My Delhi Metro Muses

I do not think I want 80 work hour weeks, but a 20-something hours week plus 2 more similar days have made life quite a drone. And therefore...

1. Firstly, yes, it is called a train.

2. I don’t know why DMRC is trying to cut costs by not keeping the air conditioners at stations on this season. Aren’t they making enough thanks to the millions who use the trains everyday?

3. The woman who thinks she has an ass small enough to fit in a space where a woman half her size was sitting earlier is quite funny.

4. The embarrassment that the same woman goes through when her ass doesn’t fit is even more fun to witness. :P

5. The people pushing their way through to that half a seat are the evils that I would like to wish away.

6. The woman who boarded the train over an hour ago, had a nice sleep, and is now getting ‘ready’ for work is entertaining. Eye makeup, hair brush, et al – everything is there in the bag.

7. Woman who fails to understand the concept of personal space. If a train is crowded, she will not keep her bag under the seat. She will make sure she is carrying a big bag or multiple bags. And then irritate all others around her.

8. The category of women who carry bags which are bigger in width than in length do not seem to have discovered yet in life that their bag pokes the life out of the person standing behind them.

9. The ones who are too short to hold on to the handles above – them, I sympathise with. I didn’t say I like them crowding the space around the doors!

10. This one’s more of a unisex phenomenon – people not realizing that their earphones are behaving like Dolby Digital speakers, not earphones. Of course, nobody around them can figure the song that they are listening to – it’s just an endless cacophony of annoying beats.

11. Poor women who try to entertain their infant/kid in hazaar ways over 30 minutes.

12. Oh, the men who have the nerve to voice opinions like, “women have the 1st coach of the train reserved and thus should not enter the other coaches”!

13. The men who gape at you endlessly – because you are travelling in their coach. Or maybe just because they are m*&^%$fu^&*ng bastards!

The DMRC Bubble

It's time for some DMRC bashing today. In the last five years, I have never heard anything negative about it. In fact, it's always been a lot of praise about their way of functioning. Now my opinion shall differ since I am seeing and experiencing things first hand. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is carrying out its construction work not more than 100 metres away from my home. Even though there have been quite a few inconveniences in the past year, I have been patient about them because they are all temporary. I need to walk ten extra minutes to reach the market that was literally two minutes away, I have to sleep on a bed that vibrates through the night (and nothing fun in this vibration, so hold that thought.), and in general, live with a lot of chaos and noise. But it's all fine. What is not fine is this - to carry out their work, they have blocked all drains leading out of this locality. In some parts, they still unblock them once a week/ten days, and let the system clean up. But on my side of the world, they don't believe in taking the trouble. It has been three months. Of course, first we thought that it is something wrong with the drains leading out of our house. So we contacted the concerned authority - CPWD in this case. Turned out that the drain for the entire lane is blocked. So it was now NDMC's work. NDMC is one government organisation that I LOVE. In the last 11 years, they have never given a reason to complain. And mind you, maintenance of houses that were built during the British times is not easy! So, people from NDMC visited the area every single day for about two weeks. Every day they tried their best to clean up the place. Finally they told us to directly get in touch with senior Metro officials. Well, the Metro people have to live by a certain image built over time, so they are polite every time you talk to them. But, they seem to be only talking. Officer 1, officer 2, officer 3 - they are all the same. When no. 3 was approached, no. 1 was sitting with him and recognised us as the ones who came with the same problem earlier too. Some guts I must say! To not do someone's work and still recognise them. Unique they are for sure.
My house has obviously become a shelter for mosquitoes. Air fresheners obviously do not work. Neither do requests. I hope, like a lot of my posts, this reaches the top of Google's results when someone comes looking for DMRC. And in case they come ego-surfing, I live near the under-construction INA station. Thank you very much! Bloody @#$%^&*!!