Thursday, October 7, 2010

Delhi's Pride, A Metro Ride


So the Delhi Metro is pretty cool. In fact, it's cooler than I expected it to be. It's surprisingly similar to the Singapore metro, actually. In fact, it's just an Indian rip-off (because it even has similar murals and everything), but I'm not complaining. I use the metro everyday, back and forth from my workplace.

The cool thing about the metro is that it has a Women's Compartment, which is the first compartment of each train. This is awesome cause I don't have strange men bumping up against me. Also, women generally smell better and we shove and poke about 37% less than men do. I get into the compartment, get shoved around for a while, get glared at by other women, and eventually get to my destination.

Did I tell you that the metro is cheap? and airconditioned? Well it is! And that's awesome!

Anyway there are some women on the metro that caught my attention so I'm going to do what I always do; classify them. This is because it's always easier to assign labels to people rather than see them as individuals, it's the new world order. Kidding. I just do it cause that's how my brain does it. Alright, here goes.

THE I'M SO METRO-SAVVY
The metro savvy girl is confident and thinks she owns all the awesomeness inside the metro. She never holds the sidebars or any of the holdable things in the compartment cause when the train starts, she maintains balance out of her pure awesomeness. She stands her ground, listens to music on the earphones which are connected to her phone and rests her hand on the glass sliding door, even if she isn't supposed to, cause she's cool like that. Here's the most badass part: she stands dangerously close to the sliding doors. So close that I always feel like her nose will be squashed when the doors shut, but she doesn't care. She knows where to stand so that the doors shut just a nano-centimeter away from her face. Amazing!

THE ANXIOUS AUNTY
The metro also contains these older women who are very nervous. When they come in, the first thing they do is wrestle you for something to hold on to. God help you if you are hanging on to one of the handles she has an eye on. She'll first hand on to the only place on that handle your hand isn't on and then slowly encroach into your hand-territory until you give up and find something else to hold. Otherwise, she'll just shove you with one of her adipose-laden body parts. This type of passenger is also annoying when she needs to get off the train. A couple of stations before her's, she starts inching towards the door, moving form one handle to another, slowly defeating other handle-holders. If you don't oblige, she prods you and yells "esscuse!", which means you need to give way. By the time the train is 5 minutes away from her station, she's plastered onto the exit door. She will get out first.

THE BIG BAG BABITA
There are some women who carry obnoxiously large bags filled with god-knows-what. I've decided to name that type 'Babita' [buh-bee-tha]; all of them. So BBB will turn from side to side and swing her bag around, hitting everybody. It's like she has 1/4th a person attached to her who likes causing destruction. It's like a mini battering ram. One of them had something so hard in her bag that when it hit my elbow, it sent that strange shock-feeling surging down my arm. She knocks around several other people before she gets off the train, especially if she's bolting towards the door.

THE TALKER
We have to have these everywhere. They loudly babble on their cell phones, giving us useless information on their best friend's ex, their favourite movie, their university professors and their mother's cooking. Unless your best friend is an incredibly hot male, your professor has a juggling cat that can ride a unicycle or you're inviting me over for dinner cooked by your mother, I don't care. So shut up. Or keep it down, at least.

THE MAN
Occasionally, a member of the opposite sex attempts to sneak into the women's compartment. In smells better, it's a little less crowded and people are slightly more attractive. Unfortunately for him, he is yelled at and shooed out by several women saying "Yeh LADIES compartment hain!", or ushered out by the occasional security guy who's stationed in the train.

So that's been my experience with the metro so far. The trains got a purrdy face!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A Netizen's Guide to Delhi


Whenever I told anyone that I was about to spend a considerable amount of time in Delhi, I received pretty much the same response "Wow! Delhi isn't Bangalore! You can't go out in the evenings. It's so unsafe. You need to watch out for EVERYTHING". Well that's how it started, followed by some tidbit of specific advice which was interesting, to say the least.

So this is my way of helping other internet-loving, loling, rofling, youtube addicted people who are planning to go to Delhi. Also, if you know any such person going to Delhi, instead of giving them advice, just give them a link to this. They'll like you better for it.

SAY NAY (to all of the following while in Delhi.)

Cars:
A car can tell you a lot about the person in it; so be vigilant about the cars around you, especially if they seem to be slowing down. The number one type of car you absolutely must avoid are black cars with black tinted windows. They have bad joojoo on the inside. I promise.
Secondly, Delhi license plate cars are alright (relatively), but watch out for cars with Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab or Uttar Pradesh plates. They're not very cool in the manners department, or in the don't-randomly-stop-and-rape-women department (or so I've heard).
Finally, if any car around you slows down and it looks like they're doing it deliberately, RUN.

Bikes:
If a guy on a bike has a huge knife, a club, a chain, roofies, or a scary cockroach in his hand, RUN.

People:
Just like in cars, watch out for people who wear black and black. They have bad joojoo in their brains. Bad joojoo brains aren't fun.
People who wear white and white aren't that safe either, especially if they're wearing white shoes. I know this might be because they're politically motivated or pseudo-Gandhian or something, but to me it just seems like they like getting messy. Like if they stab someone to death, the blood splatter will be more visible on their white clothes. Everyone loves some good blood splatter.
Roadside Romeos are a no-no. Today a guy with very orange-copper hair, wearing a green and orange striped shirt tried to check me out. Hot.

Evenings:
Evenings are a bad time of the day. Science has proven that when the sun sets, the bad joojoo quotient of every individual rises by 20%. This means that when you go out in the evening, some guy will rape you, mug you and then punch a puppy in front of your face (maybe even kick a kitten).
So don't go out in the evenings.


I hope this little guide helps you. At least you know what advice to expect if you tell someone you're going to Delhi. I shall now get back to researching on Industrial De-mergers... Hot.