RailEnquiry

NEW DELHI: It is the city's most dependable artery, and now also a pacemaker for young hearts. While the Metro is getting bad press these days for CCTV leaks showing young couples cosying up on its platforms and in deserted coaches, the broader picture is that it provides the comfort, anonymity and security that lovers never found in the grounds of, say, a Safdarjung's Tomb.Shy, nervous lovers are at ease amidst the moving crowds of Metro stations where they neither draw attention nor face any moral policing. To top it, the Metro is an air-conditioned, comfortable space with good eateries and seating.

Love stories abound on the Delhi Metro Confessions page on Facebook. Someone from Hindu College writes: "Thank you, Metro, for being crowded when we want you to. Our first date and also the ones after that were all on your platforms".

Matches have been made on the corner benches of platforms, and inside elevators and coaches. Newlyweds Samajana and Rajnish met on a crowded train to Malviya Nagar. Pranjali first spoke to her boyfriend Aryan at Central Secretariat station, mistaking him for a friend she was supposed to meet. Clearly, in the city's new syntax of love, elbows must knock before eyes meet.

The intriguing thing here is the reaction of the crowd. Where are Delhi's notorious busybodies, its moral police? Perhaps, the pressure of work deadlines or a new social sensibility is making them mind their own business.

It's in the last Metro of the day, and usually the last Metro station on a line, that the expressions of love are least inhibited. You can see couples embracing and kissing at the less crowded stations such as Kaushambi, Chhattarpur and Chawri Bazaar.

While many couples disregard the cameras that surround them in Metro coaches and on platforms, they will probably be more circumspect after the recent leaks. But the scandal is unlikely to wean them away from the Metro's liberating atmosphere.

"We are aware of the cameras and people watching us, but we don't cause any trouble, so why should we expect anyone to react seeing a couple together," asks Varun, a student from Hansraj College.

Days after news about the leaks broke, the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station that connects North Campus remains a popular hangout for students-those in love and those waiting to fall headlong into it.