Column

The Spectator...

Have any amongst you gentle readers had the following happen to you in an elevator? A) Been shot at. B) Been Kissed. C) Had sex. D) Met your future life partner.

If you’ve answered in the negative to all four counts then welcome to life as we know it, as opposed to life on celluloid. Because if we were to go by Hollywood and Bollywood, people are always having interesting, and in many cases life altering and life defining things happen to them, in lifts.

How different from what lift experiences in reality are like: uneventful, dull and banal. Have you noticed what happens to the average person’s face when he enters a lift that’s full? Immediately his eyes get stony, he assumes a mask of a facial expression, and his body language says he can’t wait till the ordeal is over.

What is it about lifts that bring out the worst in us? We may be open gregarious people who love meeting others, but the moment we step in to lifts we become robotic, impersonal, almost dehumanised. And yet, as we live in a city full of high rises, were we to count all the minutes we spend in lifts it would account for a substantial part of our lives.

So how come, even after all these years, we still do not know how to behave in lifts, how to greet people, how to start and end conversations, and what to talk about?

I have heard the most inane and awkward conversations take place in lifts, especially amongst Cooperative Society members. There’s the shy hellos to people you see almost every single day. The wry references to building society bugbears, the rude references to shapes and sizes (Oh-ho! You have put on some weight!). The nosy questions. (I haven’t seen you for some time. Where have you been?!).

Of course, these are between inhabitants of lifts who are known to each other. What accounts for a complete breakdown of human relations is when you’re in a lift with a bunch of complete strangers. People mostly deal with this as if they are some place else, not sharing cubic space with other warm bodies for sure.

At these times there’s the Faraway Look, the Looking Towards Ceiling Look, the Looking At Toes Look, and the Looking At Lift Buttons Look.

Then there are those who can’t take their eyes off the mirrors in lifts. My mother is one such person. “Mum when you enter a lift, it doesn’t automatically read your mind and go to the floor you need it to by your looking in to the mirror!” I have had to say to her on a number of occasions.

The best lift I have been in is in the Fort area in eye wizard Dr Banaji’s building. I think it’s over a hundred years old and beautifully preserved.

The worst conversation I have heard in lifts is people’s opening gambit of commenting on your appearance.

The worst lift experience surely must be standing next to some one with BO.The most awkward lift experience is when you find you’re sharing the space with your favourite film star, and you’re too shy to start a conversation.

The best thing one can do when one is sharing the lift with strangers is to nod graciously at them in recognition of the fact that you are passing ships in the middle of the night, and may never meet again.

Oh, and don’t forget to thank the lift man, if there is one.

s_malavika@dnaindia.net