She Ain’t No Blonde or Princess, She’s Just Rajouri!

This is my first submission that will focus on the Metro typecasts I have come across. I have a slightly cynical outlook, and thus, I am going to begin with a typical kind of Delhi Metro passenger that needs a serious reality check—I call “it” the “Rajouri Types,” and this is particularly applicable to the women who board the metro from the Rajouri Garden Metro Station and the nearby areas. You must be wondering what could be so typical about such women. Well, there is nothing wrong with them except for the fact that they are highly prone to thinking that they belong to an elite class that should be treated superiorly within the Metro. Recognizing this pseudo-royal segment within the Metro is not difficult. You don’t need to have the acumen of a Sherlock or possess an obsessive tendency to observe to identify them. The Rajouri type is instantly recognizable. For starters, she looks like a walking advertisement for the latest cosmetic products. The hair is usually dyed to a certain shade of blonde and tied loosely to ensure the highlights get the highlight they deserve. From what adorns the ears to the fingers, everything about her is blingy—it seems that the rule here is the bigger and shinier, the better. Most likely, she would be carrying the latest phone and holding it in a manner that announces it to the entire world. But look closely, and chances are that the phone might not be the original stuff. It is very likely to be a well-concealed imitation, bought from locales like the Ghaffar. The overall aura is of someone who is heads and shoulders above the other, poor North West Delhi inhabitants. There is a bit of NRI-borrowed slang and tone borrowed when speaking, and the perfume reeks of an old habit of spraying so much that everyone in a near 100-meter radius can smell the floral stuff. You can count on carrying a high-street shopping bag that reinforces the ability to spend big, even if the bag contains nothing but a borrowed attitude. The lipstick shades are usually loud - lots of darker hues of reds, maroon, and purple. If it happens to be the wedding season or a period around the festivals, expect the body art in brown to scream for attention even if the invitations are yet to come in. 

Decoding the Phenomenon: Metro Sleep

I guess this discovery should get me nominated into the league of folks who have contributed significantly to deciphering human behavior, or more precisely, the human sleep patterns. At a time when most leading magazines have run out of ideas and cannot write anything new about sleep, sleeping habits, sleeping problems, etc. I have unearthed a new kind of sleep! Yes, this might surprise you, but keeping my observant senses in the switch-on mode has finally yielded results. I have titled my discovery as the “Metro Sleep”. This kind of sleep is seen among only those who have the fortune (or misfortune) of riding the Delhi Metro. The “Metro Sleep” presents some very different features when compared to our understanding of what comprises human sleep. For starters, it can be easily manipulated. For instance, as soon as Metro riders see an aged fellow or a lady approaching them or having just boarded the Metro, their eyes start getting heavy. Whether this happens due to the realization that they are too cowardly to look into the eyes of people to whom offering their seat would seem like the right thing to do, is something that would need a lot more scientific (and moralistic) proof. Secondly, the Metro Sleep is gender-specific. It is hardly ever seen among the ladies. It has a bigger prevalence within the age group of 15 – 40, among guys. This is quite understandable since men are most likely to be robbed of their seats, considering that the Metro policy-makers forgot about them when distributing the entire seating capacity among the disabled, abled women, older women, pregnant women, unbalanced women, egoistic women, hyperactive women, cleavage-flaunting women, and basically, women of all types. Lastly, “Metro Sleep” has a self-optimization system that works with amazing precision. This means that as soon as the victim of this syndrome sees that his potential seat-snatcher is now lost in the Metro crowd or isn’t close enough to pose a threat to his seat-occupancy, the sleepiness evaporates almost instantly. It is unarguably the smartest form of all human sleep types that have been discovered until today. It works in absolute coherence with its victim’s self-interests, doesn’t induce much lethargy, and seems akin to hanging your head in shame, albeit with your eyes shut!

