Life on a Metro:

After struggling and facing all sorts of crap for years, I now hate any form of public transport including the Metro. I don’t take it until and unless I am too tired to drive or the distance is way too much. Now that the newness of the Metro is gone, it has become The preferred mode of transportation. Imagine taking the train at 9 in the morning on a Sunday and not getting a seat!

It was supposed to ease our life a little, but nothing seems to have changed. The buses go chock-a-block, the train is always jam-packed and the traffic on the roads seems to increase everyday…..just where are all these people coming from??

Whenever I take the Metro, I usually go and stand at the other door and look out at the hazy horizon….unending houses laid in haphazard manner, some strangely named Hospital or hotel sign visible from a distance….places and building one never knew existed suddenly stand out. Once in a while pigeons fly along seemingly racing the train.

And sometimes when you do look around and notice the people in the train, one can see characteristics that have come to define the Metro-goers.

The riff-raffs or the single men (as in traveling alone) tend to gather at the exit doors, not even budging when other people get in.

The couples, dating or the newly married varieties will head straight for the other side of the door and get cozy at the corner whispering to each other.

The ‘family’ with all its battalion of kids will come and occupy the centre of the compartment where the kids can play around the pole and disturb maximum of the travelers.

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law duo will usually sit and talk about what is happening in another family they know or what they will cook for the weekend gathering.

Single girls are almost always talking on the phone. While a group of girls will keep talking to each other about serials, movie stars, shopping, nail polish etc. Some do strange stuff like take off their shoes and stand…maybe they are still to get used to the idea of something being so clean.

Most women dress up in salwar-kurtas which is copied straight from the K-serials…bright colours and glittering stone work with matching bangles and ear-rings. Obviously the material is the cheap quality chiffon variety. And none uses deodorants and they will come and stand with their underarms right under your nose completely oblivious to their own stink. And this happens even in the morning….I fear to even think what happens after the whole days work! Somebody should educate them!

Young guys take the corner seat and talk about how they are doing MBA because that’s what their father wants them to do.

And the answer one gives maximum number of times when the cell phone rings – “Metro mein hoon, abhi ghar/office aa raho hoon.”

Each Metro line is a microcosm in itself – completely defined in their ways and manners, oblivious to their glaring similarities and yet strangely satisfied to share the same space and life.