The Metro As Metaphor

In 2010, I forget which month, the Delhi government designated the first bogie of every metro train as an exclusive feminine space. DTC buses have reserved seats on the left hand side of the bus for a long time, but passengers have been looking ahead, not at each other. The seating arrangement of the metro places passengers in a conversational/confrontational mode, brings about a different dynamics. And this is what this poem is about.

Futile pink lines
Cannot leash these beasts
Who watch wistfully
This mobile zenanakhana
And on the other side
Eyes lined with mascaraed anxieties
Are grateful
For this temporary sarkari relief
From the beast
within

And,
men and women
man and woman
biologically bound
but categorically seperated
Silently and sullenly
are hurtled into
The darkness of togetherness

Men and women
chained and channeled
Wheeled, woven, weft
and warped

Watch each other
Like suspicious
and strange animals
Tied to the same pole
And are hurled
in the darkness of togetherness