I left Hyderabad before the metro opened, so I'd only seen it in photos and
in my brother's complaints. This summer I was home for 3 weeks and finally took
it. Ameerpet to Hitech City, with my daughter. I expected paan stains, broken seats, a smell.
That's what happens to everything here after a few years. None of it. The floor was
clean. The seats were fine. The AC worked so well my daughter asked for my jacket.
A lady with a mop kept walking the platform. A guard told
off a boy for his feet on the seat. The trains came on
time. Every 5 minutes or so, with the board telling you exactly when.
My brother uses it every day and says it's not always like this
at rush hour. Packed, people pushing. Fair enough. But clean and crowded is
still better than what I was expecting. What surprised me most was how
people behaved. Queues at the doors. People waiting for others to get off first.
On the road outside, the same people would be honking and cutting
in. Inside the metro, polite. Maybe it's the cameras. Maybe it's the guards.
Maybe when a place is clean people just behave better in it. My daughter loved it so
much we went back the next day for no reason, just to ride it. For those who
use it daily, has it stayed this way? Or did I just get lucky in July? In
Khobar we don't have a metro, so I was a bit jealous of my own city for once.
Next visit I want to do the full red line, Miyapur
to LB Nagar. My daughter wants to sit at the front.
I've told her that's not how it works. She doesn't believe me.