cityscape.

However, though the commute by the metro may seem especially dandy superficially, it takes an acclimated traveller to recognise the madness there is to the method of the Metro. A nonuniform suspicion, gendered and caste/classist, blankets the commuters as they enter the station where CCTVs record each move. Security personnel give you tough looks if you enter the pat-down cubicle talking on your phone or wearing headphones. One has to visibly submit to the frisking, the mere act of walking into the cubicle isn’t enough compliance. As I walk inside the Kashmere Gate metro station, the female frisker asks me to throw away the apple I’m eating since it’s not allowed in the metro. Done eating anyway and too tired to call out the nonsense like I usually do, I do as she says. A few convenient dustbins dot Delhi metro stations now, a delayed compliance with 2015 High Court orders trashing concerns about bomb planting.

In spite of there being a no-eating policy inside the Metro, it is obvious how lax, nonsensical even, it is, considering the number of eateries within most stations, most with no place to sit and eat. The policy is now misused by the authorities to discourage people from eating home-brought food. A law with no practical insight, the one prohibiting spitting too is no different for there are no spittoons within the metro premises.

As I move two floors below the ground to board the Violet line, the familiar unpleasant feeling of entrapment makes my movements lethargic. The station is flooded by LED lights and conditioned air, making it seem totally disconnected from the reality outside. In here, you can only rely on mechanical time to tell of its natural passing. A girl boards the general compartment with me. As she expertly edges her way by women carrying suitcase-sized purses and swift-stepped men to win the corner seat, I know she is a seasoned traveller. She plugs in her earphones, rests her head against the glass and closes her eyes. The timing made impeccable by experience, she winds her earphones just as the train pushes out of Sector 28, the 27th station, needing no visual or audio announcement. I see her feet clad in sheer skin-colour socks and practical flats and recognise a traveller who has to use another public conveyance, perhaps a bus or a share auto, to and from the metro. As she whips out a chunni and her MetroCard while de-boarding at Badkhal Mor, I know I’m right.

This is a generation of city cruisers who travel from one end of the city to the other with no idea of the places they pass. The obscurity of underground tunnels disables any sense of movement, the telltale jerks and the screeching of metal wheels the only means of cognition.
I have been travelling in the metro for years, and know most lines like the ones on my palm. Yet never have I been able, in all this time, to visit the Akshardham Temple, the Red Fort or the Shivaji Stadium as pass through their namesake stations. Metro has made Delhi just a city of names. It has made it possible to move through the city without even the soles of our footwear soiling. The train is packed with girls in pretty ballerina flats and boys in flip flops, both of which would have been impractical to wear in any other public transport system.

Never before have we travelled so far, made such long journeys within the city, taking the very same route, listening to the very same announcements over and over, day after day. This maddening mode of modern travel can be battled only with tools of modernity. Travelling such long distances without a source of distraction is nearly impossible. It is true that some people have companions but for most, it is a solo journey to be taken every day, whether for education or for work. It is only the products of modern science, like smartphones, books, newspapers, etc. and perennial sleeplessness which make the journey more bearable. A large part of the route in the Delhi metro is underground. Staying calm and disciplined while travelling in a dark hole through space and time with absolutely no interaction with people one brushes shoulders with would have been impossible if not for virtual connectedness or tiredness.

I overhear a middle-aged man, 4 stations before CS, dressed for office talking on his phone. “Bas pahunch gaya, CS pe houn.” In response to a recent RTI, it has been revealed that as many as 99% metro trips, since 2013, have been on time. Punctuality is a stringent demand of modernity. However, commuters can always rely on the disorienting experience of frenzied interchange stations as an excuse which is hard not to buy. Before the Violet line linked Central Secretariat directly to Kashmere Gate, I used to change for the yellow line at CS. Having spent a few months running maniacally out of the train as soon as the doors opened to separate myself from the slow-moving mass of people approaching the stairs, I discovered an escalator on the adjacent platform I could use without battling every day. Each time I was brought to a level above, a W.H. Smith store stared me right in the face, checking all the boxes of well-researched consumer behaviour. Each of us navigates the public space, trying to find the shortest, the fastest, the most convenient way to travel, a unique route best suited to us, only to realise it is a futile attempt. Every decision we make is predetermined for us, every ‘new’ manoeuvre scripted.

