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My commute back and forth...

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I had written this some time back, but was not sure about posting it since I was not aware it would strike a chord with anyone. But then, I saw the article "These Experiences On The Delhi Metro Will Make You A Tad Nostalgic", and especially the one I have pasted below. It struck me then, that perhaps, I was not the only one feeling like this.


This is something that I often see on the metro while travelling to and from office. Most often from office. An incident that occurred a some days ago upset me most. A lady boarded the metro, she was perspiring, the coach was not very crowded, so she planted her bags in a corner, looked around and sat down, on her bags. Hmmm… I thought there were announcements in both Hindi and English that requested passengers not to do just this. But, she did nevertheless, want to take a wild guess why? Because no one offered her a seat. This woman may have been in her mid-50's if not older, visibly wrinkled and was also looking like she would collapse any minute. Ok! I am sure she can deal with a few stations before she actually collapses. She pulled out her bottle of water, took a gulp and looked around again. This time so did I. What I noticed, caught me off guard, another girl, much younger than her, saw her looking and made a beeline for the seat that had just been vacated as she boarded the train. All this while the  woman had just about managed to get up and collect one of the two bags she had with her, dragging the second behind her. Then she noticed the seat was taken and looked around in dismay for another. She tried to hurry to the other corner which had an empty seat, when another two girls squeezed into this space. It seems that just as she chose to ignore the announcement about not sitting on the floor, these other passengers chose to ignore the other announcement, "…please offer the seat to someone who is needier than you".

The thoughts that raced through my head - what is happening to us, are we becoming so self-absorbed that we don't notice needier people or so callous that we don't care?

Perhaps, these girls were unwell, tired or had some other  very good reason, that I was not aware of. But, this is the situation always, and when I say that, I really mean always. Women with toddlers, babies, pregnant women everyone is standing, looking around with pleading eyes, desperate eyes or whatever those expressions are. But, no one, ever, offers them their seat! What is happening to us as a society, pushing, shoving, snapping?

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