It’s a pity that Delhi is such a fun cosmopolitan city but public transport is so inconvenient at times. If you find roads to be heavily flooded with cars at every hour of the day, the metro isn’t any better. Because we are just that populated, I kid you not. If you happen to be an average college-going or working human bean who’s never had the luxury of being driven around by a guy that your family pays for, you’re forced to travel with pretty much everybody else in Delhi, at the same time, often to the same location because there’s just that many of us, (seriously the odds get higher everyday). And travelling with the rest of the world might suck to the highest degree but it’s also the best way to entertain yourself.
You would have seen these people for sure.
1. There’s always a woman with the biggest phone screen that lets everybody in that coach follow her Whatsapp conversation with “my love <3” about whether he’s had breakfast yet. She’ll continue to stare into her phone with the biggest smile and cheeks so red even Snow White’s poisoned apple would get a complex.
2. You may have had a tough time at work and might’ve thanked your stars for getting a seat in the metro (mark that glorious day on your calendar), but an aunty coming from Rajouri market with shopping bags as big herself would forcefully fit herself next to you by saying “adjust ho jao, beta”, if she spots so much as tinge of silver colour of that seat. This is the same aunty who is the first one to push her way in with her chubby elbows and diamond cutting bangles when the door opens. No, you can’t wish the door closes on her fat belly the next time she does that.
3. A huge group of giggling girls is a sight so common and dangerous you finally get why it was hard for Harry and Ron to ask a girl out to the Fire Yule Ball. They stand together like a set of skittles, completely oblivious to their surroundings which explains their synchronised high pitched voices that give you full insight into how one of their’s crush is chasing this other girl. We hate this other girl.
4. Delhi upholds its image of an unsafe city by making sure no girl travels the train without becoming aware of her own presence through the eyes of perverted uncles whose justification for staring would be “dekh hi toh rahe hain.” They can be easily spotted by way of their constant piercing gaze and their flirting tactics that involve humming to the tune of an old odd love song.
5. The women’s coach has its own set of judgemental human beans who often make you question your choice of clothing. You could be dressed to your personal best and a random woman with filed nails would still make you feel shit about your top or your shoes or anything that can be found at fault.
6. Metros always have just enough space for you to stand if you cut off both your arms and donate your luggage. But that doesn’t stop people who boarded the train when it was relatively empty to sit on the floor, because they take first-come-first-serve a little too seriously.
7. Delhiites have no sense of self-consciousness because their selfie game is so strong even the most crowded coaches can’t stop them from getting that perfect angle. The number of women who have solo selfies as their phone wallpapers makes you wonder whether narcissism is taught as a separate subject in schools.
8. Making your way past couples becomes a task when they stick to each other like conjoined twins who will die before they lose each other’s hands. Their raging hormones take over their nervousness and make everybody around them feel second-hand awkwardness.
9. The metro is pretty much the best thing that happened to this city and as punctual as you might want to be by riding the metro, you’d still find yourself getting late because the person in front of you has too many texts to respond to. Just when you start considering tryouts for Olympics when you’re three inches away from the door that’s about to close, Satan decides to board this very train before you alight. You can feel almost feel this door shut on your face perhaps making you lose that nose you are so proud of.
10. When little kids aren’t having the time of their life around metro poles, poles are used by people as an extra spine to support their flailing body parts because suddenly balancing your own body is too strenuous. You’d always find these people leaning on to poles like they’re their own personal IV drips, detaching from which just might lead to their deaths.