 De-boarding at the last stop, standing within a crowd, I can’t help but remember the times sleazy hands have touched my body. For all the CCTVs and security guards, there is no less molestation. Perhaps only the method has become quieter, cat-calling being impossible in the rigid schedule and relative silence of the metro. As I make the journey back to Kashmiri Gate, one which I have undertaken countless times, two smartly dressed women in salwar-suits enter at Bata Chowk, talking in Punjabi-Multani. They discuss their kids, the work left to do at home and go over some relative-sent photos of lehengas. The older woman slides out her feet from her heeled shoes and massages them; she cracks her toes and fiddles with her toe rings. They get off at Mandi House, the interchange station for the Blue line, probably to go to Chandni Chowk. Only today isn’t a good time. As the metro dived underground at Jangpura, 5 stations back, I saw the first drops of a heavy downpour spot the soundproof windows, incongruent with Delhi’s September weather but consistent with the unceasing rainfall of the past two weeks. Inside the metro and under the ground, it is impossible to know what's happening in the world we come from.

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As we near Kashmere Gate, a man enters talking loudly on his phone, in seemingly rude Haryanvi. People turn to look at him but he stands unconcerned, one foot propped up against the wall, right below the sign prohibiting such a posture, combing his brown curls streaked with golden highlights. A security guard enters the metro at the next stop, shouting at the people sitting on the floor of the metro to stand and asks the man to put his foot down. He steps off making sure everything is visibly organised. As personalised as we try to make our trips, there is no scope for individualism. Announcements tell us where to stand, how to wear our bags, where and how to get off and what to do after we do. Everything in the metro is micro-managed, each step of every traveller imprinted on stone, literally. It is perhaps only the sexism people come wearing that the authorities are yet to factor in. Women in the metro wear the most uncomfortable footwear. In the four years I have been travelling in the metro, taking it twice every day, women slipping on the stairs, tripping over uneven floor and stumbling on the escalator with dupattas getting snagged and ripped is not a very strange sight. Though DMRC prefers a myopic view and has segregated women to protect them from men, this internalised sexism is a serious security issue and a tougher nut to crack.

Retracing the journey back home, I can’t wait to get out. The general compartments echo with innumerable variations of “Madam aap ladies coach main chale jao na”, in words and in actions. Women travelling in the unreserved compartments, it seems, are considered to be encroaching, an inconvenience to the male travellers. Having been told multiple times by random men and even women to go to the women’s coach for demanding civility, I now make it a point to travel in unreserved coaches and sit on unreserved seats, to the general irritation of the men around. There is only so much one can do, swimming through the madness every day.

The Art of Lying in Delhi Metro

If each person’s nose got bigger every time they lied in Delhi Metro, people would be holding on to each other’s noses instead of the poles. Almost every third person travelling in metro is a liar. And no, there’s no moral baggage to it. Lying is an art and every commuter of Delhi metro is an artist – successful, unsuccessful, but artist nonetheless.

Yesterday was a fine cloudy afternoon. The ‘after’ part of the noon which lulls you into a soft sleep; followed by a craving for your choice of beverage and pakoras. So, on one such dreamy pakora-afternoon, in one of the 196 metro cars of DMRC’s Violet line, unfolded a dreamy performance of lies by a couple. Dreamy for every commuter who’s bored of reading his/her co-passengers’ faces whilst on an underground metro journey. Others who are bored of shuffling their playlists and many other who’ve just lost their internet connection to use Snapchat filters anymore.

Among these passengers I was one such. So when the extravagant play of lies began, I too, like several others stopped my music and alerted one of my five senses to pay attention. Others unabashedly stopped munching chips to listen more precisely, while a few started munching louder – enjoying, while anticipating the end. The coach hoppers even, who walk wild hunting down every empty seats; stopped their expedition and leaned on the pole instead to listen. People put down their newspapers, books, and gossips to be a part of this lie. I slowed down my breath to hear every syllable clearly. The entire coach became a lie-house – wonderful. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

But this was not the first lie I was listening to in Delhi metro. You are expected to lie while taking public transportation. Or that’s what my grandmother told when I turned sixteen and travelled to an adjoining city all by myself for the first time.

