The rainbow world of fellow travellers on the Delhi Metro (Metroites?) is great fun. And what the metrolife also exposes you to is all that happens during the walk to and from the stations. Some that really make me go “Uff”! Here’s my “A” list…
Spitting! I have never understood why Indian males spit so much. It’s bad enough when they do it after eating paan, that quintessentially Indian post-meal indulgence whose consumption is justified by its supposed magical digestive properties (marketing you think? like how red wine is good for health?). But I never understood why people do it otherwise? Why can’t they simply swallow it like I do or like everyone in non-spitting population in the world does? So, my word of advice to anyone walking on Delhi’s streets – keep your ears open for a curious and disgusting rumbling sound because that is your warning that someone is ready to discharge and so quickly get off the way! Uff, I can assure you, is just my being a bit mild!
Littering, along with spitting and peeing (I’ll come to that too!), is easily amongst my top 5 most despicable Indian habits. The fact that we need an Abhiyan to keep our country clean is shameful in itself. People think nothing of just throwing stuff in public spaces – the rule of thumb is if you’re done with something, toss it out of your house, not in! It of course cuts across socio-economic classes – seeing an India Kings or a Marlboro cigarette packet out of your Mercedes or BMW or Audi or whatever be the luxury status-symbol wheels you prefer is common place. Of course plastic is king but paper, mung phalli peels, banana, orange and assorted fruit peels, the eaten cob of the corn….all the stuff one sees in that walk to and from the metro station. Really irritating. Surprisingly, the metro train, the station and the rails are clean – completely in contrast to the railways; Go figure, as the Americans would say!
Public peeing probably tops the disgust list. Of all the smells that make up India, many pleasant I have to say, this is the one that is most pervasive and tells you that you are indeed in India! It unifies us. What makes the Indian male treat every wall, every tree, and every gutter as a public urinal? Reminds me of the classic sign I saw decades ago in Kanpur painted on a wall. The English said: “do not commit nuisance”. And in case you wondered that that nuisance was, the Hindi explained it in no uncertain terms: “yahan pishaab karna manaa hai”. Nuisance indeed! I say UFF! In capital letters!!
People simply can’t seem to walk in a straight line! My expectation is not that they be geometrically perfect; just a bit predictable. And this is made even more complicated by the fact that at that time, people are usually paying attention to their phones – they are reading messages, writing messages or chatting. My most frustrating moment is trying to overtake someone as I walk from the station to the office. That walk is a part of my fitness routine
and so I do it somewhat briskly but as I near the person strolling in front, he lurches like some drunken person and, as if he is looking at a rear-view mirror, lurches exactly to the side I was trying to overtake from! I am slowly trying to build some thumb-rules to predict this. For instance, if a person is walking on a left-ward track (as I said earlier, no one seems to walk straight), then overtake from the left because he thinks you will overtake from the right and will lurch that way! But that seems to work only 60% of the time! No wonder Delhi-ites can’t drive in a straight line – habits picked up in the first 18 years of your life are hard to get rid of!
What is with people and loud music? I am glad that almost everyone under 30 on the metro dresses up as an extra-terrestrial with wires sticking out their ears as they stay connected with their phones. But every now and then, you come across someone who thinks that since he has a good thing on his phone – music, movie, serial – he should share it with the rest of the world, and you are suddenly distracted from what you are doing by some subliminal sounds and booming which is really irritating. This is, of course, not limited to metroites but also to folks in cars who keep their windows open and share their baley-baleys with the rest of the world. I am writing this on a flight and I have had to tell the guy behind me to use earphones instead of blasting out whatever he is listening needless to say, he ignored me as one would expect in a flight to – you guessed it – Delhi! I remember this crazy colleague of mine tried to ask a guy in the car next to him at a traffic light belting out baley-baleys to play his favourite number and got a dirty look – I wish I could do that now, except the guy would perhaps just pull out a gun! Uff!!
Backpacks! Everyone now carries a backpack – I do too and it is Patagonia too which is good for someone like me who works in sustainability as they are the great recyclers of our times! It is an extremely useful way to lug your laptop, lunch, visiting cards and what-have-you around and now that it has become acceptable in the corporate world too, it has enabled me to not bother owning what used to be the characteristic of the corporate executive: a briefcase – the brand, material, colour defined you while you walked! The trouble with a backpack in a crowded metro is you have no idea who behind you is getting mucked around by it. In my case, it is often my stomach that has the bear the brunt – it is all about relative heights – and I can tell you it is not pleasant. The metro – very thoughtfully I must say – actually makes announcements asking people to take them off their backs as you enter but is anyone listening? And so it is an ongoing exercise in “adjust” as you sway from side to side trying to avoid that thrust and parry of the backpack.
So folks, that’s my list of Uffs. If you have any, let’s compare notes!