WHEN all you’re preoccupied with is trying to maintain your balance for thirty-or-so long minutes while standing inside a cramped train, I guess there’s really not much to do but observe your fellow passengers, unnoticeably that is, as I’m sure most of them are doing the same thing.
I’ve always looked at public transportations as a microcosm of a bigger world. And in this particular instant, I think the trains are also a literally compartmentalized version of Vogue-Allure-Cosmo-Elle rolled into one. In a place where culture and religion has decreed the segregation of women when it comes to transportation and other public services, one gets used to seeing a lot of women from different walks of life all placed together in one area. So for that thirty-or-so long minutes, you simply observe each other, while desperately trying not to show it. Maybe it’s innate, maybe you’re just bored, but here’s the time you consciously or unconsciously make your impressions about the female species.
I’ve always looked at public transportations as a microcosm of a bigger world. And in this particular instant, I think the trains are also a literally compartmentalized version of Vogue-Allure-Cosmo-Elle rolled into one. In a place where culture and religion has decreed the segregation of women when it comes to transportation and other public services, one gets used to seeing a lot of women from different walks of life all placed together in one area. So for that thirty-or-so long minutes, you simply observe each other, while desperately trying not to show it. Maybe it’s innate, maybe you’re just bored, but here’s the time you consciously or unconsciously make your impressions about the female species.