Friday, December 24, 2010

Separate Subway Cars…

As I rode the Metro into Delhi around 11am, I spent a lot of time looking around, just watching the people.

At some point, it hit me: there we NO women in the car with us.

I couldn’t figure out why. I thought it had something to do with gender roles. Women not being in the workforce or what not, but it didn’t make sense.

I changed trains at the Central Secretariat station and grabbed a strap from the ceiling.

The subway in Delhi are multiple cars, like any other subway system, but they are more like those extended buses, where there is an “accordion-like” structure connecting each one, so it’s kind of like one really long train.

My car was pretty full which, given India, wasn’t a surprise.

I looked to the next car and it was sparsely populated.

I kept looking, wondering why no one from my car went into the next car, to get more space.

Then, I saw that every single person in that car was a woman.

In fact, the first car of EVERY metro train is for women only.

The lines at many public places (Red Fort, Taj Mahal) are also segregated and there’s a partition for when they do the full body pat-down as well.

India may be modernizing, but tradition is alive and well, too.

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