Delhiwale: To the ends of the earth

It is a non-rush hour afternoon at a Metro station

It is a non-rush hour afternoon at a Metro station. A handful of commuters walk down the staircase and out onto a road crammed with autos, scooters, cars, trucks and UP Roadways buses. Apartment towers rise beyond trees. A banquet hall sits under a blue roof. Power cables crisscross the grey sky.

Delhiwale: To the ends of the earth

It could be almost anywhere in Delhi. The station sign supplies the answer: Vaishali. This locality is not in Delhi, but in UP’s zila Ghaziabad. The Delhi Metro ends here, but the Delhi-like world does not.

This page will visit the last stops of all the lines of the Delhi Metro, and see what lies in them… no, what lies outside them. Vaishali happens to be one such end point. (Or a starting point if you, dear reader, live here!)

Two women are descending the station footbridge. One wears a T-shirt bearing a cartoon hippopotamus and the instruction “Don’t be a…” The remaining words are hidden beneath her backpack. Below, the familiar green-and-yellow auto rickshaws are parked on dusty, broken ground. Some stand in a row, others face the road at various angles. Drivers stand beside the autos, aggressively calling out to commuters descending the blue-railed stairs. Two men carrying sacks on their shoulders come down the stairs but, looking irritated, tell the auto drivers they are waiting for a bus to Bareilly. See left photo.

Across the road from the Metro station, the Delhi–Meerut rapid rail tracks run between fences and coils of wire. Beyond the tracks stands a hotel that describes itself on its Instagram handle as the “world’s only 100% vegetarian five-star hotel.” Close to the hotel rises a residential tower with ACs, potted plants, drying clothes and satellite dishes on its balconies.

Under the pedestrian bridge that carries Metro commuters across the road, “Nasha Mukti Kendra” is repeatedly painted in red on a concrete wall. 10-digit phone numbers appear again and again over older, fading versions. A few steps away, an elegantly dressed man stands by the grass bordering the roadside, urinating.

Inside the Metro station building, a burger outlet bears a glass wall. Through the glass, only one customer is visible, looking at his phone. A tray with a crumpled napkin and an empty glass stands on the table beside a paper crown. See right photo.