Delhi Metro - A journey!

The London Underground Tube is more than 150 years old and runs mighty smoothly for its age! They have metro cards for regular travellers and tickets printed on card sheet paper for the less frequent ones. They are said to be very crowded during peak work hours in week days and people are always in a rush in this system of transport in London. Even on escalators leading in or out of a tube station people stand aside on their left so that they can allow for the daily office goers to rush forward from the right (This rule is followed everywhere in London believe it or not!) .

And then I saw the Delhi metro. I don’t seem to remember what station I was at when I first encountered the agility of this service. But the station seemed very organised. I looked at the coin sized plastic token in my hand that the man on the ticket counter had handed my father. He was still wondering how to use it. I said we will figure it out, let’s go to the platform. As we walked we were greeted by a security setup with metal detectors screening every passenger who walked in. There were X-ray baggage scanners working alongside these metal detectors and frisking of every individual took place by CISF personnel who manned the station. I wondered what was going on until I realised this was a normal daily procedure at every metro station in the city. Impressed by this and having passed all the security checks with flying colours, my father and I walked further to  find the AFC machines doing their job most efficiently and incessantly! I was amazed at the rate at which passengers crossed this machine. There was hardly any humanly detectable time between two consecutive passengers punching their tokens on the RF detectors on the machine. And it very enthusiastically opened for every passenger closing right before the next one could tag behind assuming the machine won’t notice! ‘Haa’, I thought. ‘Artificial Intelligence perhaps! I think even machines have started adapting to the exploding population of India. They know they need to crunch big numbers daily. I wonder if this was a machine built for some moderately/sparcely populated country, how it would leisurely open for a passenger and wait for a royal time for the passenger to pass  in which perhaps 10 Indians could sneak in without tickets!’ I let the thought pass as I crossed the AFC with my legitimate token.

There were barricades on the platform to define where the metro doors would align. Direction indicators painted on the floor of the platform showed how passengers alighting from the train should alight from the centre while those boarding should take the sides. There were screens flashing train timings and destinations. There were announcements being made continuously. People stood in a queue waiting for the next train.  I was standing in one such queue with my father. The platform was crowded as if there had been no train for a long time. But there had been one just about 2 minutes before! I was thinking if we would be able to board the next one in such a crowd when I saw it coming. As it came to a stop and the doors flew open, the mob poured out not bothering whether it was the side or the centre and those in queue stood patiently for them to explode out and breathe some fresh air. Then the boarding began from both sides. The train that had just emptied its belly of the mass of passengers filled with a new load, perhaps much heavier than earlier. My dad, most enthusiastic about the populations of the country and wanting to cope with the crowds like he used to during his youth, started saying ‘Deepti we need to push ourselves in with them, else we won’t be able to…’ Before he could complete I raised a hand at him indicating him to stop and said ‘No, we will wait and let this one pass. The frequency is good and we are in no hurry to reach anywhere within time. Let’s wait.’ He saw the sense in what I was saying and agreed although I know a part of him wanted to hang onto that metro door and travel like that, reminiscing his days in the Mumbai local! Thank God for metros.

