#MetroDiary 30: Updates from the Yellow Line

This was not supposed to be my goodbye blog-post to the Yellow line. However, it indeed is.
Most of my notes are from the Yellow line so far and as I am not going to travel on that line anymore (good in a way as a Delhi Walla gave my route in), I thought let me do a longish ode to that route. This was, after all, the longest part of my journey for the past 10 months. There was also an unintended long gap in writing this as I got caught up in the web called life. Don't worry I will not try to woo you with details of my woes ;) Day before on my way back to home, I was thinking what should be my last post about when this beautiful black creature made an entry into the compartment and spread himself on the floor. As if he already knew the journey is going to be long and in the woman's compartment, he is the only male who would be allowed and therefore, he can made a display of himself.

On display boards around the end of my journey, we see some interesting spectacles advertisements. One particular one with a D and an O in their name, make the right lens look like O and the left lens look like D. I wonder if anyone would like to wear such a pair ever! However, they seem to be doing good business as the advertisement lines change from time to time except, the DnO spectacles. It is like how my current company puts it. "Change everything! Almost". However at times, earnest requests fall to deaf ears. I often see a man earnestly requesting every woman from the metro coach walls, to get on to internet so that he can get married. I generally see women completely ignoring him! Poor guy! He is not bad looking as such. I think the main problem is, he comes across as someone badly looking for a match and this indeed makes others suspicious. Why is he so desperate, after all! Whats wrong with him? Women of my generation would have also thought why could not he get anyone in real world but of course the Tinder generation is well past that barrier.

Barriers are galore in the metro. The barrier of maps that only partially show the lines, is one of the major ones, in the metro system. Delhi attracts people from all regions of India and the sign-boards are all in Hindi or English. Some of the metro lines connect major railway stations and bus terminus, and in these you often meet people who struggle with the maps or look for people who speak their language. I have also noticed they do not trust me to tell the right direction. They ask the man next to me, but never me! As a regular metro traveler I get really offended, but act as if I could not care less and move on. I agree I did not know where Madi Pur is located and how to go there, but that was a few months age and since then I have learnt that too from the metro maps. I am all set to guide now, but no one asks! Take for example last month when I was waiting for a loved one at the Mandi House metro station near a map; people came, beckoned me to move aside, and continued reading it to find the route to their destination. I tried getting their attention for long to guide them. Much to my mother's amusement, none of the people who came to the map, trusted me. Some of them completely ignored me like I did not exist and some politely smiled at me but continued looking at the map. I am generally garrulous and my friends often give me such polite smiles before shutting me up for 15 min or so (that's long!) but how did they know that was a mystery to me! I reason that its people's choices are often strange, they trust a silent map more than a talking me. 

Talking of choices, people often sit on the floor even when there are seats available. And I can totally see why for each one of them! Children often sit on the floor. It's a big play ground for them. They laugh, run and come back huffing and puffing. The floor seem the most logical place for them to sit then. Some girls sit on the floor together. They make a round like we used to do in the college grounds and share notes or watch videos together. Couples often sit on the connectors of the compartments. If anyone doing so is reading my blog, please be aware that in the Patel Chowk station, security personnel gets on the train and fine the commuters. Be careful! Then there is another kind. The other day a woman walking in front of me was eating a puffed pastry (popularly called patties in this part of the world). She unceremoniously dropped the condiment sachets one by one, on the floor as she walked. I picked up the second one, and went up to her to ask why was she littering! There was just a blank look. I added, there is a fine for doing so. She turned back and started walking, with earplugs safely pushed into her ears. She boarded the train with food. Illegal. And she sat on the floor. Illegal again. I later spotted her outside the metro station taking out her Scooty from the parking and driving away, while she still talked on phone. So some of them are serial offenders. They can't help breaking every rule. 

And please indulge me but I can't say bye to the Yellow Line without talking about the one who was torn between a book and the phone the other day. If you see him again with both, tell him, its indeed enough to just carry a book and look at it a few times to create a very good impression. Especially if its a book on a Italian Strategist, Politician of the Renaissance period, nothing like it! We understand he can't help but look at his phone at times. We are all mere mortals after all ;) 

On not being able to help, a mother could not help the other day but shout, "Bas karo! Modi marega!" (Stop! Modi will hit you back!) to her about 2 year old child who incessantly beat a poster that talked about achievements of the current government. I think she could not take the sound anymore and the child was definitely not listening to her. The only recourse was higher authorities. And this time, she invoked one of the highest!