“Don’t tell your full name to any one in the bus”, said my dear grandmother with her wide eyes falling apart.

My chachu who stood beside her at the bus-stop added, “and if any one offers you something to eat, politely refuse saying you are not hungry.” But I was almost always hungry. And was almost always asked to lie about it.

So when I shifted to Delhi, the big city, I found to my surprise that the rule was same here too. No matter where you go, small town or a big metropolis like Delhi; you lie while travelling in public transport.

I had not gotten used to lying in Delhi metro and I remember meeting this woman, who was exceedingly interested in my skirt and the place I bought it from. Upon knowing that it was purchased from my hometown, she got even more interested in knowing about me and my family. My parents had taught me everything but they didn’t teach me how to say no to people. So when she interrogated me, holding the metal pole in one hand and a bag full of groceries in another, I didn’t say no to her. I couldn’t. But my grandmother did teach me the art of lying. So, I lied about my name, my hometown and even my height too! On top of it, when she asked me where I was heading to, I lied, “Hauz Khas”. I was on the blue line, travelling to an entirely opposite direction.

Lying is like a rainbow pastry. Layers and layers of prompt and sometimes well-researched thoughts piled onto each other; iced with a factitious smile. Another very common lie you’ll witness in Delhi metro is that of lack of space to accommodate people.

“Nahi hai jagah” is the second most common sentence you’ll hear in metro; first being the recorded announcements. But this lie had a character to it—it’s a shared lie. Shared by the entire row of passengers who unannouncingly refuse make space to adjust one more pair of buttock.

There are lies you speak to yourself. A lie that you will chance a seat at next interchange station. And if you call this optimism; then, gotcha you are lying again. These thoughts are disillusioning. Your favorite music does not fill you with as much enthusiasm as each passing station does. You surveil the coach, looking for the slightest hint of body movements indicating that the passenger will get down at the next station. You slyly move towards that person, like a snake, to hop onto his/her seat when the time is right. You nonchalantly wait, pretending to be occupied with your playlist but you are listening to even the slightest variations in the passenger’s breathing. The next station approaches and your prey begins to assemble its belongings—packs bag, folds the UPSC reference book, and fiddles with your patience for a while. The gates open at the next station and he closes his eyes and resorts to sleep. And it then you spot another liar in Delhi metro.

And then. You pass by your lost lover’s metro station. And the world stops. You anticipate the arrival of this station beat by beat. In those moments of contemplation, you remind; rather lie to yourself that you don’t miss him. It’s easier to lie than to submit to longing. You lie more passionately than you loved him. That you don’t reminisce about holding hands at the same metro station, snuggling on that same old bench. The door shuts and you again drown in the abyss of darkness.

But sometimes these lies hold the power of binding an entire coach. Like I was saying, yesterday, a couple performed a wonderful show of lies which even made me pause the tunes of Prateek Kuhad. The woman, aged somewhere around thirty, curling her hands into her husband’s arm, was looking outside the metro. The duo looked fairly in love with each other. They were standing right next to the gate, which is the unsaid lover’s corner in metro, where you get to enjoy the cityscape which journey leaves behind. Everything was rosy and nobody seemed to care. But a phone call changed everything.

The woman received a call. It was a mundane Samsung ringtone but seemed to have shook her. It was her boss.

“I will not pick the phone”, she announced.

Her husband who seemed to have maintained a reasonable calm said, “No, pick up and say that you’ve reached Badkal Mor.”

We were at Sarita Vihar, seven stations from the claimed. The stakes were high.

“But this metro aunty will start announcing”, she pulled a flaw in their plan.

I had now put my earphones aside and intently waited for the action to unfold. The coach hoppers held on to the pole more firmly. The munching had stopped and the chatter faded.

“Don’t worry. Disconnect the phone before she even starts blabbering”, suggested the husband.

Now we were moving towards the next station, Mohan Estates. She exactly had two minutes to finish the conversation. She finally picked the phone.

There was a deadly silence in the coach. I noticed people looking at their watches.

“Hello”, said the woman nervously.

“Yes, I am fine”, she lied.

“Yes sir, I am at Badkal More”, she lied again.

The conversation should’ve ended then and there, but the boss took longer than expected. He kept talking and the woman—totally helpless, faked a laughter. We could see the anxiety seeping on the couple’s face. The husband held her hands reassuringly.

