A diplomatic choice: Delhi metro isn't for the faint of heart

Our diplomat friend, a high commissioner in Colombo, was visiting New Delhi, a city he had served in earlier as an envoy, as had his wife. They had come to attend a wedding in Udaipur and were in the capital for a few days. Could we meet? My wife immediately summoned them home for dinner. A date and time were set and other friends invited. It was time for nostalgia, reminisces and catching up, and we looked forward to it.

On previous occasions, they had come visiting in their official transport of embassy cars and drivers. The ambassador’s wife, who had taken a career break a few years earlier, had visited us on a previous trip to India, booking a cab at the time. But now the couple wanted to know the nearest metro station from our house. They weren’t planning to come by the train, were they? It turned out, they were. “Oh dear,” I said to my wife, “you don’t think they’re being just a little foolish? After all, the Delhi metro isn’t for the faint of heart.” 

Our daughter takes the metro part of the way to work every day, and her anecdotes about the peak hour rush are best heard, not experienced. She’d regale us about resolute commuters reading paperbacks while clinging to the straps with one hand; of others hogging space while wielding their elbows to fend off territorial intrusions; of those who’d be swept in or out of coaches whether or not they wanted to board, or get off, without being allowed a choice. My own trysts with the metro had been limited to two trips in the 15 years since it had begun operation, the first when the service was launched in 2002; the next a couple of years later to escape the road traffic on a trip to Old Delhi that had meant negotiating the crowds at Rajiv Chowk. It was enough to breed resistance forever. If it kept 3.2 million commuters off the city’s roads daily, I did not need to add to its burden or ridership.  

The other day, my wife had had a tantrum because our driver had refused to take the metro after depositing her and the car to Gurugram, where she was staying overnight. He insisted on being sent back in an Uber. “The metro is too crowded,” he’d claimed, “I’m not used to it.” Earlier, when a motorcycle I’d given him had been impounded by the police, he’d fussed about using the metro to come on duty, asking for auto fare instead, even though the fault was his and I was no more responsible for how he commuted to work. 

At any rate, our diplomat friends arrived home none the worse for wear, having negotiated the metro, changed at the designated intersections, and found a cab or auto — we never did ask — to ferry them the last mile. All they wanted was to sterilise their hands to make sure they didn’t carry around any germs about them from the surfaces they’d touched. Of course, the crowds had been massive, but they seemed game to take the metro back to their hotel. Finally, it was left to my wife to take things in hand. She delayed laying dinner sufficiently long for the last train to have departed. It was her way of keeping our guests “safe”. They were left with no choice but to hitch a ride back with our other friends, thereby establishing some kind of equilibrium to our arguably entitled lives.