The ‘Monsoon Warrior’: If You Use It, Don’t Abuse It

Few nations in the world can boast of a weather phenomenon so influential that it can topple governments and impact nearly every aspect of human life by its erratic ways—I am talking about the Monsoons in India. The Monsoons are so mighty that they can drown the entire Mumbai metropolis within a few hours or decide how much we would need to spend on our daily bread throughout the year. However, there is one warrior among us, made of steel and absolute grit, who doesn’t succumb to the Moody Monsoons. This is the Delhi Metro. Today was a pleasant day when the Monsoons, so far conspicuous by their absence, arrived and threw the capital city out of its comfort zone. To make matters worse, the Northern Grid had tripped, and the Metro was left reeling with no power! However, to the dismay of those who laugh at the commoners like us who travel day and night in the overwhelmingly crowded tube train, the Metro didn’t accept defeat. Within a few hours, wherein some idiots had started verbally abusing it, cursing it for its lapses, the Metro was back to its usual benchmark of performance. I must say that if the Metro could hear what some people say about it, rather b***h about it, every time there is the smallest of snags, it would seriously reconsider serving the people of the city. There are some hard realities that the Metro-bashers seem to forget—before it arrived, the lives of those who travel daily across the city were at the mercy of killer buses and the Goondaraj of auto-wallahs. Now that we have at least one dependable and honest mass transit medium, we'd better be thankful for it, use it sensibly, and accept that, like everything else in life, the Metro isn’t perfect, but it works to our advantage and delivers without fail.

Don’t Hang on for Your Life—Just Spread it like an Orangutan

You must be thinking I am asking you to do some yoga posture that requires you to really stretch yourself. Naah!! You couldn’t be more wrong. This is more of a handy tip to make yourself more comfortable when aboard the Delhi Metro. I have noticed that most Metro commuters really struggle to balance themselves. The smallest of jerks seems to throw them off their balance. I, too faced something similar during my early days in the Delhi Metro. Every time I didn’t have a firm grip on the support rods or the hanger-like danglers, I would fall upon a fellow passenger who would either frown with utter disgust or just smile, i.e., in the case of men. The few instances wherein I brushed against a lady, the expressions ranged from an “UFF” that would have done the Princess of Arabia proud to a lethal stare that suggested I had some seriously ulterior motives. At one point, I was seriously contemplating some exercises that could help improve body balance to get a better stance during the Metro traveling hours.

Source: https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/2249/

Moving ahead, if you are serious about balancing yourself on the Metro, even without holding on to something, just spread your legs to the maximum. I realize this phrase has a somewhat twisted meaning for women, so I am going to limit myself to guys only. I have a biggish frame, and I am more than 6” tall. To get my balance right, I spread my legs beyond my shoulder width. The further you can spread, the more immune you make yourself against being thrown ahead or backwards, every time the Metro jerks. I really don’t understand the Physics behind my tip, but it does seem to work rather well.

Even if you find the Metro crowded, just ensure you slip your foot between that of others, twisting and turning it like a snake, unless you feel that stretching any further could compromise the health of your groin or your manhood. It is not just Delhi, and it isn't just me who faces the issue. Ask daily commuters in Japan, being served by an astronomically better public tube system, and you will realize how finding space in the most crowded trains is actually an acquired art - it does not come easy. You need to practice the trade. There are some very handy tips shared by Andrew Griffiths in this 2015 blog in the hyperlink that preceded this sentence - click and read about them if you are going to be Metro-traveling regularly.

There is a bit of Physics and Body Science involved here, and people with rock climbing credentials might be more likely to get a better grip than you, and also fall over less often. From the one-finger hold to the shoulder-press gate phase, from tip-toeing like the late MJ to letting yourself be taken along in the river of humanity, there are so many tricks to travel better in crowded trains that you cannot read about and imbibe - you have to pay the dues, suffer, and get better at this!

The Great Leveler, Humbled by the Metro & Work-life

I don’t ride the high horse of belonging to a niche section of society that cannot bear a single drop of sweat on their mighty foreheads. However, my childhood unfolded in a manner that could be best described as ‘arrested development’ despite growing a typically middle-class environment. As a result, many hesitations about people, places, and being in the outdoors got imprinted on my psyche. I am no Different—though I hold the bare minimum of typecasts that overwhelm many of us, some have passively filtered into my mind and corroded its judgment. Like any other true Delhi resident, I too often bitch about the fact that how the out-of-stationers are overcrowding our city or how our tax money is being used for creating facilities that we seldom use ourselves. However, this discussion is more about how public transit systems can instill some humility in you and how being humble can help you live perhaps a better life...