III Write a paragraph on any one of the given topics:
1. Shopping at Malls
• Wide choice of products
• Overindulgence
• Promotion of consumerism
2. Riding in a Metro Train
• Confusion on the first day
• Less time
• Cost effective
Answers
Explanation:
at has long been
central to the scholarship on cities and to urban
ethnography. In this essay, the focus on space is
threefold and includes: (1) the new cultural geography
that is created by the physical imposition of the metro
edifice on Delhi’s landscape; (2) the spaces created
within the metro itself (on trains and in stations) and the
practices associated with those new spaces; and (3) the
spatial imaginaries experienced by individual riders.
The Metro will totally transform our social culture giving us a sense of
discipline, cleanliness and enhance multifold development of this
cosmopolitan city.
– Delhi Metro Managing Director, Elattuvalapil Sreedharan
(Joshi 2001).
The train to Dwarka is very crowded even on a Sunday early
in the afternoon. I stand on the platform for some time,
letting trains go by, and then get on. Central Delhi may be
more still, and the road traffic less, but inside the metro there
are throngs of people going places. Sometimes they crush into
one another, as at rush hour. On any weekday at Rajiv Chowk –
the metro station and hub beneath Connaught Place – commuters
line up in neat rows waiting for the Dwarka train, only to dissolve
into a mass once the train arrives and the doors slide open. The
logic of entering and exiting the train is whichever side has more
people wins, like a scrimmage. These are head on collisions as
people push past each other. The spoils are there for all to see: for
those coming in, a shiny seat; for those going out, their destina-
tion in record time and comfort.
Inside, nothing divides the cars of the train in what resembles
a long metal centipede. I have become accustomed to watching
the chrome bars align and realign to the sinuous movements of
the train, travelling 80 kilometres an hour nearly 13 metres
underground in the darkness. At Chawri Bazaar, the deepest sta-
tion, I emerge from the engineering marvel into a thick landscape
of vendors, vehicles, and crumbling facades, where electrical cords
hang from above and wires seem to be strewn across the sky.
Heading west, above ground, to Rithala or Dwarka – the new
sub-cities of Delhi – the city opens up and peters out; circling
birds, low-level dwellings, institutes, and the occasional shopping
mall make up the landscape. On the Rithala train, your eye grazes
the tops of buildings as you travel from one station to the next. On
the way to Dwarka, you seem to be even higher up and see more of
the expanse. The east-west lines are for commuters; the trains go
above ground soon after Connaught Place, and people tend to stay
on for more than a few stops. There is time to relax and settle in.
On one ride, I watch a few young men in their early 20s sit cross-
legged on the floor, talking and laughing. Three younger boys, 13-
or 14-year-old, stand in front of them, doing pull-ups on the high
bar, joking, trying to get the attention of the young men by enter-
taining them with curiosities pulled from their pockets. One says
he has Afghan currency and is parading it around. It is a scene you
might see almost anywhere in the city, an approximation of the
street below, and yet completely removed from it.
Many people are hooked up to music players or talking on their
mobiles. Men carry goods in tightly packed cartons; toddlers lie on
the seats or stand up on them to look out the