A Ride on Delhi “Metro”

I am a regular Metro commuter  esp. now when i have to go to attend my training .But today it was a bit different , with many instances and experiences .I could not stop myself from writing about it .

Today i got up a bit late (Thanks to me watching movies till late night ),ending up getting late by about 15-30 mins for my training . But to make the matters worse, it was about 9:15 am, when i boarded up the metro for rajender place ,a PEAK traffic time . Was lucky to get a seat in metro to sit(even though it was rithala ,the station from where metro starts ) .

Metro was a bit unusual today . Four more seats were reserved for “ladies only” in each coach of metro . Man we live in India , where every one runs a rat race to get “reservation” . But that reservation for women had little effect .i did not see any women making any attempt to get their ‘reserved’ seat from men .

Journey till Kashmere Gate was Ok (for me only as i was among some of the priviliged person , having got the seat) . But the real fun was to begin.

Over Crowded Metro

As soon as the gates opened up at kashmere gate people just erupted out of the bottleneck .I was determind to be the last person to get out of the coach (avoiding all those pushes & pops ), but the scene seemed quite humerous . People looked like as if they were being chased by a dinosaur and their only way to be saved was to board the next metro to CP(Rajiv Chauk ) . I slowly reached the basement , for the metro to CP. Frequency of metro at that time was quite good with one metro in 2-3 mins. Then the metro came . Somehow i managed in . There were unlimited number of passengers in the metro . To me it looked more like a Mumbai local than the world class Metro ,of which we were very proud of .

Atmosphere in the coach was filled with different ‘fragrances’ ranging from that of sweat , to smell of hair oils .Acs were working fine  but its effect were nullified partly by the scorching Delhi summers and mainly due to the coach being over crowded .I was sweating like anything . At next station more people came in . In her pursuit to get in quickly a 100 KG ‘Bulldozer’ stepped over my feet with her heels. Thanks to my heavy duty shoes my feet were saved .In the scheme of sudden rush of people at Chawri Bazaar ,some how one of the four girls standing to my right was pushed quite close to me,the last thing a boy can think of when he’s sweating like i was . I got nervous(God only if i could i would have poured a full bottle of deo over me) .  Some how i managed for the next three stations.

Like i was pushed in at Kashmere gate , i was pushed out ‘automatically’ at CP . Actually Kashmere Gate and CP form the intersection of two lines each , and thus cater to maximum traffic .

From Cannought Place(CP) I boarded the metro for Rajender Place. The ride was much better this time ,me being able to get myself in a very comfortable position to ’stand’ . Rajender place is only four stations apart from CP. But this small route provides you with a lot of eye candies .

Five years back when metro was launched in delhi it seemed like a dream come true for the city .. Truly it was world class .Now also It  is, catering to about 7.5 lakh people daily,surely one of the world’s busiest . Its fares are quite cheap too. Since its induction It has served a lot in development of Delhi .It shortened the distances. Decongested the roads of lakhs of private vehicles . People from all classes of society use metro , from students to entrepreneurs,poor to richest.Delhi never saw that before .Metro is expanding its web .But with each expansion number of people choosing metro over private vehicle and buses is increasing .Metro should figure out to how to cater to such a high rush ,esp. at Kashmere Gate and CP, as they get most affected . They will have to maintain a ’standard’ ,its comfort level,  else metro might loose out to private vehicles again , as all other public transports,in past have and that would not be good for the city,for our environment  .