Friday, March 04, 2011

In praise of the Delhi Metro

Working from home for the past few years has softened me up in some ways – for example, I can no longer smile at the many visions of apocalyptic carnage on Delhi’s roads. Driving in this city was stressful enough even when I was doing it regularly, but having fallen out of practice I find that the veins in my forehead make popping sounds when I’m stuck in traffic for even 10 or 15 minutes. Not good for the old blood pressure and all that.

In recent years I’ve rarely travelled more than three or four km beyond Saket unless it’s for an important appointment; I don’t attend most of the book-related events I get invites for, especially the ones held near Connaught Place (spending an hour each way on the road and driving in circles to find parking space is not my idea of evening fun). Besides, our colony has become an autonomous little village since the malls opened. With a variety of good restaurants and coffee joints, bookstores, music stores, plenty of walking and sitting space, and pretty much everything else one needs, there hasn’t been much incentive to go to, say, Khan Market, which was once a regular haunt.

Now the Metro is changing this to an extent. When I wrote this post in 2008, it seemed like the construction would go on forever and we’d never get to see actual trains (all we saw then were hordes of solemn-faced, helmeted men wandering about our park with giant measuring instruments, occasionally visiting houses to take photos of every crack on every wall so we couldn’t subsequently blame the damage on the vibrations). But it’s all in working order now, and a huge convenience – these days I sometimes find an excuse to get out for a while even if I don’t strictly have to.

The initial sense of well-being comes from the fortunate location of the two Yellow Line stations in the Saket area. The so-called Malviya Nagar station is a minute’s walk from my mother’s flat where I lived for over 20 years (and where I still spend most of my working day), while the Saket station is a minute’s walk from our other flat. This makes the decision to travel by train a straightforward one. If I have to go to Connaught Place or even somewhere closer like Green Park or Dilli Haat (right next to the INA station), it’s a no-brainer. In the winter months, it's a comfortable 2-km walk from the Jor Bagh station to Khan Market or the India Habitat Centre (where the Penguin Spring Fever fest is starting today) or the Alliance Francaise (where I was in conversation with Namita Gokhale yesterday).

The stations are spacious and (at this point anyway) clean, and the trains run smoothly most of the time; so far I’ve found an empty seat on only two occasions, but standing isn’t a problem for a trip that takes 20-25 minutes at most. If I had to nitpick, I’d say that travelling on the Saket-Rajiv Chowk route can be monotonous – the entire line is underground, nothing to see outside the windows, and reading isn’t really an option if you’re standing and the train is crowded. (The journey in the opposite direction to Gurgaon – with the line elevating as it approaches Qutab Minar – is pleasanter.)

But on the whole - massively empowering. I can think of only one possible improvement: given that a section of the Malviya Nagar station is located directly under our house, it would be most useful if we could get digging rights and install a sliding pole that would take me directly from my room to the platform a few metres beneath (like Groucho shinning down the fire pole into the ballroom in Duck Soup). But that’s the lazy, mollycoddled, freelancing homebody talking again, and you’re free to ignore anything he says.

[As a tribute to crowded trains, here’s the great opening scene of Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street, a film I wrote about here]

15 comments:

  1. Great Delhi Metro actually changed the way we commute in Delhi.Now nothing is too far away in Delhi...I will catch you someday in Metro and learn something movies :)

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  2. > it would be most useful if we could get digging rights and install a sliding pole

    Reading this much was enough to know what's coming :-).

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  3. I've been on the Metro exactly thrice (and you know about one time), so it was very exciting each time. Of course, I've never faced peak-hour commutes, and I'm guessing a few of those would wear my enthusiasm down. But I wish Delhi had the Metro when I was living there.

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  4. This is making me miss Delhi so much :((( nice post!

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  5. Now since you have started using Metro....I hope we can meet some day in the metro then, me reading "jaane bhi do yaaron' :)

    Cheers!

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  6. Waiting for the day when it actually materializes in Mumbai.

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  7. Moved to Delhi about 8 months back and the metro has been a blessing in disguise for students like myself who don't want to fork out crazy auto fares. I rarely go anywhere without checking out the closes metro lines.

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  8. *closest

    Damn typos

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  9. I used public transit in Delhi after about 5 years last year in December and was pleasantly surprised. The cleanliness though makes me really uncomfortable. Not a spit of Pan to be seen anywhere - and the sweepers are at work round the clock, apparently.I don't feel at home in such a setting.
    Anyhow, its really heartening to see that eve teasing , for which Delhi has been notorious, does not seem to be a problem in Metro. Has the general spic and span atmosphere shamed the offenders or have things improved in Delhi overall?

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  10. When it's too hot to walk, you can just take the yellow line all the way to C-Sec and change to the violet, which has a stop right at Khan Market and another at JLN stsadium which my 72-y-o father described as a brief walk from Habitat (so presumably somewhat briefer for you!)

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  11. I used the Metro a lot during my stay in Delhi earlier this year. Coming from London, I thought I knew what to expect. But I got a lot of sour looks when I boarded the women's only carriage on my first journey!

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  12. Hey, thanks for this interersting and amusing post about public transport, I can relate to what you're saying!

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  13. It used to be good before the introduction of the "ladies' compartment". Now there's hardly even standing space and I loathe traveling on it especially when I have to change lines more than once. But given that I stay in Rohini (and that too 4 km away from the last station on the red-line), I have no choice if I want to attend any cultural event in Delhi, do I?

    Right now, traveling on the Metro always reminds me of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyq9MMcLsv4 which isn't such a good sign.

    And BTW, if you didn't notice: on the yellow line, between Chandni Chowk and Kashmere Gate underground lines, they inserted some moving images as an experiment for "in-house entertainment cum advertisment opportunity". They had the Yahoo "!" moving along the train outside the window. It'd had been very charming but for all the people just eager to just get out at Kashmere Gate.

    Already it is nothing less than the experience of Mumbai locals (if that Kundan Shah/Deepak Dobriyal episode in Mumbai Cutting is anything to go by). It's just cleaner. I hope it stays that way.

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  14. i so agree jai. its changed the way i use the city. my only quibble is the interconnectivity of the lines. going to noida from home for example is still a trek.

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  15. Traveling on the yellow line is not so pleasant when traveling from gurgaon to any of the places in Delhi because one never gets to sit and there are some really long stretches between guru dronachaya in gurgaon and arjangarh where the train slows to a crawl.Also,the rush hour is madness ,especially so at Rajiv Chowk or New Delhi station.However the metro is the fastest,cheapest and the safest way to travel long distances like between gurgaon and anand vihar etc.

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