In a metro train

 

You feel better once you step into a metro train in the national capital—if it isn’t too crowded of course. It’s a respite from the polluted pestilence outside. You set up a type of narrative privilege if you are lucky to grab a seat. Then beyond the clutches of the outside chaos, the time elapses in peace. Traffic-born hassles seem superfluous. The train moves with sagacity. I have a seat and feeling quite at ease with life despite the smog outside.

Two women board the coach with their children. Both of them carry infants in their arms. A boy and a girl walk alongside. A man immediately gets up to give his seat to the ladies. The ladies settle in the vacant space. The man stands near the boy and the little girl. It’s not a casual, principled offer of seat. It’s something very human in nature. He is a Hindu bearing a tilak on his forehead. They are Muslims.

There is such a huge chasm between the two communities currently; the fissure nurtured for political gains in the communalized air. One can feel these invisible fault-lines at public places even when things look normal with the common people carrying on their routine life. It’s a livewire, invisible though most of the time. You can feel its slow pulse in people’s looks, gestures and words. But he is a very good man. He allays the tension. He playfully chats with the little boy and the tiny girl. It turns into a very friendly conversation, involving common people beyond the wars on religions. The children become relaxed in his presence; their mothers feel comfortable after the initial signs of slight tension.

They deboard a few stations down the line. He gets back his seat—in fact, earned his relaxation time after this kind deed. The boy and the girl look from the window as they walk on the platform. He waves them a bye. They smile. He has given them a priceless memory that will help them in becoming better human beings when they grow up.

Just before the doors would slide shut, a girl rushes from the aisle and drops the crushed cups and bowls in the narrow gap between the platform and the train. Well-aimed, clean drop of garbage by an educated girl. She has been eating with her friend onboard. They are modern girls clad in tight jeans and revealing tops, all decked up with freedom, the freedom to spread litter on a metro station. Look at the contrast: the man groomed a rosebud for humanity and the girls spread litter. Such contrasting characters so nearby! Well, that’s what makes metro rides quite interesting.