A little background: I travel in metro for nearly two and a half hours daily and I do that 6 days a week and I've been doing THAT for the past 4 months. So in case you had your doubts, I am well qualified to write this post.
Disclaimer: If you're the kind who prefers leaning on the metro door and staring out into
the world and have deep intellectual conversations with yourself while
Coldplay's 'fix you' runs in the background:
1. Why are you reading
this in the first place?
2. Please stop pretending like you're in a
movie. The most dramatic thing in your life is the fact that once you lied to your boss and bunked office to go visit Akshardham temple.
For the rest, a lot of whether or not you'll get a seat depends on where you are standing on the platform when the train is yet to arrive. Yes, it starts that early. I won't explain why, but your best bet is: right next to the ladies compartment. Now, it's extremely important to be the first one to enter. Not third, not second. FIRST. By the first two week you'll know the exact spot where the doors open. A few inches on either side and be ready to stand next to the sweaty guy who thinks scratching his crotch in public is his birthright and he shall have it.
Now that you've entered, quickly take the lone empty seat which is usually the one reserved for ladies or the elderly. This is trickier than you think it is because there are two doors to a compartment and rest assured the guy on the other door is just as aware of these hacks as you are. The fact that the ladies compartment is right beside you, the probability of any lady entering yours is precisely what the world had of ending last year, so you're fine. The off chance (like barely 95%) that there is no empty seat, is when you need to rack your brains a little. This is experience talking so listen up:
There are only limited kind of people who travel in a metro and you need to identify each one of them, know their address, their travel patterns, their habits, and what kind of underwear they wear. Haha just kidding, I already did that for you. I'm the Jason Bourne of Delhi Metro. Anyway, what I mean is, you need to identify that one person in your compartment who'll be the first one to leave and stamp your authority on his seat by standing as close to him as possible without making it obvious that you swing both ways.
Essentially there are only two kinds of people who travel in a metro:
1. Ones who get down at Rajiv Chowk
2. The Driver
Not really, I just wanted to use that as a joke, here's the actual list:
1. The typical 40 year old office going uncle: Don't even bother. He'll always have a seat when you enter and will still be sitting when you leave. And not just any seat, it'll be somewhere around the middle because aisle is too risky, there is a pertinent danger of a more deserving candidate asking you to vacate. No one really knows where his office is. I once took the train from the station it starts and he was ALREADY inside reading the 4th page of Hindustan Times. It's almost like he takes his seat at 4am while the train is still in the yard.
2. The uber-cool Delhi dude: Its practically harder to NOT spot him. He'll be the one wearing shades inside. Also a hideous hair cut that would shame a porcupine. He'll probably be getting down at a stop which has a mall nearby or he might go all the way to Sarojini to buy fake 'Being Human' t-shirts and meet his uncontrollable need to look hip. You can take your chances with his seat but I won't promise anything.
3. The uber-cool Delhi girl: Yes, I will talk about her because no one else does. There will always be that one lone girl in your compartment who'll prefer standing by the door for an hour long ride even when half the metro is empty because obviously taking a seat in a metro is too mainstream. Also, just when you'll start to notice her, she'll pull out a Durjoy Dutta or Nikita Singh from her bag and pretend she's intellectually superior to everyone else present, which is like adding 2+2, getting 5 as the result and considering yourself to be the next Einstein. If only someone could tell her reading Duttas and Bhagats is actually a bigger turnoff than saying "I don't read". I would not take her seat even when she dared to take one herself.
4. That old uncle with a Note II in his hands and absolutely no idea what to do with it when it rings. Forget it. He'll be too engrossed in figuring out how the phone works to realize his stop passed away an hour ago or that he took the wrong train and is now standing in Ghaziabad though he intended to be in Gurgaon.
5. This is the guy. Whoever this is. If he does not fit into any of the above stereotypes, you have your man. Go snuggle up to him. Usual traits: He'll be the one looking out the window every two minutes trying to see what station it is. He won't be reading or listening to any music because he knows its a short ride. There will usually be a phone call which will have a "haan bas 5 min me pahunch rha hun" in it and suddenly everyone standing will turn their heads and look at you with a "You lucky bastard" written all over their face.
Congratulations you have finally managed to get yourself a seat in our beloved metro precisely one station before Rajiv Chowk where obviously you're getting down yourself. But what the heck, you beat others to it and that's what matters.
Of course all of the above is subject to assumptions and variables which will bring down the percentage of this being applicable to anyone ever to 0.28% but I'm a daredevil so I like taking my chances.
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