On commuter-readers.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Something suspicious is going on aboard a train coach on the Delhi Metro Violet Line, just as it leaves the JLN Stadium station. Almost everybody has a mobile out. So far, so normal. But this man is holding a book. An open book! He stands amid a crush of shirts and pants, his Ho Chi Minh beard lowered towards the bulky hardbound of Akshaya Mukul ‘s “Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya.”

Truth be told, Delhi Metro commuters are dedicated readers. But of mobile screens. A paper book remains a rare sighting. Here is an abridged anthology of such rare sightings, gathered over many journeys.

One sighting, on the Blue Line: a bespectacled young man is reading George Orwell’s “1984.” An enormous eye stares from the book’s cover into the coach. Everybody else has their eyes on their respective mobile.

The bitter truth of the matter is that with a mobile close at hand, it is easy for the eyes to leave a book mid-sentence to check a notification, then forget to return. But these metro readers seem better at resisting. Take the next sighting on the Magenta Line. A masked passenger is reading Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret,” legs elegantly crossed. As the train nears Vasant Vihar station, he gets up and moves to the door, continuing to read until it slides open.

The train rattles on. Stations fly past one after another. The chaotic city goes by in a blur. Fellow commuters shove past. But these readers rarely look up from the page. Could this be their only time for a book in a day otherwise claimed by colleges, offices, families and friends?

Sidney Sheldon gets a sighting, too. On the Violet Line. A bearded man is reading “The Stars Shine Down,” his paperback supported by a backpack worn in front. The commuter is Mithlesh, see right photo.

Metro readers earlier chronicled in this space include Dwarka’s Nikhil, who read the whole of Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” during his commutes to and from work. Noida’s Manika travelled equally far with Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia.”

One afternoon brings a heavyweight sighting: a book by historian Eric Hobsbawm. Between Gurgaon and Green Park on the Yellow Line, a long-haired man is absorbed in “How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism.”

A final sighting: a young man with a jhola beside him. His head is bent over Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The commuter is Tanmay, see left photo. But his Blue Line train is reaching merely its last station, Vaishali in zila Ghaziabad. Hunuz Galaxy dur ast.