Delhi Metro vs the Mumbai Locals

I had been hearing about the so called rapid changes in the infrastructure of New Delhi for quite some time now. Finally I got to spend my last weekend in the city which made me fall in love with it on the very first day that dates back to 14th July 2005. I have always been in love with this city and I still don’t really know the precise reason, nor do I have any idea for my disinterest in a city like Mumbai which attracts a huge population in the country.

Well I don’t intend to start comparing the two cities because I have my own biases. However, right now while I sit in the Rajdhani express with 5 more people who are in their late 70s enjoying their game of cards and with having made quite a lot of commuting in the Delhi Metro, I couldn’t help contrasting it with the Mumbai Locals.

First thing to notice in the Delhi Metro would be the usage of a popular electronic equipment, which basically lowers the overall temperature and avoids unwanted sweating (People call it AC). Life there does look beyond a “Vada Paav.” Earlier, when i used to travel by metro back in my graduation days, I hated all those people who seemed professional with their clothing, but pushed like maniacs to enter the evening train to Kashmiri gate. Well, this time all those people seemed so much friendlier and with heightened civic sense. After being pushed and crushed in the Mumabi locals, any damn fellow traveller in trains in any part of India would seem friendly. Even the ones in Gaya and some interior parts of Bihar, where somehow 8 people manage to sit in a place meant for a maximum of 4 people. Infact, I just remembered that the Delhi Metro doesn’t even discriminate like here in Mumbai. There’s no first or a second class. At some level, I highly appreciate that, especially after seeing how rude and arrogant people can get here in the locals if a person with an appearance of the so called second class accidentally enters the first class.

But my personal favourite about the Delhi metro is that the worst which can happen is to be forced to smell the mixture of different deodorants. Compare it to a heterogeneous mixture of the body odour which one has to experience in the Mumabi locals. And not to forget the pretty sight of beautiful creations of the almighty which you get to see in the metro and which is almost next to impossible in the locals.

No offence to the Kolkata Metro. I have travelled just once when I was a small kid. I have no memories except that the highest fare of Kolkata is lower than the lowest fare in Delhi. Anyways, Kolkata is better suited when we talk about the Bandhs, the Indian culture and the related stuff. Infrastructure is a far cry.

But I guess, now that I am back to Mumbai, life is back on the speed tracks of the locals. In Mumbai, it sometimes takes an entire lifetime for people to move to the fast tracks from the slow ones. (Copied from some bollywood flick). Hopefully I will be able to take it to a track which will take me to places I dream to reach...

---Sriram

Silent Echoes

I wonder, what is it that

Is driving me nuts?

I ponder, what is it that

Is undermining my guts?

I see all around with eyes so hollow

Searching for that missing glow

I tumble down amidst the unknown

Still looking for things; long gone

I stare at the white screen

And look at the cursor blinking

I feel a huge void; and blankness within

As if my entire soul is slowly sinking

I try to chuck those images and thoughts

But they just won’t leave me and go

The silence still hurts and loudly echoes

Once up high; the feeling now is so low

---Sriram

Hopes and Tears

While he lay still, wide awake

And kept thinking for the old times’ sake;

he floated in his own world of beauty

When the alarm gave a call of duty

While the days are so bright with a song

The nights are dark and long

Like a circle without a start or an end

he found himself back to where it all begun

As the days come closer and the moment near

He is gripped with uncertainty and a deep fear

Disappointment and dejection is what it holds for him

Yet, it gives a comfort to him and his whims

With every sunrise he lived up with new hopes

No matter what, he knew, who he loved

But, days turned into months into years

The only remains left were his dried up tears

---Sriram

Grains of Sand...

While I sat on the edges

And looked across the horizon

The air around, touched my skin

Showing me a plethora of vision and illusion

Life is like the grains of sand

No matter, how hard you try,

You can’t hold them in your hand

It keeps slipping out of control

The little that is left, is all we own

People close, will always be

Is neither a rule or a must

For this isn’t about choice or loyalty

Or even a breach of trust

Be it the air or simply water

Or, whatever we have and treasure

They surround us only till they want

Just like people, who suddenly drift apart

Shaken by a shiver and chill, I realized

I was hiding in a mist

In a blanket of dark, grey and uncertainty

The only light was of my fate, my destiny

---Sriram

Liberated in the veil

She lay still in a veil

While the porch hung from the creaking branches

And as the clouds camouflaged the crescent

I could hear nothing but a slow wail

The noise of dry leaves being crushed

Penetrated the dead silence of the night

Scared I was, and frozen to death

If only, someone could have see the plight

Dead, she was long back

They only stopped the heartbeat

Enslaved, she always was

Death, only liberated her...

---Sriram

Naked and Bare

A lonely kid sat alone in the dark

His forehead bleeding with a mark

Across the street was something, so hollow

He figured it out to be just a shadow.

It was on the other side of a window,

The figures seemed to be in a mellow

and as they danced and swayed

The kid simply shivered and withered

He wondered if it was the dark,

or, was it the blood so cold

While the shadows grew red in the heat of passion,

that little heart stopped its action

Next morning he is picked up by the garbage van

also carrying the wastes of the passion,

While a few leer and drank beer,

The lives of rest lay naked and bare

---Sriram

The first Shower @ Crisil House

Here I sit amongst the intelligent people
Ready to analyze, every single upheaval
From demand and supply to the market dynamics
It is excel and the numbers alone which give them the kicks

Across my seat, there is a huge window
Where I keep looking, resting on my elbow
While the analysts, talk facts and numbers
I am appalled by issues lying in a slumber

A mile away I see greenery and a hill
Looking at it strengthens my will
Up high in the sky, birds fly back in a line
I choke; thinking about what could have been mine

Suddenly I could see the drops of rain
And listen to them as they fell
I put my hands out and closed my eyes
To feel the first drops casting its spell

Minutes later the pain just vanished
And left behind an aroma to be relished
The first rains had created its magic across the sea
I knew it all as feeling a new lease of life all around me

---Sriram