The Day I Accidentally Became a Senior Citizen — Delhi Metro Edition

By : Emdi Iyer

Yesterday evening, I boarded the Delhi Metro from Rajendra Place to Vaishali during peak office hours — the kind of crowd where even oxygen needs a reservation. Miraculously, at the very next station, I spotted a vacant seat and pounced on it like a wildlife photographer capturing a rare bird.

Just as I settled in triumph, I noticed the sign above my head:

“Please vacate seat for senior citizens.”

Great. Now instead of enjoying the seat, I had unlocked a moral quicksand.

I didn’t want to steal the throne from the deserving elderly, and I definitely didn’t have the energy to stand for the next 16 stations. So I devised a masterstroke.

At the very next stop, the seat next to mine got empty.

I executed the fastest and smoothest relocation in Delhi Metro history — like a knight doing a checkmate move. I silently congratulated myself for this brilliant strategic shift.

And then…

The gentleman sitting beside me called another passenger and offered him the exact seat I had just vacated. When the man came forward, I dutifully redirected him to the original seat — while still feeling intellectually superior about my metro chess technique.

But the neighbor wasn’t done.

He turned to me and, with the sincerity of a moral inspector, said:

“Sir, that seat has to be vacated if a senior citizen comes.”

Without understanding the context of his comment or the tone of his suspicion, I proudly replied:

“Exactly! That’s why I shifted!”

He looked at me like he was watching a National Geographic documentary on strange human behavior.

To repair the situation, I added quickly:

“I’ll would have to get up if someone older than me comes.”

He smiled, shook his head, and delivered the knockout punch:

“Nobody expects you to vacate. Grey hair is a passport to that seat.”

At that moment, the metro didn’t move — but my soul did.

Here I was, thinking I had outsmarted the system, and the system had calmly stamped my visa to the Senior Category.

I realized:

While I was avoiding the “senior citizen seat,”

the Delhi Metro had already accepted me as a senior citizen.

So yes — yesterday, between Rajendra Place and Vaishali, I didn’t just travel across Delhi.

I travelled across an age bracket.

We spend our early years trying to prove we are grown-ups.

We spend our middle years insisting we are still young.

And somewhere in between, society quietly starts treating us with a new kind of respect — before we even recognize that we’ve earned it.

Grey hair is not a sign of fading youth;

It is a certificate of experience, survival, wisdom, and resilience.

Last evening, the Metro taught me:

Maturity is not something we declare — it is something the world perceives.

Dignity comes unannounced, like an upgrade we didn’t apply for.

We grow into roles we resist — and then one day, we inhabit them with grace.