Tune in. Trip out.

It is an environment where anything goes -Pushing, shoving, foul body odours, profanity, bumps, jolts, shocks, stares, surprises. All in a day’s commute. Delhi’s public transport is an overburdened system full of faults, dragging its feet along to support the millions dependant on it. No matter how much the administration spends on the systems, the massive population manages to overpower the system each time. To get an idea of what I mean, try to visit Rajiv Chowk metro station during rush hour and the tide of humanity flowing in and out of the trains will give you a more than comprehensive view on the situation.

As I waited for the train at an underground metro station, my attentions were drawn to the garishly pink colored stickers stuck on the platform declaring “Women Only”, with the space being guarded by menacing looking women who would give men a withering look if they so much as put a toe across the line. It saddens me to think that we live in a city where we need such things as the women’s compartment for their safety and comfort. That a need for such a thing is felt due to the vile behaviour of the men is indeed shameful.

Uncharacteristically enough for anything in Delhi, the train pulled in on time, a rush of wind and a loud honk announcing its arrival. The gleaming white Bombardier train rolled into the station and glided to a halt, giving me a glimpse of what was to come before its automatic doors slid open and I found myself drowning in the flood of humanity. The metro is the pride of Delhi, a successful marriage of cutting edge technology and adaptability, to serve Delhiites with the joys of a rapid and efficient, albeit overburdened system of public transport. No rose is, however, without thorns.

Photograph Credits: Anika Aggarwal

Bracing myself, I entered the coach, and found myself squashed between a pole and an obese man. Trying to be optimistic, I figured at least I wouldn’t fall in the case of a jerk. My optimism was short lived. People in Delhi seem to have little enough inhibitions, and those that they do tend to dissolve away in a situation which affords them a cloak of anonymity. Some wise person or another apparently decided that the rest of the commuters were not in enough discomfort, for they happily indulged in the sinful joy of passing wind, plunging everybody into communal misery. Silent it may have been, but harmless it was not. A packed metro compartment is a cramped environment with a limited supply of air pumped through the ventilation system. At trying times like these, suffocation seems all too real. Scores of disgruntled commuters struggled to extricate themselves from their tight spots, but unable to do so in most cases, contented with covering their noses with their arms to avoid an untimely death by breathing in the obnoxious odours. Several queries toward the identity of the sinner were extended without any results.

On arrival at my destination, I tumbled out of the train and breathed a sigh of relief and a lungful of fresh air untainted by flatulence. I took a moment to stand on the platform and peep back into the train and realized it to be a world removed from the rest. A place where rules of privacy are temporarily suspended, the concept of personal space obliterated a mass of bodies behaving as one, with its hopes rising and falling together, based on the mercy of that single merciless flatulent commuter. It is an environment mirrored on a smaller scale in every bus that plies the streets of Delhi as well. Public transport is the medium of deliverance of an accepting, stifling hug by Delhi to all its inhabitants and visitors. It is meant to be acknowledged warmly and enjoyed thoroughly.

Only In Delhi.