Metro (Part I)

Kritvik Bhatt

“Don’t take toffee or anything else from strangers, okay?” Dad told me.

It was such a bright and hot day, for some reason, and the sun shone brightly in the light blue sky atop the bustling city.

My dad was driving the car as he sat on the drivers’ seat on my right, and I was sitting on the passenger’s seat, man. The road was bustling with cars running and honking here and there and people walking everywhere. On the window on my left were a white hospital building and other important buildings which passed by as my dad drove the car slowly.

The time on the display screen of the car showed the time ten-forty-two. The car was shaking a little as it went through the uneven road. For some reason, the road looked even, but it wasn’t.

“Yeah, dad. I’m not a kid anymore,” I replied, my eyes on the cars running around us.

“You are, Kritvik,” He said, observing the road. He wore his casual white t-shirt with his black pair of sweatpants, along with flip-flops on top of the pedals of the car. He moved his right hand up and corrected his spectacles, for some reason.

I stayed silent to that reply.

“And make sure you don’t run away alone.”

“We’d have phones, dad.”

“Still, it’s better not to rely on technology. What if there are no signals there?”

I silently nodded, my head fixed to the front.

“And you all should be back on the metro by five in the evening.”

I nodded again. “Hmm.”

“You’re still kids, at last. Make sure you’re always super alert when you’re there. Delhi is not for weak-hearted people, you know that. It’s filled with pickpocketers and bad people like that.”

“Hmm,” I nodded again.

There was a highway some meters away, bisecting the road where we were driving. It was a thick highway, and the middle part of it was even rising up, with a little tunnel-like entrance beneath it, right in front of us. It was filled with cars taking a U-turn and turning to different directions. My dad slowly entered the highway, went through the tunnel-like structure, and then turned right on the other side.

I turned my head to my right, looking at the overhead highway coming downer and downer as we drove beside it, obviously. I then turned my head to the left, and looked at the metro track elevated upward. It was a couple of stories up, man, and it was made with some kind of stone, maybe. It was a thick stone. A metro rail was running speedily at the track and leaving us behind, obviously.

He then started to slow down the car and turned to the left edge of the road. The metro station came beside us with autos and other stuff standing right in front of the station, so that they could get someone for the rides, maybe. He continued to drive a little slowly beside all of those autos and stuff for some time.

After a minute or so, he stopped the car at the other end of the entrance of the station, with a bunch of autos and cars behind us in front of the entry stairs. I took out my phone from my pocket and started to type something on it. The phone started to ring as I moved the phone in front of my right ear as I opened the door of the car with my left hand.

Triiing. Triiing. The call rang as I opened the door, moved my left leg down, and stood up on the ground on both my feet.

“Hey! Here!” I heard Sana’s voice and turned backward.

Sana was wearing a plain black frock and leggings on top of her brown boots as she came walking toward me. She was waving her left hand up at me and moved it down as soon as I turned to her. She stopped right in front of me as I stood up beside the car.

Just as I was about to close the door of the car, she turned to my dad, bents down so she could see him, and said with a smile, “Namaste, uncle.”

“Namaste, daughter,” He replied back with a smile. “How are you?”

“Well, I’m fine as always.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, but what’s your good name?”

“I’m Sana Kohli, uncle.”

He nodded again, for some reason. “Enjoy your day, all of you. But be alert and make sure to hop on the metro before five, okay? I’ll pick you all up and can even drop you kids home, if you say.”

“Uncle, the others would be getting up on different stations, and they probably have their arrangements done to get back home. Please, you don’t really need to…”

“Ah, I understand. Okay then. Enjoy your day,” He turned his head to the front.

Sana straightened her back and I pushed the door close. The next second, the car started to move forward as Sana turned her head to me, still smiling. “You don’t really seem excited, K.”

I smiled at her as I said, “Actually, you seem too much excited, man.”

“That dark red shirt looks cool,” She said as she looked at the shirt on my chest. It was a red shirt with some black pattern on it. I wore it with a black pair of pants and brown formal shoes.

I smiled. “You look great in black too,” I said back.

“Thanks,” She said with a smile as she turned back toward the entrance. I started to walk beside her.

