I was always
aware that elevators could go rogue. Habit of reading newspapers from my
teenage always made me more aware of generic risks in the world than one could
otherwise. All sorts of things can happen with elevators: elevators can get
stuck anywhere and anytime, can simply decide to have a free-fall along with
its occupants, or someone’s pet dog can decide to role-play a lion and attack
you, or if you are a woman, you risk more types of crimes if the guy standing
next to you actually happens to be a vampire. At the back of my mind, I was
always aware that a day could come for me too and not knowing when and how was
part of it. After all these years and decades, finally the D-day arrived a
couple of weeks back in my society’s lift.
After
returning from office late evening on one ordinary day, I got into the society
lift. It started and had barely crossed a floor when suddenly it stopped. The
light inside the lift was gone too and it went completely dark, with nothing
visible. I understood what had happened, and decided to wait for a couple of
minutes before doing anything. Society lift had a backup power, so I thought
the issue should not be with power. The lift goes out-of-order many times and I
guessed it was one of those days. After about a minute, I checked my smartphone
and found it had “no signal”, so it won’t help if I had to call the security
guard! After a few moments, I could hear that the security guard had arrived,
and he shouted and asked if anyone was in the elevator. I answered and informed
him about myself. Then I heard that a lot of kids had gathered near the
elevator door on the floor, while the guard was trying to open it. The kids
started discussing the matter among themselves; some were sounding very excited
and even happy at this situation. Then a boy shouted, “darna mat!” to me and
everyone started laughing. I could hear at least a dozen of kids laughing
aloud, and then all of them started emulating the boy, telling the invisible
man inside the stuck elevator to wait, not to panic, that they were rescue him
soon, and so on. I was a bit embarrassed at the situation but was very
surprised at how the kids were trying to help me. From the news reports in the
newspapers, I had never imagined that community kids would be part of the
experience.
In a couple
of minutes, the security guard opened the external door and asked me to open
the inside door which I was able to open easily. Then I came out of the
elevator all smiling, amidst loud cheers by the kids, as if I was some
celebrity or a hero who had won over some obstacle, like it happens at the end
of the fairy tales. The security guard informed that it happened because diesel
for the backup DG set had got exhausted. I quickly went to the stairs to avoid
any more scene, but while leaving, I could see a girl telling the security
guard, “uncle, next time someone gets stuck like this, please do not do
anything but allow us to rescue him”. The guard replied, “ok, ok”. I don’t know
how honest the promise was, but I could note how courageous the kids are, by
nature.
With the
situation over, I did notice that my elevator had stopped only a foot below the
main floor and hence I just had to climb a foot while coming out. What if the
elevator stops in between with significant gap with the floor? I guess they
will drop a ladder in the elevator and ask the person to climb it. Fine.
This way, I
finished my long due stuck elevator experience. Along with its comic
consequences.
-
Rahul
