Monday, August 06, 2007

Metro Lane - 'to a different time and era'


One cloudy evening in Delhi. I was aiming for capturing this view for several days. Chose a rainy evening for the same. You are seeing Dwarka Sector 13 metro station in the scene (the blue fibre sheet in a tunnel form). Then the overhead rail track and electric cabling system powering the metro.

Slowly these overhead tracks have become synonymous with the ongoing infrastructure development in Delhi (aiming at CommonWealth Games 2009). Wherever you see this being constructed, you will know that, decent travel options will be in place soon.

The overhead rail network is a kind of abstraction of the ground realities for the more ambitious Delhiites. The asbstraction of the traffic jams, provoking rikshawallas, narrow lanes, frightening 'blue line' bus drivers, torn-worn beggars, awaiting traffic police chaps, nasty accidents, snailing traffic, shouting sardars, the dust, the heat, the sweat, the red lights.......Not to talk of myriads of unstructured construction taken place in the past few decades. Now in metro, you are riding on top of all that, ensconsed in an air-conditioned cabin. Through the metro car window you are seeing the stretching urban landscape of Delhi as if in a museum wall. The three storyied buildings, the brick extensions on top of that, bustling markets, street vendors, narrow alleyways, glass buildings, landmarks at distances, towering pyres of temples, the white Gurudwaras....all seen from a second story building (albiet a moving one). And then you are tramming in a whole different time and era to a different destination which looks so different from our previous generation had imagined.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok Dennis.. for some time I've noticed your intermittent posts.. now that I have some time today, I must comment on this one! You are coming into your own as a photographer now what with experimentation, b&w... this one's very classy..

loved the earlier posts with stories about bastar and khajuraho..

keep them coming!

Dennis said...

Thanks Rahul... much needed encouragement from you.. I am getting some more time these days..writing text takes good amount of time..