Elevator Blues..

Before we start, let me warn you this is long and not without reason as this is the most comprehensive write-up ever attempted on elevators, if you include the outbound link, which I implore you to read after going through this in entirety.

Basically Mitch Hedberg is responsible for this as I was inspired to write a blog on elevators after watching his joke about elevators and escalators which goes thus: ‘ I don’t like elevators man. I like escalators, because an escalator can never break down. It can only become stairs. Escalator: Temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience”.

Elevators are a part and parcel of life, very important, next only to pizza, beer and computers, in that order. Douglas Adams recognized the role of elevators in everyday life and gave them their due in his book, ‘Restaurant at the End of Universe’ envisioning a hilarious exchange that takes place between Zaphod Beeblebrox, who wants to go ‘up’, and an elevator in the building, which insists on taking him down because it is an ‘existentialist’ elevator that can read into the future and smells trouble if it takes Zaphod ‘up’. For the entire exchange, click here.

(Well basically, all that song was for introduction about my various elevator experiences that I have been thinking of sharing for quiet sometime now.)

The first and foremost one was when, as a kid, probably in 5^th or 6^th class, I was accused of single handedly braking the lift at my uncle’s apartment in Bombay. It was a nice 15 floor highrise in Andheri and I would ride up and down and up and down and again and again because there was nothing else to do, and also because it would play music and I remember liking the tune at that time. Anyway, the maintenance-wallah caught me quite a few times and I would run around the basement, escape and take the lift up again. Sometimes, I would be clever and stop at the 2^nd floor and ride it back till the 15^th. I remember my fascination being with the small rectangular glass window on the door of the lift that offers view of the people outside, on the corridor, waiting for it to rest at their floor. I would look through it and sometimes roll my eyes, make faces or click my tongue out just to annoy them, because I knew it worked both ways. They could also look through the same rectangular frame to see who is riding the elevator. Apparently, in those days, lifts could not come to a stop in between. Or that’s how I remember it. As in, if you were riding it from 2^nd to 8^th and somebody summons it at 5^th to go on further up, it would not stop at the 5^th, but go all the way to 8^th, drop the person and then move down to 5^th. But I would not get down at 8^th. I would get out, get in again and ride it till the 13^th, and again to 7^th, and so on. So, due to the wait and constant usage, the poor thing broke down. A middle-aged woman was trapped and it took them an hour to get her out. They had a big conference about it, witnesses summoned and minutes taken and decided I was responsible. By then, I was anyway tired of the elevator thing and had found a Bahadur comic and laughed the whole thing off when they squared me, saying I never rode the elevator all day, but had been with my uncle, aunts, granddad and that we had been playing monopoly all day. So anyway, that was my first experience with lifts and it was awesome.

The other elevator that I do remember is the one we had in the main building of my college in India. My department was in a different building and I had no business at the main building. But I had a few friends in the main building and there was also a girl there I was eyeing at that moment. They were all in the 3^rd floor and I used to go there every now and then. Anyway, the hearsay is that the elevator in the building is off limits to students. It was only for staff and teachers, or for students carrying record notes and everybody’s drafters. But I would always take it and that gave me a big bang, riding that stupid elevator to the 3^rd floor. I would step out of it, and see if my friends or the girl had seen me step out of it and act all important and as if it was a big deal. ‘So, you walked the stairs, huh, loser’ would be my body language to people that I knew had taken the stairs. I feel incredibly foolish now that I think about it, but got a major high out of it at that time.

Then there was this elevator at my friend AS’s apartment in Adyar that would start playing music within like a couple of seconds after you reached the designated floor. It was an obsession of mine to open the door before it could play its goddamn high-pitched music. I would be mentally ready and warming up by the time we were on the first floor, hands on the handle on the 2^nd like on the mark to slam the door open upon reaching third. It was like a reaction test, a race against time. It was Me Vs. Elevator, rage against the machine. Of course, I never won. It always beat me to it. I have had nightmares about it before AS showed me how to silence it.

The mother of all elevators is the one in the new Engineering building at Utah Sate. It was like the fastest elevator on the planet if it ever closed the doors. Like you would enter it, hit 4^th, and make tea and drink it before it would close the door. But once the door closes, it would take off like a rocket. But you can be smart about it, and hit the ‘Close Door’ button. If you remembered that, it was all right. I usually forget about that and wait for it to close by itself if an undergraduate bombshell from the Civil Engg dept would ride along although as is most often the case, whenever I forget about it, they always remember. There’s no such thing as ‘Stuck in an elevator with a girl’. Atleast, from my vast experiences in different elevators in different lands, and it’s a myth perpetrated by unimaginative movie directors and killjoy romantic novelists to introduce the hero and heroine. Even worse unimaginative movie directors use the situation to make the villain develop an interest for the girl, while the hero is the bellboy or is waiting on the next floor. That’s the pits!!!!!

Okay okay, seems this has become longer than I thought it would be, but there are so many elevators in my life that hold a special memory but there’s just this one last elevator I MUST talk about. It brought down the whole building. Yes, I am serious. Listen up. This was the one in the Merill Library building in Utah State. It was the slowest ever. I would have said ‘It is the slowest ever’, but, like I said, they tore the whole building down. Which makes that the most significant elevator in the history of mankind.

They held a meeting and decided that it would just be faster to tear down the building rather than wait for the elevator to descend the 4 floors. If only they had waited for that, the dear building would still be in place. Apparently, it was on time that day. But that’s the way it goes. Human patience runs out every time, and our impatience is better than only the vogons, who couldn’t wait a further 5 seconds.

All right, alright, let me wind this up with one last paragraph, a ‘psychological test’ as encountered everyday in life. You could take any 1 of the 2 roles described below, and in what capacity you relate to it from your everyday experience tells a lot about you as a person. So, with that info to retain your attention…..

Ever encountered the nonchalant-all-the-time-in-the-world-guy who sunnily steps into the elevator with a ‘howdy’ (especially if you are a pretty girl)? This happens like all the time if you work on the 9^th floor, and definitely happens when you are running late for an appointment on the 14^th floor.

Remember him? He gets in on the 2^nd floor, waiting all the 10 minutes to let the construction worker get his cart outta the elevator. You’d be kicking yourself for not taking the stairs and bemoaning your luck on why it happens to you all the time. Meanwhile, the-all-the-time-in-the-world-guy would wait and/or help the construction guy to get his cart outside the elevator and take his place in with his ‘howdy’, as already explained. He would then press 3, whistling under his breath, to pretend that he didn’t get turned on by your perfume. Remember that guy???

I am he.

Let me sign this off in the way I have always wanted to end all my other works.

If you really liked this narrative and have your own elevator story (or other opinions) that you’d like to share, please write to me using the comments below.