Life…in a Metro
Metro on Sundays is transformed inexplicably to a domestic zone….not that it is the office goer’s domain on weekdays, being the quieter and a relatively inflexible mode of transport of the city , Metro is clearly her most underutilized infrastructure (next only to the monstrous red over bridges that loom incongruously over the most quaint crossings)…
Sigh I digress again ….As I was saying, Metro on Sundays are characterized by the couples in various stages of matrimony or pre matrimony…as you listlessly make your way through moody electronic gates who greedily gobble up your ticket only to blink a vexing red cross and therefore you have to shout for the blue shirted metro guards (“ei dada please come na” … “ki holo ?? kothar theke uthechilen…ek minute daran”)…by the time you convince the dada to open a manual gate for you, the train you could have comfortably slipped into is missed by a whisker...but since it’s a Sunday you can afford to shrug and find a pillar to rest on … I always wanted to be the sort who is oblivious to the crowd and is lost in a book…but people always distract me…men , women children…faces , idiosyncrasies, and hidden agendas…shirts , trousers, duppatas and saris…talcumed backs, transparent blouses highlighted by black bras, damp sweat patches, flaring nostrils jungled with overgrown hair…shreds of chicken fibre caught between yellowing teeth, entangled hands, bulging pants….
Everything is noticed, smelt and felt… sometimes with disgust sometimes with morbid curiosity…
But on Sundays things change…everything is bathed in the hues of domesticity…squealing children, men and their wives, young men and their wives, old men and their wives, men with their soon to be wives and more squealing children...
Categorising these various stages of matrimony will be an easy job for even the most casual observer …
You have-
1) The just married type…bangled hands and blazing sindoor …great bodies contoured with great sex …tight jeans…flimsy duppata… arching backs…sweet nothings…
2) The soon to be married type…entangled hands…furtive glances…need for a room…clingy girlfriend ….irritated with desire boyfriend…parted lips…unspoken words…always jeans and sequined tops…
3) Married with young children type…tousled hair…inept hapless father…efficient, irritable mother…pinned synthetic sari…dark circles…contended eyes…chocolate ice cream stained shirts…
4) Married for decades type…talcumed and cottoned…sparse yet well nourished hair plastered into neat plaits and plates…lazy nods…comfortable distances…
Sigh…how I wish I could ever fit in …
P.S. incase you haven’t noticed my imaginatively titled post is my little tribute to the soon to be released Bollywood film with the same name…it has some great nos. by composer Pritam …pliss do check out :-)
Metro on Sundays is transformed inexplicably to a domestic zone….not that it is the office goer’s domain on weekdays, being the quieter and a relatively inflexible mode of transport of the city , Metro is clearly her most underutilized infrastructure (next only to the monstrous red over bridges that loom incongruously over the most quaint crossings)…
Sigh I digress again ….As I was saying, Metro on Sundays are characterized by the couples in various stages of matrimony or pre matrimony…as you listlessly make your way through moody electronic gates who greedily gobble up your ticket only to blink a vexing red cross and therefore you have to shout for the blue shirted metro guards (“ei dada please come na” … “ki holo ?? kothar theke uthechilen…ek minute daran”)…by the time you convince the dada to open a manual gate for you, the train you could have comfortably slipped into is missed by a whisker...but since it’s a Sunday you can afford to shrug and find a pillar to rest on … I always wanted to be the sort who is oblivious to the crowd and is lost in a book…but people always distract me…men , women children…faces , idiosyncrasies, and hidden agendas…shirts , trousers, duppatas and saris…talcumed backs, transparent blouses highlighted by black bras, damp sweat patches, flaring nostrils jungled with overgrown hair…shreds of chicken fibre caught between yellowing teeth, entangled hands, bulging pants….
Everything is noticed, smelt and felt… sometimes with disgust sometimes with morbid curiosity…
But on Sundays things change…everything is bathed in the hues of domesticity…squealing children, men and their wives, young men and their wives, old men and their wives, men with their soon to be wives and more squealing children...
Categorising these various stages of matrimony will be an easy job for even the most casual observer …
You have-
1) The just married type…bangled hands and blazing sindoor …great bodies contoured with great sex …tight jeans…flimsy duppata… arching backs…sweet nothings…
2) The soon to be married type…entangled hands…furtive glances…need for a room…clingy girlfriend ….irritated with desire boyfriend…parted lips…unspoken words…always jeans and sequined tops…
3) Married with young children type…tousled hair…inept hapless father…efficient, irritable mother…pinned synthetic sari…dark circles…contended eyes…chocolate ice cream stained shirts…
4) Married for decades type…talcumed and cottoned…sparse yet well nourished hair plastered into neat plaits and plates…lazy nods…comfortable distances…
Sigh…how I wish I could ever fit in …
P.S. incase you haven’t noticed my imaginatively titled post is my little tribute to the soon to be released Bollywood film with the same name…it has some great nos. by composer Pritam …pliss do check out :-)
2 comments:
o gosh. shilpa fan uve become. hehe.
wonderful, minute observations. I say, you are destinied to be a writer :)
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