The audiences had turned anxious too. Some fidgeted nervously with their bag straps whereas I bit my lips. In that short moment, I feared the worst for the woman. What would the boss do if he gets to know their exact location? Fire her from the job? My imaginations were running wild when the metro speaker turned alive.

The announcer geared herself for the announcement. And it started…

“Agla station…”

Each pair of eye was on the couple. It felt as if Sachin Tendulkar had got out at 99 runs. We had lost hope when the woman finally said, “Okay, bye.” She put the handset into her bag and brushed her cheeks on husband’s shoulders.

The entire coach heaved a sigh of relief. I could hear the unheard applause and cheering. The munching, gossiping resumed and so did the tunes of Kuhad.  

Learning Curve

“Can’t you see that I’m tired? Shouldn’t you be giving up your seat instead of me? How are you making me get up? How do you have the authority?”

The acid that dripped was from the mouth of an upper-class Delhi girl no older than twenty-two. I say upper-class, because her defiant posture, expensive clothes and English-speaking accent could not have placed her in any other section of society except that one.

I pull my eyelids apart slowly and carefully, jerking awake from a light sleep at all the commotion. They were stuck together more firmly today because of the heavy Kajal I had applied on the inside of my lower eyelids.

This was the first incident I had witnessed when travelling in the Metro, but it was surely not the first since the start of its operations. Delhi Metro has been registering a continuous increase in ridership since its inception. When Metro services were introduced in 2002, the average ridership was 80,000 passengers per day. As of FY 2016–17, average daily ridership has risen to 2.76 million, with the latest daily ridership record set on 17 August 2016, the day of Rakshabandhan, reporting the highest influx of passengers on a single day.

Travelling in a train such as the Metro, differs from other modes of transport in that it is a step forward towards affordable mobility in one of the most expensive cities to live in. The enormity of the crowd being a commonplace thing one encounters in this city, tactical manoeuvres and ways of negotiating your path through the myriad of stations and line interchanges becomes an ingrained habit of the average Delhiite commuter. An elbow nudge in a cramped compartment after 9 in the Blue Line, a slight push when the doors open at Rajiv Chowk Station, the tapping of a shoulder to ask the person in front of you if they are getting off next. One comes into contact with numerous nameless citizens of Delhi in the form of this kind of scheduled interruption into an individual’s race to reach their destination.

The Delhi Metro is the largest and busiest metro in India by a considerable margin, and the world's 9th longest metro system in length and 16th largest in ridership. A member of CoMET, Community of Metros, which is a system of international railway benchmarking, the network consists of eight colour-coded regular lines, with a total length of 296.1 kilometres serving 214 stations (including 6 on Airport Express line and interchange stations). The CoMET consists of large metro systems from around the world. It currently consists of 17 members, some of which include the Moscow Metro (1999), Madrid Metro (2004), Shanghai Metro(2005), Beijing Subway and Santiago Metro (2008), Taipei Metro and Seoul Metro (2010), since 1994, the latest entry to which is the Delhi Metro on account of its annual ridership which exceeds 500 million passengers.

Thoughts on a Metro are rarely ever centred. They fly off on different roads and return to the original thread believed to have been lost after several detours through windows and station announcements and the smooth swish of opening doors. Sometimes it feels more pleasant to look outside than to look at people’s faces. A space of temporary meetings, the most momentary of connections. The yellow and black tape stuck on the sides of the doors and the yellow caution stickers on thee tops of the doors remove any trace of this journey being an imagined one. They jolt one to reality as gears of the brain kick into motion. Women crossing over from the general coach to the ladies’, women putting their bags and other barriers against their sides, women gathering and standing in a circle in one spot. “Nightie ke neeche jeans pehne thi usne” “Kuch negative bolne ka effect padha hai unke upar”, “Apni izzat pyaari hai, dosron ki izzat pyari nahin hai?” float around the ladies’ compartment where I travel daily to go to college, snippets of whispered conversations one can’t escape overhearing, again firmly placing me in the now. A big woman enters at Moolchand Station and goes to stand smack in front of my friend’s face, watches her take pictures and take notes, a clear example of unencumbered intrusive curiosity. Although to call it curiosity would give it a somewhat innocent appeal, but sometimes, like in this instance, it feels borderline threatening, even if done by someone from the same sex.

