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.