#MetroDiary 44: Market, Metro, and the Month of March

"It is like another galaxy where a rocket is just offloading a lot of travellers. It felt you really arrived at another planet!", that is how the travel from Delhi Metro to Rapid metro was described by a friend the other day. I took the Yellow Line for months and could not think of a better description of the phenomenon. It is indeed another planet that Yellow Line takes one to and also touches it rather briefly at Sikandarpur. There is a crossover bridge at Sikandarpur that takes you from the Delhi Metro to the Rapid metro and if you look down you can spot a paratha wala (fried flat bread vendor) selling parathas early in the morning for the hungry who walk on the road. Looking down from the bridge is your last ditch attempt to feel closer to the world you just left behind. For you then walk towards that other planet called Rapid Metro. It is indeed a planet in itself. And a different one for sure. Do take a note of how the dresses changed around you and notice the crowd. The strong smell of sweat gets replaced by a strong smell of perfumes (both equally suffocating). T-shirts with business suits. Sandals with polished shoes. Rapid metro is an ode to the world it takes you to. Complete with its offer to let you use it as your child's birthday party venue! 


The market that it caters to is definitely a market that also finds a reason to get into your life every month. In February it is Valentine's Day. In March it is the International Women's Day. I have to appreciate the all powerful nature of the market which can ride almost everything and depending on where your guilt and/or soft spot lies it can appropriate any "day". Of course there are exceptions.The market believes it should have nothing to do with the Labour Day. This may change though because pre-2014, the market was not interested in toilets and hence the World Toilet Day. When a government gets interested in marketing, it's that proverbial dog's day for the market! Coming back to the metro, you may notice that it is getting full of advertisements! I am talking of the Delhi metro here because Rapid metro compartments have long been pasted with these. I wonder who gets benefit of the revenue! Not the commuters for sure. Because for one they miss seeing if any compartment is relatively empty and they still pay a high price for the commute. It makes me want to sing, "saiyaaN beimaan/ mo se chhal kiye jaay/ haay re haay"! SaiyaaN it still is, because what would I do without metro!

Rapid metro of course is extremely expensive which justifies its another planet like existence. So much so that I can boast that I used it every day for about a year like Delhi's who's who talks about going around in their Mercedes. Rapid metro is Mercedes equivalent in the world of public transport. My friends anyway often point out in a cheeky manner that metro is not a "general public transport" whenever I try to say, I use public transport.   And I have to grudgingly agree. So much for my effort (even if half-hearted) to be part of the masses! I do not see labourers, manual workers riding metro except when they come with a lot of luggage and board it at Anand Vihar or Indraprastha to go to Rajiv Chowk. I generally stand near their seats as I know they would get empty soon. I have also travelled with these luggage loaded passengers in the Yellow Line but they go beyond Sikandarpur or get out of the metro system at Sikandarpur itself. They cant think of visiting the other planet, you see! 

Market also rides the March fever around International Women's Day, which was (surprise! surprise!) originally, International Working Women's Day. And whereas Delhi metro could have been the perfect medium of catering to the working women better this month, it is the cloth brands that make the shrillest pitch around the day! Instead of getting a safer commute and better pay, we get promises of discounts on jewellery and clothes and oh yes! some discounted spa coupons too so that we can keep doing our back-breaking unappreciated work at the homes we dwell in. So what does the woman do in March? She carries her laptop in hand, and stands near the door that would not open, places her shopping bag on the floor and works away to gory ...errr ..glory! May glory indeed become hers one day. After all it is difficult for that hardworking woman who struggles with office presentation in the commute and talks on the phone to organise food on the table, or pleads with her daughter's school bus driver to wait for 2 extra minutes, to see any greater glory in being a woman at the current moment even as March 8th come and go!

Metro..you can make it better for the marching women in March by taking cues from the market. Are you listening?



Comments

  1. Nice views through micro clicks of Macro happenings on metro wheels. Congrats for bringing into notice which are evident to all but appealed to a writer.

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  2. Haryana roadways also offer free travel on Rakhi but no discount on women's day or any other working day. For commuter who travel in dtc, Delhi metro is another world and for those who travel in delhi metro, rapid metro is another world.

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  3. Very well written Nayana.....from Naresh

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