City Landmark – Metro Footbridge, Laxmi Nagar
The route to aspirations.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
It’s no secret that Delhi can never get its fill of foot bridges. They’re all over the place, aren’t they? And specifically at Metro stations, where these spans quickly assume a character of their own.
That long footbridge at Old Faridabad, for instance, has an escapist feel to it, as though the city is far, far away.
Then, we have the bridge in east Delhi spanning the dreadfully clogged Vikas Marg at Laxmi Nagar Metro station. Here, in mid-afternoon, young romantics are huddled by the railings; while at some distance, three teenage girls furtively smoke a cigarette.
But that’s not what this particular bridge is really all about.
Its overall leitmotif is strictly commercial. All around are hundreds of banners suggesting you urgently need coaching in chartered accountancy, right now. No question about that.
While footbridges elsewhere might present banners of film stars or cricketers, the Laxmi Nagar bridge is otherwise a postered hymn to the career world, to its “shining stars” like Subhansu Goel and Prachi Jain. There they are, these glowing confident CAs, smiling confidently down at us.
The bridge tapers into a corridor as it nears the ticket counter. But, here too, it overlooks walls plastered with beaming faces of accountancy teachers and students who became CAs. One afternoon, The Delhi Walla saw a young man morosely bending his head down over the railing as if he was overwhelmed by this conspicuous celebration of careerism.
Perhaps he ought to take note of those romantic couples along the railings, particularly in the evening when more of them turn up.
Life in the suspended world
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