The place was bustling with honks and footsteps and stuff, for some reason. A number of people were walking down the stairway as we started to walk upward.

“You know the routes, right?” I confirmed.

“Yeah yeah,” She replied excitedly. “I can’t really wait to get there. I have all the research work done already.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Damn, man. Don’t get so excited about this stuff. Act like it’s… normal.”

She turned her head to her right at me. “Well, that’s sad, because it’s not normal.”

“Obviously it’s not, but…”

She turned her head to the front and hurriedly spoke, “This train ride is gonna take us about an hour, you see, and I don’t really know how to pass this time and distract my mind from this.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll do something then, obviously.”

“Like, I don’t know how to react to all of this, you see.” She turned her head to me again, calming her tone down. “I looked at the events today and you won’t believe me. There’s a really big cosplay event which will begin at one, where cosplayers will come on stage and then say their punchlines and quotes for which these characters are famous for, and then the actual voice actors who acted as them will judge them!” She turned her head to the front and smiled. “Like, that’d be so cool!”

“Damn.”

“And, there will be a new announcement about something at six in the evening. We gotta see that!” She turned her head toward me. “We won’t leave without the announcement.” She then turned her head to the front and stepped on the platform as she continued, “People online think it’d be about the release of a new game, you see. It’d be so cool to be there physically!”

“Calm down, man,” I said with a smile as we turned to our left at the platform. “You’re… so excited, man.”

“That’s sad,” She said with a smile as the two of us walked inside the platform painted all gray. On our right were the barriers, where people were walking in and getting themselves checked by the guards on the other side. “Anyway, you know how to use a metro card?” She asked.

“Nah. I have one, but I don’t know, man.”

She smirked as she turned to me. “Lemme show you then.” She turned to one of the lines in front of a barrier. That line was filled with women, and she was second or third in the queue, maybe. She kept her bag on the roller where it went inside the metal detector. Then, she went inside the closed place where women are generally checked.

I walked to a men’s line just beside it, walked simply since I had no bag, obviously, and then walked in after the man in front of me. The guard checked me with another metal detector racket and then let me pass. I walked some steps away, and turned to my right at Sana, who had just walked out of the closed cube in the middle of the station. She had her bag hanging on her right shoulder. I walked to her and both of us walked to another barrier some steps in front of us.

“Now lemme show you how to get in,” She smiled as she stood in front of one of the barriers without anyone at the front. She took out her card from her pocket, forcefully—and maybe sarcastically—slammed it beside the barrier, and it, for some reason, opened. She walked in. It closed behind her. “See, like this. Like, it’s so easy,” She told me.

I too took out my card from my pocket as I walked toward it. I softly hit the light blue card on the place beside the barrier in front of me, and it suddenly opened. I walked in, and it, for some reason, closed behind me on its own. I smiled as I turned to her. “It’s so damn easy, man.”

“I know,” She said with that same smile as she turned to the front and started walking hurriedly. “Now, you just follow me.” She turned her head to the top toward the boards. She studied them for a second, and then took out her phone and started to look something in it.

I walked to the front and stood beside her as I glanced at her phone.

She was reading something on a website, filled with graphics and stuff.

“What are you reading?”

“Just reading about which direction is Delhi,” She said. She then suddenly turned her head to the top again, and then turned her head rightward. She pointed her index finger at the stairway at the right corner. “There. We gotta go there.”

She suddenly started to walk hastily toward it. I looked at her back walking away—even running for a few seconds in the middle before continuing to walk again—and followed her mindlessly. She turned to the stairway on her right and started to climb the stairs, and so did I too, obviously. I reached to her side and asked, “Why are you running, man? Calm down.”

“Whatever. I’m not calming down until I reach JenCon now.”

After a couple of seconds, we reached the top of the stairway and turned right. To our right, there were the empty rail tracks of the metro.

My eyes opened wide in a little shock. “Damn.”

“Well, they’re not your usual railway tracks, you see.”

“Yeah,” I said as I walked some steps to the front, looking at two really thick beams in the name of railway tracks, for some reason.

Suddenly, I turned my head to my right, and I noticed a metro cutting through the sunlight. It slowed down and it zoomed past it. Then, it stopped. The gates of the big metallic cylinder called the metro rail opened.