The threat for a woman travelling alone in Delhi is a double threat. From my understanding out of experience in commuting by Metro for the last four years, a woman would have to beware not only dangerous movements of big-bodied men and women, but she would have to guard against reaching hands and rubbing body parts from both sexes. The danger posed to a small man would be from a bigger man than him; a woman has to protect herself from being handled roughly as well as be, hope not, touched inappropriately by anyone she has to come in close proximity with. So, one develops inventive ways to guard oneself against potential predators. Rules and safeguards cloak you in a layer of protection, constant surveillance can help you be less on edge, and the threat of prosecution reminds you that simple actions can become great mistakes, pushing you to be more responsible for your own safety and of others’. The female voiceover sends a comforting message in a sea of unknowns.

The above-mentioned dialogue was part of a fight between an English-speaking young girl and an old emaciated woman likely from a village for whom it was the first time in a Metro. As the fight escalated, it inevitably grew louder and became more unintelligible on account of the rapid angry speech that grew more heated, and the passengers took the side of the young girl instead of the old woman. Her skin was falling from her bones, she had never known what it felt like to have a full stomach, and could definitely not understand fancily spoken English during her first ever time in such a new and assaulting experience such as riding in the Metro. I say assaulting here, because the amount of information fed into you via an overhead voice, the humongous crowds, and the structure of the stations are unlike any previously encountered by people from villages and towns.

Granted, the old woman did fit the bill for being a conservative judgmental woman whose speech largely consisted of sarcastic barbs which even if one couldn’t fully understand, one could grasp the essence of, she was an old woman who clearly needed the seat more than the other candidates for whom standing in a moving train wouldn’t be painful.

Despite knowing that, the whole section of the ladies’ coach took the girl’s side when the fight broke out and needed to be stopped before the female guards at the stations penalised them. And what was the fight over? A seat. It was a dangerous realisation that just the fact that you could speak fluent English could grant you access and privilege, even if over other people’s basic rights and liberties. I realise it also might come from where you put up, your financial background, your family background, and various other factors, but to be seen as more deserving of sympathy from strangers because you can speak English? The scales are not simply unbalanced, they are faulty in their very foundation.

After this incident slowly took shape in my mind the way sand piles up to form a dune, I became sensitive to visible markers of class differences during my journeys. The Metro is an introduction into a very real, felt, nuanced understanding of how Delhi works on a daily basis. Let us hope that this learning does not come at too steep or painful a price.

Quest on the violet line

Travelling on the metro is like an MMO RPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games), or at least that’s what it feels like in my opinion. 

6^th September 2018, we were to meet at gate number seven and take a long three hour trip. As a regular commuter nothing seemed new, it was just a repetition of my daily routine except this time it was in a designated class trip. Were asked to do two things observe and take notes. As easy as it seems, I found out incidents are hard to come by when you travel in a big group, not that I wanted any, thought it would add more colour to my work.  That’s not to say there was nothing to write about, sure the escalator incident was interesting but I neither have the eloquence or imagination to write a 1500 piece about an escalator which stopped in the middle of its operation. But Of course the escalator incident did not go wasted. Watching people get off the escalator made me want to write about how order is restored when people get on an escalator and how this order is broken when they get off the escalator.

And here I am writing about an MMO RPG. The thought didn’t come immediately it gradually crept into my mind as I  got bored observing … now I can say for sure what we did on the 6^th of September was definitely a quest.  The basic of an MMO RPG is its multiplayer online platform where players can assume the role of a character, often in a fantasy or science fiction world. That being said the trip on the metro definitely resembled a fantasy RPG. The professor being the guild master handing out quest and giving tutorials at gate number seven, to the player registration at the security check.

I usually make a joke when travelling with friends, saying, “See you on the other side” I do that when I swipe my card first at the gate. At first it was just a joke; but when I travelled with the sole purpose of observing, the gates seemed almost scary. Once you exit the gate you can see your friend on the other side but you are unable to exit through the same gate if you so wish to return; much like an MMO RPG where you can observe the status of a friend or someone in your guild, to see whether that person is online or not. The MMO RPG being less scary as you are allowed to exit the way you came in.

