First things first, when I got down from the Metro yesterday I was quite blown away as this was the view that greeted me. I quickly overcame any hesitations that were trying to raise their heads and took out my SLR with the 70-300mm zoom attached to it. Can you blame me? Throughout the journey I was wondering where the sun was and what kind of sunset it was!
Now that I am writing the post I am thinking it could be only about the sunset pictures, but then I wanted to write about the Women Only coaches of Delhi Metro and I will do so. I remember earlier there were no such women only coaches and as I rarely travel alone within Delhi/Gurgaon I was OK with it. But recently I used the Women Only coaches quickly as I was traveling alone. The first time, I took a Metro from ISBT to Gurgaon late at night around 10.00pm and didn’t like it much, as it was not a women only coach, in fact towards the last station I was the only women in the coach and I changed it!
This weekend I traveled to my sister’s place. So on Friday as well as Sunday I was traveling alone and taking the Metro. I took the train around 7.00pm on Friday and 4.30 pm on Sunday. On both the occasions it was a great experience to be in a women only coach. I guess I felt more at ease, less bothered about people misbehaving with me and less concerned about guarding my personal space. A few men who tried to entered the coach were asked to leave either by the security personnel or the women in the traveling in coach. I am told that the security personnel vanish towards 10.00 pm or so and hence my relatively bad experience on the first trip.
But as I said, what made my day was the sunset that greeted me when I got down. I got an added bonus of clicking a train along with the sunset too.
The weekly brief metro & rail professionals read.
However there was a twist in the story when I tried to get out of the station! I inserted the coin in the slot and the barrier did not open! I was quite perplexed as this had never happened before. There was a person who took out the coin and said I should talk to the customer care. When I gave the token to the person sitting there, he said it was for Ramesh Nagar! For my life I do not even know where is Ramesh Nagar and I have no clue why I was given a token for that when I wanted to go to Gurgaon! As a way out he said I would have to buy another full ticket, which I did. I could have raised a ruckus that it was not my fault but I was so happy with the sunset pictures that I bought another token and I happily got out. And before I sign off here is another picture that made me so happy that I did not fight about the wrong token!
For those of you who wish to ask me why do we even need a women only coach in Delhi (India?) as it is not promoting equality etc, that is a story for another day. But if you have traveled by public transport in India, chances are you will not ask this question.
(Story by: Mridula Dwivedi)
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