Detro?

I believe that if you’re travelling around Delhi, you can’t get any greener than the Delhi Metro. But I always wish they had come up with a cooler name for it, like the tube or something. I mean, hey it is in fact one of the greenest metro-rail services around the world. What made it official was the ‘carbon credits’ awarded to it by the United Nations, making it the first railway system in the world to do so. 

I take the Delhi Metro every day, to college and back home. And more often than not, I get more than the usual time-saving lift. 

 “ehh you know what, the guy at the token counter made a pass at me yesterday”, and then giggles are what I heard. I almost thought I was standing next to the ladies compartment, but no, this was the in-coach public address system. Somebody had left the mic on, in the engine compartment.

My usual routine on the metro involves, finding a nice spot to stand or sit (if I ever get that lucky), reach inside my bag for my music player and then get lost into the pictures painted by those huge plexi-glass windows. But every now and then the battery runs out. What do you do then? Oh believe me there’s lots you can do. Just look around, there’s entertainment everywhere. 

College students, yanking out one swanky phone after the other, trying to one-up the other guy. This, in some weird way is the equivalent of the ‘Daily’ metro fashion week in the ladies compartment. 

People swaying their cell phones in every direction possible, announcing the arrival of ‘motion gaming’ in India. 

*Please stand away from the doors. Obstructing the opening and closing of doors is a punishable offense* Oh yeah right, like that works. Find me the space and I will. You know what would work: Please stand away from the doors; we might just open them during transit. 

Then there are those who stare at everybody else on the train, giving weird mysterious looks as if they’re the next kasab. 

“Ghanta…aise kaise extra pasie le lega woh...hello…hello…can you hear me?...hello…” - The people who blur the line between megaphones and cell phones. Luckily we have tunnels to cut ‘em off.

There are countless other idiosyncrasies that make the Delhi Metro so unique. They make it belong to the very city, it pumps life into. Then I start thinking about the name, and I tell myself it wouldn’t be the same if it was anything else. I mean we’re lucky they didn’t call it Mass rapid transport system or something. That would have been laboriously slow having to say it every time you wanted to use it. MRTS doesn’t sound all that great either. Have any bright ideas? Leave them down here…