#MetroDiary 31: Monsoon Metro

It's been a week that I am taking metro in a different line at a different time and the similarity as well as the differences are amazing! However today I will focus on the metro during monsoon. 

If you have been in Delhi for a reasonable amount of time, you would already know that 

Delhi goes berserk in monsoon or whenever it rains. Delhi can not handle rain, much like some adult men who can't cry. They sniffle, sniffle, and sniffle, and finally get angry. And threaten "I will leave!" Oops! I am getting distracted here! But that's what happens to Delhi in the rain. It gets angry. Anger is the most dominant emotion of this city anyway. And no one can deny that the rain in this city is like a sniffle. 

Every thing comes to a halt in the city during the rains, starting from the bikers who halt their bikes below the nearest flyover, to the big green buses which get halted under bigger flyovers which make the roads flood. Metro is no exception. You will hear about technical snags, if you are out of metro system. If you are in the metro system, the announcement will go like, "There will be a short delay to this service. We will update you with more information soon." And this is most deceptive of all the announcement that you can hear in Delhi NCR. This "soon" can easily become 45 minutes, like it was today. And then they let go of all pretence and grab the mike in a broken gruff voice and say, "Empty the coaches! This train will not take you anywhere!" One then gets down and tries to get out of the metro system, but you remember the anger after sniffle bit, right? Metro system does not allow you to get out. It blocks your card. You beg! Deduct money but let me get out! You feel pasted to the customer care window with the crowd swelling behind you. Before the customer care executive hears you, the authorities decides to hear the huge crowd asking why should the metro make money when they have failed to provide services (I always knew number is the strength!)! and we all go out without checking out our cards. The girl walking next to me asks, "This card will give us trouble now, right?" Like a veteran I told her to visit a customer care executive in a less crowded station. Little did I know other customer care executives are hard of hearing too! At my destination station, the executive happily charged my card from this station (from which I had to get out) to my destination. Whereas, I had used my spare card to avoid rush hour queuing when I finally got back to the metro line. I was  charged for an additional 20 stations on a day when Delhi metro did not even function properly! and the excuse offered was that he felt pressurised by the growing queue (hardly 10 people). I had to correct him. "You Sir! were not even listening!". 

Anyway, to get back to the flow, I got out and started walking far from the maddening crowd. But in a city like Delhi how far can you run! People already had every idea that you had before you! After 20 people beating me to getting a three wheeler and two three wheeler drivers flatly refusing me, I finally got one, which brought me to a metro station 10 km away and charged by the meter! In the meantime I also googled out metro helpline number (It is 155370, if you need to know too) and found out if that line was working or not. The helpline made me appreciate good music for quite some time before it allowed me to find out. It was difficult to appreciate with honking into my other ear but their dedication to the cause of music really impressed me! 

Long story short, I had to spend a little more than double the time on road to reach home. That is Delhi-NCR monsoon for you. So what if we can not have rains like Mumbai! We can definitely give Mumbai a run for its money in terms of failure of every system the moment rain starts!