The metro. I take it everyday to college and practically every other place I go to. It was miraculously started right before I joined college from the place I live to where I now study: north campus, Delhi university (a place that I’d always wanted to go to…but that’s another story!)
So, The Metro… a place where thousands of strangers congregate to travel together, sharing precious moments of their day. I often wonder if these people were packed together in these compartments randomly or by design. Either way, these fellow travelers have the ability to keep me entertained for the 55 mins (one-way) that I travel every day. But, unfortunately, for me, I don’t avail of this everyday as I have the company of some equally interesting books on most days. But the other days I amuse myself, quite vicariously though, with the help of the other commuters who, more often than not, are packed like sardines in a tin can, with me.
Now, I hate to confess but my most favorites of the many amusements that the metro provides is … eavesdropping (forgive me father, for I have sinned!) I know that is not the most righteous thing to do, but isn’t to err, human. And I am a mere human being. That is the most important fact. That I err too often, is the least important one. Catch snippets of conversations and then it is up to your imagination to cook up what happened before and after that! One must try it to believe me when I say that it is absolutely amazing (also enhances one’s creative abilities, if I may add)
The next favorite of mine is to observe people’s expression as they embark on the journey along with you. Equally enhancing to one’s creative faculty as the prior one but involves lesser use of the auditory faculty.
e.g. I once saw some one reading a book called “how to win friends and influence people”(!) and from what I thought, he seemed to be pausing in between to take mental notes! And I couldn’t help imagining how his social life was like! (I know this is real mean…. but please forgive me!)
There are also many others like reliving your day or some comic moments in your mind. But this one often leaves you struggling to fight that laugh which is trying its best to escape, incase you become a subject of the many other imaginations traveling with you in the same compartment. But, alas, your lips betray you and there is that little twitch and your lips curve upwards leaving you feeling like a fool (and not to forget, subject to the atrocities of the many imaginary minds like yours’)
But also it this convergence of strangers which uplifts you when you are at your lowest and so need that privacy, because ultimately, despite of that crowd, you are alone. And even if that desolate being that you feel that you are, decides to let other people know of it’s existence, you can be assured of anonymity.
But even as I plead guilty to these crimes, I must admit it is hard to maintain the sang-froid on my face. But a year of criminal activity has proved productive but my eyes still betray me. So I pray that I don’t meet anybody who can read beyond my face and peep into what’s brewing inside. But hey…that sounds awfully romantic…so I pray that I meet someone exactly like that, and what better a place to meet that particular stranger, than The Metro!