The daily scenes of the Delhi Metro may seem uneventful to the untrained eye. However, if you gaze through the lens of independent illustrator and software developer Samar Khan, you might find yourself at arms length to an eight-foot alien with a briefcase or in suspicious view of an Among Us imposter.
Bringing life to the rutt of daily travel, this 28-year-old from Saket is making all our Men in Black nightmares come true on his Instagram account MetroDoodle. Established in 2018, the page offers a range of illustrations that Khan has made enroute to keep himself busy.
"The project for me was to use my travelling time creatively. Everything from coming up with the ideas, clicking the pictures, to drawing what happens inside the Metro. It became my everyday Metro activity," he explains.
So, he continues to introduce graphic images of aliens and other outworldly creatures on various photographs he clicks in the Metro.
Moments that matter
As you scroll through the page that boasts over 37,000 followers, it will reveal to you an unseen biodiversity of never-before-witnessed creatures. From monsters with 10 arms, CCTV cameras transformed into aliens, fictional characters such as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings jumping out of people's bags to a life-size smartphone and even his interpretation of the Coronavirus as the bored Corona Man at the Metro station awaiting his next target - each doodle is an attempt to reshape the journeys for all.
But how does he manifest such imaginative creations, one might ask. Surprisingly, there is no permanent mantra. "There is no fixed way I go about my doodles. Sometimes the idea strikes first, at other times, I find myself discovering new ideas while looking at the photographs I've taken on my phone. I am always looking for some unique moments to capture that I can turn around into my artworks," elaborates Khan.
One of Khan's most interesting doodles - a look into life in Delhi Metro - is that of the Rajiv Chowk Metro board at the platform. The board was transformed into a declaration of war - a quirky insight into the everyday struggles of boarding and alighting, which (as many can attest) is no less than a battle.
An eccentric interpretation
Despite working as a full-time commercial artist for a few years now, Khan still makes time to post a few of his doodles whenever he gets the opportunity. While his commuting has been rendered inconsistent, thanks to the pandemic, it has also provided him with ideas from different scenarios that will capture the Capital in the state of the new normal.
Khan's doodles provide a certain realistic insight into Delhi and one of its major lifelines - the Metro - with a side of quirk and ridicule, of course.