#MetroDiary 29: Catch up time

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The Delhi Metro is all about catching up! It is of course primarily about catching up with your friends and colleagues, as the guy in metro uniform helps me remember by calling out on phone early in the morning, “I am in the same train. Second compartment from the engine. Are you in the fourth?” And starts walking backwards. The fact that he had a seat was no hindrance! He did not have to think twice. 

While people often catch up with friends and relatives, physically and on phone in the metro, I realized over the months that "catching up in the metro" has a wider range of meaning. I regularly meet passengers who "catch up" on snacks quota. And they vary from super-conscious papaya eaters to chips (and other salty snack) eaters who open big bags of these. It’s an interesting sight when they sit next to each other and dig into their own boxes. The multitasking with phone continues though. Or is it to guard oneself against the temptation of chips? Some even carry crunchy snacks in small lunch boxes. I often wonder why! Is it to limit the quantity they eat? Does not seem to work though. I see them constantly putting their hands inside their  bags and digging out the box again and again to get another handful of the crunchy treat. Somethings are difficult to resist. 

Do you remember the makeover post? Wherein I saw people changing from the proverbial ducklings to swan as they took out magic potions from their huge beautiful bags in various shapes?http://dillimetrodiary.blogspot.com/2017/10/metro-diary-9-metro-makeovers.html They comb their hair, check their eyebrows, even use their phones to check their teeth. I have seen them clicking photos and sending to "important people" for approval before "important" meetings. They make various faces and try to hold the phone as far as possible to click a selfie. I do not like those women with long hair who comb their hair with their fingers and throw the hair-stands on the feet of the passenger standing next to them. As a veteran, I try to use tough side-glance, but so far it has not worked. It was all largely good though till I witnessed contact lenses being put into eyes in moving metro and my eyes almost popped out!!  What kindness to one's eyes! Solution bottle firmly placed between two legs, case balanced on the thigh, the passenger proceeded to change the bespectacled look. I would have been impressed had I not been worried about the eyes! I reasoned that the rider must had been really late and probably not allowed step inside office without contact lenses due to office policy. Nothing else could have explained that torture to one's own eyes to me.  

Then there are passengers who use the time to catch up with the feeling of being grounded. They take their feet out of their closed spaces err shoes, and stand barefoot. They walk around the near empty compartment and stand near the gates to drive away the claustrophobic feeling of modern living. They can not take it anymore. Coming face to face with the fiction-reading, reality-evading co-passengers makes them most uncomfortable, though! They want to look away then, feet firmly in the ground. Is evading reality so easy? Is your mind enough to create the images of happiness for you as you read lines of poetry? Don't you really need a video? Don't you really need this fantasy-partner; that is the phone? Hmmm. They firmly look out! Who does not know that phone-lovers and book-lovers never see eye to eye!