Delhi Metro Reaches Across Class Lines NEW DELHI - There was a time, not very long ago, when the latte with heart-shaped foam and other marvels of affluence had yet to arrive in India and its people could not always express the fact that not all of them were equal. The fortunate and the less so were often forced together under the same roof. They watched the same films in the same theaters. They ate in the same restaurants, though some could, of course, pay more for the darkened, air-conditioned section called "AC" or "Family." They shared long-distance trains and packed city buses, barber shops and markets. Even schools. There was nothing particularly noble about this - merely a fact, a moment in a nation's life. Then islands were invented where some could go to escape from the rest, and the high and the low were finally shown their separate places, never to meet again except for practical reasons. A person, especially in Delhi, could now spend days without ever venturing into what was, in reality, the republic. The segregation was most stark in the way people traveled to work. Public transportation became almost entirely the carrier of the poor, who stared from its windows and open doors at private automobiles as if they were the enemy. But about a decade ago a curious anomaly emerged, and it has only grown since then. Contrary to all expectations, the Delhi government completed a section of India's most modern mass transit system - ahead of schedule and well below the projected cost. Everything about the Delhi Metro and how people behaved inside it was the opposite of the nation outside. The trains arrived when the electronic board said they would, even when the time displayed was an odd number. Indians spit in public as if to mark their territory, and yet they refrained from doing so in the Metro stations or in the trains. The threat of a fine was a deterrence. They usually are not so easily persuaded, but their reasoning probably was, by the evidence in plain sight, that the Delhi Metro would enforce what it said it would. Today, the Delhi Metro spans more than 190 kilometers, or about 120 miles. And its charm is undiminished. If anything, it is more precious than ever before. On July 1, it carried its highest-ever daily ridership - more than 2.35 million people. On most work days, more than 2 million people in Delhi use the Metro. And once again, the elites and the masses are traveling together, the otherwise unbridgeable classes juxtaposed, often gawking at each other. A man reading on his iPad sitting next to a housemaid - this might seem like an unremarkable scene in many other countries, but such a thing does not happen in a middle-class Indian home. Maids sit on the floor - or on footrests these days in somewhat progressive homes - but not on chairs if others are present. Girls in short dresses, dashing men in pink shoes, young lovers fused together and talking about things that are hard to comprehend even when you try very hard - they all receive long stares of unspoken indictments or incomprehension; but eventually people will become inured to these veneers of modernity, and the stares will cease. That is how cities mature - by raising the bar for the vacant gaping eyes. The myth that cities are fast and restless is in part the creation of an imagery of hordes of people rushing to catch public transportation. The Delhi Metro has brought that brisk and endearing illusion of urgency to the capital. The upper crust of Delhi society is still beholden to the chauffeur-driven car. When asked why, they say they worry about congestion, and the many odors of others" bodies. But they may convert as the Metro expands, Delhi's roads become even more miserable than they already are, and the chauffeur ceases to be so cheap or servile. The capital's women feel relatively safe in the Metro, according to the many I have asked. They have their own coaches. Until a year ago, there were instances of men slipping into the women's coaches chiefly to save themselves from the crowds in the general coaches. I have seen women beat up the trespassing men and the men running away, for some reason laughing as if it were all very pleasurable. But all that has stopped now. The Delhi Metro has solved this problem, as it often does, by taking complaints seriously, fining the violators and getting the police involved. On Monday, the Metro began a week-long survey to gauge what commuters think of its service and what more they want from it. One must hold one's heart and weep at such rare consideration from what is, after all, a government utility. The survey was news in the Delhi editions of several newspapers. The news media have long been infatuated by the Metro project, and the love has only blossomed over time, even though an overwhelming majority of senior editors do not take the Metro themselves. The Metro has, on occasion, received bad press. There have been fatal accidents on construction sites. Its Airport Express line shut down for safety reasons and reopened recently at reduced speed. A few weeks ago, closed-circuit television footage of lovers fondling and more in empty coaches was leaked on the Internet. But such stories have not dented the public and journalistic perception of the Metro. What first influenced journalists in the Metro project's favor was that it was headed by E. Sreedharan. He had already acquired a huge reputation earlier in his career, but by the time he retired from the Delhi Metro Rail Corp., he had become India's most loved engineer. In numerous interviews he repeated his conviction that it was possible to build wonderful things in India as long as one did not waver from the thin line of professional ethics. Politicians desperately wanted the Metro, and that meant having him at the helm. In return, he asked them not to interfere with his decisions. Surprisingly, they didn't.