B.O. on the Metro

yesterday after going to the ACSA gym at the embassy, i took a rickshaw to the Central Secretariat metro station. this was my second time on the delhi metro, the first being a few days after it opened back in 2002 when it only went between 3 stations. I took a token (not a card) for Shahdara, which was 12 rupees. i got on the train and put on my headphones (kind of like in DC, right?) and sat on the bench. i had to laugh when i saw the reflection of me and my benchmates-- a guard with a large gun, someone who licked like a rickshaw driver, someone in a lungi, me the white girl, and two guys wearing really loud clubby shirts. near connaught place a swarm of office workers got on and were standing holding on to the upper bar-handle-- the b.o. was awful.

cleanliness is relative in india. the metro is very clean, even if you remove it from the relative scale. the other cool thing is that there are no doors between the bogeys, so you can see down the entire train. the metro is also A/C, and perhaps this is why the evening crowd smelled so bad.

ingrid just called me. they are staying with walt's future in-laws in defence colony. tomorrow night they are coming over for dinner and perhaps we will go to mocha's (my new favorite place) afterwards, time permitting. i don't know what i am doing tonight-- maybe i will go out, maybe i will go to ghaziabad. i've decided to do the nose-piercing. it will be a small stud, easy to remove for interviews etc.

i have a draft of that article due today, must get back to work.