Uplifting stories

One way and another, lifts play an important role in my life here.  Most important is the one directly outside the apartment door, which I take every day, sometimes many times.  Though familiarity can lead to carelessness, not least when I inadvertently pushed the wrong button, walked out of the lift and opened my door.  It was only the unexpected darkness inside, with the curtains pulled shut, that alerted me to the fact that this was apartment number 315, one floor below.

This lift is so close that I sometimes regard it as our own private lift, so am mildly aggrieved when I have to share it.  In various occasions I have ridden down with students from CMS, on their way to Gomti Nagar 1.  The girl knew exactly who I was, had seen me around; the boy seemed startled that I was heading for the same place.  I had a car waiting, I told him; he trumped that by saying he was being collected in a Jeep, almost certainly a large SUV.  And then my driver was not there.  Humph.

The CMS campuses are nearly all huge buildings on several floors, so lifts play a part there too.  The installation of one, some years before, had caused the whole building to switch from British to American standard nomenclature, as the American lift manufacturers called the Ground floor Level 1… so everyone had to follow suit.

In the campus where I have been teaching this week, Rajajipuram 1, we take the lift each morning to my teaching space on the first floor, despite it only being two flights of stairs.  As a guest, I come quite high in the pecking order, and on one occasion this meant a gentleman carrying his lunch had to be ejected by the ladies accompanying me, two senior members of staff.  I shrugged apologetically, but it was clear he was somewhat irritated at having to give way in this manner.  The joke was on us, however, when somehow the wrong buttons were pushed, and we went up and down like a yo-yo, with the door opening several times on the wrong floor, including twice to reveal our disgruntled diner.  Luckily, all of us saw the funny side, and our combined laughter – all three of us like to laugh  – resounded throughout the building.

The most poignant lift story returns us to our own lift.  Val heard a light tapping on our door, and I went to investigate.  Right outside was an old man, a labourer of some kind, at his feet what was clearly a very heavy sack, of rubble or some building material.  He spoke, and I replied, “No Hindi.”  He then indicated the lift, seemed to shrug.  I pushed the call button,  the doors opened, and he stepped inside.  Again he turned to me, shrugged again.  I reached in, pushed the button for the ground floor, and gave him a namaste as the doors closed.  Not everyone has moved into the modern world.