To me swiping the card at the gate is a sign that a player has logged in, what comes after the gate is the server or the World Wide Web where all players gather. Before we actually started we were given the mandatory tutorial and the main quest, the quest being “observe and write a 1500 blog piece”. Our game master/ guild master played the role of the silent guide as we embarked on this quest, only speaking when necessary. The first obstacle was getting all the guild members on the same channel, which is across the gates and on the other side. Once everyone was safely across we had the option of manually crossing to the new land by taking the stairs or teleporting by getting on the escalator, I chose the latter though I faced another problem, a bug, the elusive leaking ceiling but I was able to clear that level safety with my guild members .

The second phase was following the map, in our case the violet line. That was where our real quest would start though not before facing the first boss. 

The violet line was pretty easy to spot and everything seemed to be moving smoothly, but suddenly the escalator taking us underground halted midway almost throwing us off, that was the first boss, the first encounter and something I don’t like to remember because I don’t like heights and the escalator stopping definitely gave me a scare; after that I decided to stay away from teleporting escalators and travel manually, at least till I got to the first destination, three of my guild members probably  shared my sentiment and we climbed down manually just to be safe.

I don’t know about most people but to me getting on the metro is one of the most crucial points, I consider this the climax. The climax because the commuters have overcomed the danger of getting their leg stuck in the small gap between the platform and the metro. And I don’t know how many people observed but on our particular quest only three people including me looked down to see if they had safety crossed the gap. If you think about it the gap is more dangerous than we can imagine, it is an endless black hole where light cannot penetrate and once you get stuck you can say bye bye to your leg. But it’s not all that bad, I for one felt like I had crossed worlds by overcoming this gap, a feat I forget in my monotonous routine.

But going back to the quest, the guild members split up once we got on the silver bullet, I call it that because it’s mostly silver inside as is most of the other metros in Delhi. I was also lucky enough to find a seat, a rarity because the silver bullet is mostly pack with adventurers during rush hour. If I were to compare the metro to a place in the MMO world it would be a guild, the place where time stops once you close the doors, a place where people are constantly getting in and getting off. A place where you can gather information and meet new people. Thus the silver bullet was the perfect place for us to proceed with the quest of observing, I sat down with a guild member and started talking about my adventures while the others moved to other compartments to continue observing.

While I said the metro resembled a guild if you look at another angle it also resembles a town, a place with many gates to other worlds. My quest allowed me to view new lands through its windows, sometimes it was underground, and more than half of the time it moved above the city. Many strangely shaped buildings flashed by so did green military tents and even a small hill. But you can only stay so long in one place, once we reached the last destination, something I almost missed because of day dreaming, our game master/ guild master gave us the second part of the quest, “to go back to the place we started at by once again travelling on the violet line”. Let me tell you we were in the last leg, our energy had steadily run out and the journey back was mostly us looking for some food, too bad we couldn’t find any.

The ride back was a countdown, it started at thirty two, thirty one, thirty… with each station the light on the map turned green.  It was like clearing levels in a dungeon ,the map indicated the number of floors and the green light signalled the number of floors the players had cleared. Some of my co passengers were luckier as they got off at twenty or at least that’s what I liked to imagine. Then there was also the guy in the stripped blue shirt who rode all the way the last station, almost missing his stop because he had dozed off; luckily it was the last stop and the end of our adventure.

Getting off would signal the end of our adventure, when we first started I compared or journey to a quest an adventure in a fantasy MMO RPG, when we dispersed the similarities would end. Unlike single or multiplayer games MMO RPG allows multiple users to interact on various platforms, much like the metro which allows people living all over Delhi to come together willingly or unwillingly. Though I wouldn’t say the metro is amazing, there are still other means of transportation, but one cannot deny its connectivity, like an earthworm it burrows its way across the city connecting different people. The irony is that like an online game where players around the world come together, as a human living in a big metropolitan city what happens to the next person is something I will never know. Like the guy in the striped shirt travelling thirty two stations with me, he will just be the guy who sat across me on 6^th September and I will probably be remembered as the girl who sat across him or he may not remember at all. In the end it does not matter because once I swipe my card I can log off and so can the guy in the striped shirt.

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.