Jet Airways’ CEO Sanjiv Kapoor calls Indian metro stations ‘artless'; internet divided

Sanjiv Kapoor invited flak from a section of Twitter as he sought to compare Indian metro rail stations with those in Dubai and called the former artless. Soon as his tweet went viral, people bombarded his replies with ‘aesthetic’ metro photos from across Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Jet Airways' Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kapoor Sunday faced flak from a section of Twitter for calling Indian metros ‘artless concrete eyesores’ as he made a comparison of a Bengaluru metro station with one in Dubai. Sharing a couple of pictures, Kapoor complained about the design quality of metro stations including those in Gurugram, Bengaluru, which seemed to anger some people, who then bombarded his tweet replies with ‘aesthetic’ photos of metro stations across the country.

Jet Airways 2.0 chief executive officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kapoor (Sourced)

“Bangalore, Gurgaon, Kolkata... why are our overground/overhead metro stations such artless concrete eyesores? Take a look at Dubai (right) compared to Bangalore (left). And this Dubai station was probably built 10 years ago!" Kapoor’s tweet read.

Jet Airways' CEO Sanjiv Kapoor's tweet Sunday, sparked a debate about need for 'aesthetics' in metro stations, with some users even criticising Kapoor for being 'oblivion' to country's infrastructure developments.

As viral as the tweet went, some people fumed over Kapoor’s ‘inability to appreciate the country’s infrastructure developments’ while some agreed with him to an extent, suggesting metros here lacked an ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘inclusivity’ approach.

One user, without opining, simply shared photos of several Delhi metro stations containing impressive artworks, with the caption “Delhi metro for you!”

“Rightly pointed out. Our public infrastructure is not eco-friendly, not cost-friendly or beautiful, and many are not accessible as well. Not just metro stations or other public infrastructure as well. Nowadays private construction also totally messed up Aesthetics given least importance,” a user tweeted.

Another said that public transit didn’t need to look ‘pretty’. A user even took the debate a step further, bringing ancient Indian architecture into discussion. “Only if you had seen the ancient architecture of India. The only difference between then and now is that India then had enough resources. India now cannot spend money on aesthetics also if they cost very low,” his tweet read.

As replies kept pouring in, Kapoor enabled the ‘account protection’ feature which allows users to turn their public accounts to private.