The ladies only car

Have I mentioned that I LOVE the Delhi metro? It’s extensive and goes to so many places in this incredibly sprawling town (LA listen up!). But the best thing of all about the Delhi metro is the Ladies Only Car to be found at the head of every train going anywhere. I’d say that the ratio of metro users is about 200 men to every one woman, so having the ladies only car is an absolute blessing.

A typical scene at a busy metro station (ie, almost all of them), is men lined up single file in the well marked area where the metro cars will open. I have to confess that I was shocked at this initial orderliness given the chaotic and random nature of lines in pretty much every other context. (This is not the case in the Ladies Only Car section, which is generally roped off, has large pink flowery signs indicating that it is the ladies only section and is often monitored by scary women enforcers. We don’t line up because we all know that we’ll get a seat on the train.) I was impressed by the men’s lines—until I saw what happened the moment the train doors opened. The previously orderly line forms a wall pressing forward with great force because they face their equally aggressive enemy: those getting off the train. I have to admit that even the women tend to rush the opening doors without letting people get off the car first. This is something I will never understand, despite the fact that it happens pretty much everywhere in the world to a greater or lesser degree.

It is with guilty pleasure that I admit to gloating at the heaving mass of men that sometimes, through sheer numbers, spills into the Ladies only car, (there are no proper doors between the train cars, just a narrowing of the walls), that is until one of the enforcers comes along. Woe to the man who breaks that rule! There is one exception that allows the occasional man to enjoy the rarefied air of the Ladies Only Car. The enforcers do not expel the men who carry babies or very small children. If I was a man in Delhi, I would always look around for women with babies so that I could have access to this bastion of loveliness. However, I suspect that only a woman would think of this strategy and, therefore, there are very few men to be seen in my car.

The photograph is of my very charming but much frustrated teachers in the Ladies Only Car who agonized at their dolt of a student who had such amazing difficulty learning to count to five in Hindu. (I can so! Ecg, do, tir, char, pat…or something like that.)