It was a tough negotiation for Mangu Singh early on Saturday morning. The 59-year-old, who heads a corporation that has revolutionised the way government agencies function in the power centre of the country, had to think on his feet. He ended up creating a fictional boss when he found himself up against his three-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter who disliked the idea of her ‘Nanu’ (maternal grandfather) going to work on a weekend.
He needed to drop in at his office, the Metro Bhavan, for a quick meeting, but young Samaira was in no mood to listen. “I had to convince her that I had a boss waiting for me at the office, who would scold me if I did not show up. She then wanted to speak to my boss,” he said, laughing.
So Mr. Singh’s eldest daughter, Samaira’s mother, ended up playing the part convincingly over the telephone allowing him to sneak out to perform his duties as the Managing Director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The child knows what her grandfather does and never fails to point and scream “Nanu’s Metro” when she sees a Metro construction site from inside the family’s car.
Yet, Mr. Singh did not always travel in a chauffeur-driven car. In his first stint in Delhi in the early ‘80s, working with the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, he only used public transport that gave him the much-needed insight for when he returned nearly 15 years later to be part of the team that would build the Delhi Metro from scratch.
To plan the Metro network, the man, who hails from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, which is nearly 200 kilometres from the national Capital, felt he required extensive knowledge of the entire city. “So the team walked all over Delhi so as to select corridors, select actual locations of the stations, and do all the fine-tuning,” said Mr. Singh at his Saket residence. “That is why I can claim that I know each and every corner – major roads, streets, localities – of Delhi more than most other DMRC employees do.”
He walks nowadays too, but around the park near the Metro Enclave for 55 minutes each morning. He admits to not using the Metro as often as he would like. Yet he has been on ‘surprise checks’ without telling anyone. “I find the scheduled visits really unhelpful, so I sometimes queue up at Metro stations and ride on the trains for a couple of stops,” he said.
Very often Mr. Singh finds people discussing the Metro on the Metro. Once, he was privy to two gentlemen discussing the neat environs of the premises. “One said to the other: he thought it was only because the Japanese were funding the project that the premises were kept clean. Once the Japanese leave, the Metro will become filthy. I just listened in without interrupting,” he laughed.
Before the Metro was built, public transport was not considered a dignified way of travelling, especially among upper and middle-class households, he said. “Even today, many people in the 45-plus age group do not travel by the Metro simply because it is public transport. But the young generation do not seem to bother about such things. You can see an executive who earns Rs. 20 lakh a year travelling on the Metro without qualms. This is the change we see with more mixing of society.”
The trains that crisscross the bustling Capital have also helped Delhiites value time, points out Mr. Singh as one of the most revolutionary changes the Metro has brought in the minds of people. They taught them how to form neat queues and control the urge to spit in every corner they set their eyes on. “I will attribute this to our culture. A person who goes to a temple whether he may be a good or bad person behaves himself. Similarly, if you keep the area clean then nobody will make it dirty, if you keep it dirty then people will litter. It is fundamental. If you create an order then people will simply support it,” he said.
Mr. Singh has lived and worked in this city for 17 years now and reluctantly refers to himself a ‘Dilliwalla’. Given a choice, of course, he would choose a quieter, more peaceful place to live and often he thinks of time spent in smaller towns. He hates going to malls, movie theatres, and seldom likes dining out. His workdays start at quarter-to-nine and ends on the dot at 6 p.m. He likes to spend Sundays at home. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
When pressed to pinpoint a favourite place in the city, he names Connaught Place, calling it “simply pleasing”. “It is one place in the city which is huge, spread out, and has a heritage feel,” he said with his hands spread wide to indicate the circular ‘CP’ which the Metro brings you into the heart of.
But the DMRC MD takes a moment to point out that the Metro is a “facility” that is being provided and should not be dragged into the “development versus heritage” debate that is often heard while discussing the Capital’s protected monuments.
“I really think that concept of not allowing any structure near the protected monuments requires review. The Qutab Minar station is barely a kilometre away from the monument making it very comfortable to access,” he said.
When you drive around the city do you see a vast difference now? “I must admit I don’t know how to drive. I really don’t know what will happen after I retire,” smiled Mr. Singh. Perhaps, he will use the Metro network more often and listen in on interesting conversations.
