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July 29, 2009

Posted by K in Uncategorized.
9 comments

I don’t like the Delhi metro so much anymore. A few months back, I thought it was the next best thing to heaven. But Delhi becomes so much like Mumbai on the metro. The mad scramble to work. Middle aged men crowding the point at which they estimate the doorway will come to stop, and literally running inside, a wild jump to grab the one seat they see available (never mind that there are other seats empty and there are other briefcase toting, balding office-goers, all leaping in a synchronised, perverse act of desperation). People sitting face to face and not knowing where to look(I thoroughly dislike the seating system. Would have preferred a vertical alignment, never mind that standing space would be reduced). People requesting you to adjust, the indignity of resting the edge of your bottom on the rim of the seat. The animal instinct that doesn’t want to let you share your seat the one day you DO manage to grab one. The annoyingly smooth voices making announcement after condescending announcement. Why on earth should you evict people for playing music, on tinny speakers of mobile phones, on the train? How can you make ‘quarrelling’ a punishable offense? Why should ‘squatting’ be liable to a fine of 200 bucks? Why should people travel like cattle just because it is the metro? What makes you think it is okay to flash the fact that the metro big brother is watching you all the time while you travel (it’s a chilling shot-a pair of eyes filling the screen, scanning left and right)? The stench of Authority is so strong every time I set foot on the metro that I could just scream.

And let us not even go into the exploitation of construction workers by the DMRC.

Another thing that is increasingly making me sick to the pit of my stomach, is the latest airtel ad campaign. I know the meaning of the word ‘despair’ when I see a connection scheme being targeted so vulgarly at children, how old can they be, 8?9?, being portrayed on billboards, television schemes. This is somehow so much worse than the targeting of kids for items like toothpaste, junk food. I think even clothes pale in comparison. It is not just the concept of independant phone conversations that they are selling, but everything else that goes with it. I sincerely hope that I’m being an absolute fool and that I have missed some detail that will make this disgusting piece of work more acceptable.