MEN WILL BE MEN(12/01/2014)

Metro provides for interesting lessons in Indian male psychology. Men will be men- I got a practical display of this cliché the other day while returning from office. It is normal for a groundswell of crowd ready to enter the metro car at Central Secretariat once a metro halts at this station; more so during office hours. Similar is the scene at Rajiv Chowk. While there is a rush of people to de-board at Rajiv Chowk, there is an equal rush of people to get into the compartment. This leads to a total chaos at Rajiv Chowk Metro station. The other day the crowd at Central Secretariat was so overbearing that it hardly left even an inch of vacant space. At the next stop, which is Patel Chowk, three colleges going girls entered this car. Commuters in the front made room for them even in this space crunch. These three girls were from North East. They appeared quite jovial and enjoyed the crowd. When the train stopped at Rajiv Chowk they were virtually pushed out by commuters trying to make an exit. They were again pushed into the compartment by commuters who made into the train at this station. Commuters like me, who stand near door on the other side, expect a barge of passengers rushing out and again rushing in everyday, putting us back to the same squeezed condition once again. However today we were in for a surprise. While the commuters emptied the compartment, the inward flow of commuters stopped at least a feet ahead of us providing us comfortable standing space. I realized later on that this was courtesy the three north eastern girls who now stood holding the central steel railing. They had successfully stopped the volley of incoming commuters from squeezing us, since these incoming commuters had preferred to encircle these girls, virtually squeezing them in the process while we who stood at the rear got escaped from such pushing and shoving. I apprehend such a situation would have arisen had these girls been from any other part of the country other than North East India. I am still unable to understand the Indian male psychology towards North East girls.  Or am I wrong in my assessment? Men will be men- they say- and Indian men are a step ahead in such public display of perverted male chauvinism.