Musings of a return migrant

Who is this unhappy woman travelling in the metro train?

A daily ride in the Delhi metro after living abroad for more than five years is not an experience that I look forward to during the peak hour. The disconnect that I am experiencing with this city will, I am sure, fade away as I spend more days, weeks and months here and get accustomed to being jostled around in the busy trains and buses here. When I left Delhi, the metro had just arrived, connecting a few sectors in the city. After six years, the network is widespread and connects almost all parts of the city to each other. It feels like a blessing to have a mass rapid transit system in place and avoid all the heat and pollution that working and commuting in Delhi has always meant. A metro train ride to work allows me to reconnect with thousands of women in the city who are my co-passengers every day. I see new faces and new experiences of travel are in store for me. Women of all age groups from their teens to well past their middle age travel in the metro. Some work in the private sector, some in the government and some pursue their studies, reading books and discussing notes aloud on the train. Yet, the question that haunts me every day is that “why are the women in this city so sad?” In the one odd week that I have taken the metro train to work, I can say for sure that I have not seen one happy, contented face on the train. And not to mention the lack of politeness to the extent of rudeness in the way we behave with each other. Scarcely a day has passed when I have not heard an argument or an abuse in the train. Women call each other “bitches”; accuse each other of hogging space and pushing around while indulging in the same practices themselves. This is the scenario in the peak hour in the ladies compartment of the Delhi metro. I shudder to think of the plight in the other (mixed gender) compartments which my office colleagues tell me is now a male dominated space. Women are given hard looks by men if they enter these mixed compartments and are instructed to travel in the space that is reserved for them. So where are our so-called cultural values of tolerance, patience and politeness on which we have gloated for ages I wonder? We label other nations and their peoples as “racist”. But my daily rides on the metro tell me that we Indians are probably the most xenophobic people in this world. Fifteen years ago as a young girl in my teens, I was scared to travel in the public buses for the fear of being groped and teased by the men around me. Today, after having overcome that fear to some extent, I fear being called a “bitch” by a woman co-passenger on the train. Being a feminist scholar, the daunting question for me is that why do women fail to reach out and connect with each other in this city. Why are we as immersed in our own situations in life (happy or sad as they may be for us) that we have reached a zero tolerance towards elder and younger people of the same sex and suffering? We fight for the women’s reservation bill to be passed in the Parliament and yet we are not gracious enough to be able to do justice to the space reserved for us? Are we the women of Delhi capable of creating a beautiful, happy public space just like we try to do in our homes? I end with a quote by Ralph W. Sockman: “The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.”