So it has been almost a year since I first travelled in this incredible system and I have had the most amusing experiences in this mode of transport ever since. The Delhi metro has been my saviour during my stay here. I take the metro every morning to reach my office and back in the evening. I wouldn’t say it has been absolutely consistent in its performance every day of its life. There are some days when there are technical issues and they run fewer metros than the normal in which case the crowds are overwhelming. Then there are some days when the metro that I am travelling in faces break downs or delays and I have to suffer the crowds inside for a longer time than the usual 20 minutes. Nevertheless, overall it is certainly commendable that the DMRC has been highly successful in its Metro Management on a daily basis. Yet the crowds outperform themselves everyday in finding adventure in this ‘designed to be tame’ transport system. The Indian population is so accustomed to getting into some sort of trouble or another every other day, they cannot stand a day without one! They sometimes create it themselves in order to feel at home. The easiest way to do so is to jump into the door of the metro when it is closing! Well, ofcourse, they jump in order to get inside the metro but the adventure is in the process of jumping. It is so common in Indian cinema that a hero chases a train running along the platform and then jumps on to its door just in time before the platform ceases to exist. Perhaps people try to ape this stunt in real life, although the difference is the metro does not start running until the electronically controlled doors are closed and hence the scene has to be suitably modified. So they try to squeeze in through the closing doors of the metro. Now in most instances the person miraculously squeezes in without harm and has that triumphant expression of relief and success on their face. But at times the timing goes wrong and one gets stuck between the closing doors! The doors have been designed to sense pressure so they squeeze on you for a couple of seconds before opening again to let the person pass. This 2 second time frame is so frightening to some humble souls like mine I almost hold my breath everytime this happens and pray that the person comes out safe, while the person who is actually stuck is so accustomed to something like this and has so much faith in the system that they just stand there waiting for the door to reopen and then get in happily once it opens. This was quite a shocking experience for me for the first few times. I never dare attempt to board when the alarm for closing of doors starts buzzing in the metro. I let that train pass and wait for the next one instead. Yet, I must say that the normal practice here in Delhi is to keep pushing in for as long as it is minutely possible.

Another adventure in the Metro is the volume of the crowd, especially in the general compartment. Oh yes, there’s a ladies compartment in the train. The reason they have made this compartment would be clear once you read this experience. So, I got into the general compartment at 11 pm one day assuming that it would be relatively empty at this hour of the night. Turned out that particular line of the metro runs fully packed even at 11 pm. So people kept squeezing in at every stop and I was pressed against one pole inside the metro. I had men (stinking of sweat) pressed on me from all sides because of the volume of people inside the compartment. At every station, people would press us inside as if we were some luggage being stuffed inside a bag of thermocol balls and get in as if nothing happened. Then the stop where I had to get off, Rajeev Chowk is a major junction where three metro lines intersect and hence there’s a lot of turnover on this stop. When the metro doors flew open at this stop I didn’t need to move a leg. I was just pushed forward and out along with the crowd. It took me some 30 seconds after having stepped out to regain control over myself and start thinking straight as to what direction I should be walking. While in those 30 seconds, the crowd that had just stepped out along with me had already dispersed in their own directions and the new crowd had boarded the metro and the metro began to leave the station. That’s when I realised that I should make a move too… Well, the ladies compartment is no different. It’s just stinking ladies instead of stinking men sticking to you on all sides. After having travelled in both compartments I decided I would rather not board a train so full and wait until the next one arrived. I can compromise my punctuality a little bit over this ordeal.

If you think there couldn’t be more amusement in this simple system of public transport you have to hear this one out. Every metro station (almost) has a public toilet managed by a social service organization called ‘Sulabh International’. Now, these are paid services. Whoever planned the payment structure for these toilets has a fantastic sense of humour because they charge differently depending on whether you urinate or defecate inside! (As if they would know! Haa! ). I don’t know why one should do this since cleaning and sanitation that should be maintained remains the same irrespective of what the toilet is used for. But then I think of those heavenly carefree souls who forget to flush when they use toilets and I understand why they would do so. I was unaware of this system. The only time I used the toilet, I was with a couple of female friends and we walked in without looking at the board that announced the charges. We came out in a couple of minutes and asked the man sitting at the money-collection counter how much they charge. To our surprise and dismay he asked us, “What did you do?”. I stared at him shocked at the question. “Excuse me?”, I said thinking I had misunderstood (Also prepared to retort ‘That’s none of your business you asshole’). He asked again, “Toilet or urine”, this time rather sheepishly feeling totally embarrassed that he had to ask this question to a lady. And then he pointed to the board above him. I looked up and realised what had happened. Poor soul did not know where to look. We paid for what we had done inside that toilet and came out bursting with laughter.

The Delhi metro is one hell of an experience and it is commendable how well they have maintained it despite the humongous amount of population that uses the metro every day. The ridership as of 2015 is 2,19000 per day! Hats off to DMRC for managing it so well!