By Sreyashi Mazumdar

Wading through the crowd, sweat trickling down her brows, she finally queues behind the serpentine crowd at Huda City Centre. Her puckered face staring at the clock which is about to tick ten while the Jahangirpuri bound metro train billows at the teeming crowd thronging the station.

The doors gradually open and a huge crowd gushes out of the doors, pushing and squashing each other. The fifty year old puckered face enters the train somehow and says, “If you want to punish someone, please ask him or her to travel by Delhi Metro at the 9th hour of the day.”

A similar situation pervades metro stations across the city. The Yellow, Blue and Purple Line could be termed as the busiest and the most unbearable ones in the rush hours.

“It’s almost impossible to breathe properly… you, in a way, go claustrophobic. You don’t even have a proper space to put forth your feet and these are the times when you often get subjected to untoward situation, especially in the general compartment. I have to come down to Vishwavidyalaya all the way from Gurgaon and metro is the only feasible option but the mess inside the train itself makes me loathe the same,” said 23-year-old Khushbu Kumar, a Delhi University student.

Trailing on a similar line of thought, 40 year old Rakesh Kumar said,”I am physically handicapped and it becomes really difficult for me to commute all the way from Mayur Vihar to Central Secretariat. Though there are reserved seats for physically handicapped, it becomes difficult to get hold of a seat. People are just not ready to get off their seats. There should be a rule to curb the number of people boarding a train especially during the rush hours.”

“Both ITO and Badarpur bound trains follow the same track. So, there is a lot of hassle and I get late. Besides, there is a lack of proper announcements owing to which I often miss my train and eventually get late for office,” laments 24-year-old Priya Vashisht.

25-year-old Sukriti Kapoor while fidgeting with her bags, struggling to get inside the bloated train took a deep breath after boarding the train. She said, “Yesterday, I saw a three-year-old falling off the compartment, the infant was wailing out of pain but nobody had the intent to spare their time on him. I have testified similar issues earlier as well. I board a metro to save my penny but the kind of troubles I go through, I think I will be giving up my metro rides soon.”

Though Delhi metro has bestowed upon the citizenry a lot of advantages, the looming predicaments kind of refutes the boon rendered by the same.