I'm generally a metro rail guy. Give me a choice between driving in the latest hybrid Toyota and hanging on to the handles in the metro train, and I assure you I'd choose the latter option. In Bangkok, where I live, I am served very well by the so-called skytrain of the Bangkok Mass Transit System, or BTS as it is abbreviated. These days, we are beginning to see glimpses of the future in the form of nightmare crowds and queues at the stations around close of business times. But being Thais, they stay calm, don't shove each other around, and avoid behaving like a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

So when the metro transit was introduced in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi, I was a proud and happy man. The Kolkata one, I was told, was kept spotlessly clean in a city where hills of garbage line the roads. The Delhi metro, likewise, was supposed to be exceptional, bringing out the best selves of Delhi-ites. Mumbai, I rested assured, would be no less. But in my very first ride in both Delhi's and Mumbai's metros, I came to a ghastly realisation. If your trip is around evening and everyone around you in hanging on to a handle, their arms are raised. As a result, your nose will be at the level of about six armpits — and the lethal emanations therefrom. There was nothing I could do to escape or save my soul. Getting into an Indian metro around 5 pm is taking a ride in a gas chamber, stupefied by bodily odours.