Lift Stories
Tales of the common lift at NITK hostel
Travelling in a lift on a daily basis might be considered a privilege, though it comes with its quirks. I wanted to write an article on this topic in the fifth semester. But that was still the beginning. There was not much that I could write about. However, I have picked up enough instances to write this piece finally.
An average guy spends 30-40 minutes waiting/travelling on the lift in my hostel. There are two lifts in the hostel with a capacity of carrying about 10-12 fully grown men. Since we are underfed and quale, up to fifteen guys travel during peak hours. I might not quote exact values, but I am trying to estimate.
There are six floors in our hostel. The lift does not stop at the third and second floors. I felt a bit uneasy about it in the beginning but later found out that it was a good idea. Some of the buttons don’t work. And a few emergency numbers are written in blue ink on the control panel. The transparent half on the other side enables you to enter the hostel. You can often see internet refugees sitting out to claim their share of the online bounty.
I thought that travelling in the lift was going to simplify my life and save time. But the first lesson I learned in life was this: Nature has the knack of proving the exact opposite of your convictions. The lift is always at the farthest end possible, 9 out of 10 times on average. It takes maximum time to reach your end whenever you need it the most.
It gets pretty interesting to watch people when the lift gets overloaded. The guy who got in the last often gets down. But sometimes we have to show some Gaanchali towards some Gaanchali guy. That guy is pushed out purely based on the popular vote. And then sometimes we love some of our buddies too much, and we won’t let the guy get down. We hold him tight and take him to the topmost floor to piss him off. If you didn’t have a good day, make sure that you press 4 and 5 after getting down at 6. The sadistic pleasure of knowing that the guy on the ground floor waits for an extra five minutes makes you feel better in a crooked way.
Sometimes, the kindness of strangers touches you when they hold the lift for you just in case you are a few meters short. However, those acts go un-thanked on a daily basis. I don’t think people should do all that. I often pray that the guy running towards the lift misses it by a jiffy. I pray harder if I know the guy running to the lift.
The hostel lift is the de-facto news wagon. It is a travelling news wagon. You learn many things about the college if you belong to the say-no-to-gossip gang of individuals. You learn which branch people have which test, which branch classes got cancelled, etc. Sometimes, you get to know the weird style of electrical professors who use a particular double-meaning gesture to explain “system excitation”. Then there are the intern opening news, who-got-which-intern news and what-happened-in-which-branch news. If you are the average kind of guy who has got nothing, you feel bad for yourself. Trust me, it hurts.
Then there are moments when you are travelling in the lift with a “dick”, i.e. a guy with whom you have had a bad experience. And many times, you don’t know where to look or how to avoid that person. The best option in such situations is to pull out your phone and run through some unwanted stuff.
Last but not least, I must mention the sweaty and smelly guys, the ones who rarely allow water to run on their skin, who must be given due credit for their bindaas attitude. But that is not cool. That is nasal terrorism. I would say, “Use the stairs, dude,” if I had the balls to say that. The raw smell of tobacco from certain kinds of unique individuals makes you feel like closing your nose. But that would be too offensive if you do it on their face.
Seriously, I don’t know how to end this piece. I am out of touch these days. Sorry if I have disappointed you. I will try better next time. Till then, see you folks.