Yes, I have been transferred from Kolkata to Delhi, the capital of India. It is more than a month now that I have been here. The place has changed, the language has changed but one thing that remains unchanged is the indefatigable pair of legs that run, run, and run. They have to catch the metro and reach their destination. The destination that satiates hunger…the destination that fulfills dreams.
There are some other things as well that didn’t change.
The young couples, lost in the eyes of each other and roaming their own destinations between themselves, are here as well. Their behavior shows as if the outer world doesn’t exist for them. The crowd doesn’t matter to these people as long as they are crowded with the emotion of love.
Yes, there are also those intellectuals, as in Kolkata, who read English novels or some complex statistical research papers in the train and intermittently look up with an erudite gesture to survey the uninitiated masses around them. A sense of superiority is clearly etched in their looks while supervising other ordinary beings of the train.
The toddlers pestering their parents are found in the Delhi Metro as well. They will try to run in a crowded train, will sit on the floor and take a round or two around the poles in the coaches. Their parents try to stop them because they understand the parameters of social behavior. But perhaps in the unshackled behavior of these children there is lesson for all of us to be free from what is preventing us from feeling liberated.
