Yes, we’re talking about elevators here. They’re mean!
The main, the most important and the simplest reason is that they make my heart sink. Or maybe it’s my lungs. Or say, the liver? But definitely something that’s above the stomach and below my head.
Could it be something coming up instead of sinking? Ummm...nah! It’s definitely sinking. It goes down and hits the stomach. Everything seems to stop inside me but that bloody thing moves and all the people around me can’t feel a thing! Heartless meanies! :-/
I know I am not claustrophobic. Sure I would prefer a hospital elevator to a 3-storey residential building’s shady one but even then! At least the probability of having another human being with me in that dangerous situation is higher.
Now you would wonder that if I have such issues then why do I resort to one of these damned things at all. Fair enough. But what am I supposed to do when an aunt’s fear of escalators is overpowering (certainly it’s not greater) mine for...ahem...you know what. So the other day she made me climb into one of these at a metro station. And we’ll have to give it to DMRC for this one. It was the smoothest elevator ride ever. I could not feel when it started and when it stopped. I was impressed. But how could the impression last? Its effect was on my opinion of elevators and not of DMRC. One week later, at IGI Airport, thanks to another aunt I nearly got squashed. I mean, there were still people behind me (I always make sure there are. Only so that I don’t get squashed!!!). How could it try to close in on me? Quite obviously, my not-so-tiny feet were anyway at their speediest best. I have no love for the place that I was in. And I’m no Tom Cat anyway that it would turn me into a flat cake and I’ll smoothly come out, jerk my body two-three times and be back to normal form, or am I? No seriously...am I? The heart that was pumping at twice the normal rate could have failed if it wasn't for that God-sent man who stopped both ends of the door like Superman. By the way, did I tell you that my normal pulse rate is way above the normal normal? But nobody cares. Definitely not the elevator at the airport!
And now the next scary thought is about my to-be-office. It’s some TOWER. I don’t know which floor yet but these things in Gurgaon are quite tall, I’ve heard. What the hell will I do? Doing an ‘8 floors by stairs’ once was a moment of pride but doing something like that everyday is not a pleasant thought. I might begin to think that it will help me lose the much needed extra fat but some studies say that climbing up too many stairs is not a healthy thing for the joints. And for crying out loud, I don’t need more problems with my body! I get one generated every day. For free. I could start a business in these rather than in flowers. Humans may not be interested but green-skinned Martians could be. (My friends feel I’m gonna marry one of those ‘coz of my love for the colour. They’ve put it down in my already-prepared matrimonial. See! I’m telling you nobody really cares.)
And then they come up with jokes like this:
An American and an Englishman walk into a hotel. The American suggests they take the elevator (Fool!). The Englishman checks him – “it’s called a lift”.
“Dude, it’s an elevator. We invented it.”
“Sir, it’s a lift. We invented the language.”
By the way, only last year I needed a security man to tell me which button to press in order to get a lift stop at the floor that I was on. I know there is only one button but there are things that look like buttons at that moment. Now I know.
PS – And if you ever find me in an elevator and I look like I am praying, you should know it's just my heart that I am trying to hold on to. You need to not be numb and blank in order to pray too.
