‘I freaked out when the lights went out’

When the metro suddenly stopped before we reached the Vidhan Sabha Station, things were fine, initially.

When the metro suddenly stopped before we reached the Vidhan Sabha Station, things were fine, initially.

HT Image

I commute by metro regularly and am used to such stoppages. But I freaked when the lights went out.

The sound of people laughing and making fun of the incident suddenly turned into an eerie silence.

It was hard to take one’s eyes off those clumsily blinking lights in the tunnel and one’s mind off getting out.

Suddenly, the lights came on again and we were almost at Kashmere Gate by the time I snapped out of it.

There, it seemed as if half of Delhi was waiting on the platform to get in!

The next thing I knew was that people were shoving and pushing each other, desperately trying to get in.

Those 12 minutes — jostling for space in a carriage full of people struggling to breathe, women and children crying — it was like a war zone in there.

(Charu Dada (26), a student of Delhi University who was on her way to Rajiv Chowk when the metro train witnessed a black out before the Vidhan Sabha Station)