Sameer Suri, founder of the portal
Love takes you places. So does the Delhi Metro. This Valentine's Day, the Metro will make you travel on a romantic route - courtesy www.metromates.in, a new portal that will help metro travelers meet, greet and have fun with fellow travelers.
"Everyday, I spend almost three hours in the metro, and it isn't that entertaining. I see the same faces everyday but never muster the courage to talk to them. I think this portal will help me kill the boredom of the otherwise boring metro," says Mayank Chouhan, a visual merchandiser who travels everyday from Rajiv Chowk to City Centre Noida.
It's not one of those casually done portals, which is limited to signing up and searching partners on the basis of some weird keywords that solve no purpose.
Here, while signing up, they ask for details like the route you take, the time you board and alight, whether you're straight or gay, your personality traits, height and waist size, and whether you want to sign up for dating or just friendship.
"We launched our portal in January. Since then 700 users have registered with us, and 5000 people have liked our community on Facebook. Apart from dating and friendship, people who want to find their travel partners can also use our portal," says Sameer Suri, a 24-year-old management student at the New Delhi Institute of Management.
What's more amazing is the smart use of technology. Once you sign up you're given a Bluetooth code, which is unique to every user. While traveling you'll have to turn on your Bluetooth, set your phone's name to .metromates.in/yourusername and turn the visibility to 'on'. Once you do that the other Metromates users will be visible on your phone.
To view their profile, you'll have to note down their profile name, type .metromates.in/TheirProfileName in the browser of your GPRS enabled phone, connect with them and you can send and receive Bluetooth messages. The portal suggests its users to travel in the last compartment for best results.
"I've used it, and it's pretty amazing. But once more and more people become its member, we'll have more options," says another user Amit Sen, a Delhi University student who has been using this service for the last one week.