Nostalgic moments3: Zigzag flight of stairs

I think the early incidents that I wrote to you were very light hearted and funny. Well if you think i want to do the breakthrough with this one being really serious, it is very essential for you to know that I am going to disappoint you very deeply. In a casual discussion, my friend Onkar told me a true fact, “it’s very easy to write a tragedy but difficult to make others laugh. For example it’s so easy to build a castle of cards and make it fall but how do you make someone laugh over it.” True, there is already so much resentment, guilt and all such miserable things in our life. I don’t want to add to it. This is the story of my foolishness, stupidity or eagerness. I don’t know what? You judge. I was at the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, Mumbai. I forgot to mention, I was an Assistant Room Dining manager. This is somewhere in July 2009. A huge delegation was visiting India with some Middle Eastern foreign minister. For long I was in the night shift. The roaster was put up and I had to break off from my slumber shift. There was a list of some amenities to be placed into the rooms. Amenities are products either from the vanity pouch, flower arrangement, wines or eatables like chocolates, sweets, savoury which go into the rooms of such VVIP delegation free, free!! (Complimentary with the stay)!! My job was to supervise the placement of the amenities. I loved this job of roaming on the guest floors like a vagabond with a master key in my hand. Barging into rooms and checking whether the amenities are placed as per standard. If ok, then tick so on the list I had. If not then make notes and call the floor waiter and tell him or her. I consumed lots of time doing ABDF, acting busy doing fuck all. But my job used to be always perfect.

It was about 4 pm in the evening and I was on the 17^th floor of the building finishing with my job for the day and preparing the handover for the evening shift. I suddenly got a call on the phone saying there were three more rooms added to the list 1618, 1714 and 1718. I had sent the staff back to the pantry for wrapping up. I thought I would finish the work myself. It’s hardly any task, 1714 is right next to the pantry where I was, next I will run to 1718 the last on the floor next to the fire exit II. Then run down one floor through the exit I would reach 1618.  I turned to my list. One of my boys had already marked this room as placed. Ok.. super cool, I had to just move my ass up there and check whether the arrangement is fine.

I finished with both the rooms on the 17^th floor and opened the fire exit II to step in. I had never used this exit before for the last three months. It was different from the other exit. It was hot and no windows were open. The door closed behind me and the sound of the thud echoed. I got scared and try immediately to open it pressing the shaft. It didn’t open. I thought, “May be this is the last floor so the door doesn’t open back to the guest area. Let’s try the one below it. I ran down unaware of the tragedy I was getting into. I pushed the 16^th floor’s exit shaft. This one was also jammed, it refrained from opening. I checked my mobiles for network. I carried two then, one would be the company and other my personal one. None of them showed any network coverage. I stood there knocking softly over the door, thinking someone from In room dining, Housekeeping or Front office would act like my rescue team. I wasted around 15 to 20 minutes waiting for the holy angel through the square of glass in that sturdy metal door but none arrived. I looked at my watch, 4: 30 pm. This is the most wrong time to get stuck here. The morning and evening shift will be in briefing, then exchanging handovers and later chai time. So there won’t be any good luck till next 45 minutes. Just then enlightenment struck me, “ Asmi.. tere lag gaye !!” in other words “Girl, you are screwed for bad.” I looked down and saw the never ending zigzag of the flight of stairs. “Bungee jumping, want to try.” I am an optimist, this is India, and at least one door would open. You know six sigma; at least one door would be faulty and will open.” I began to descend lightly jogging. What I forgot was that I am in my Raymond suit and was in a stuffy air tight exit.  I enjoyed the first few floors but then I was getting impatient. I tried each door on every floor. But to my dismay none bothered to open. On the 8^th floor, I took a break catching some air. I was sweating profusely and wanted water real badly. I saw some movement through the glass of the door. It was housekeeping guy, carrying some nicely laundered soft white towels, folded on his left hand. I started banging the door really hard. It was like three or four bangs that the guy was turning his gaze that the door in front of him opened and he got busy there. The door in front of which he stood closed and I gathered my fist to knock the door again that the door in front of the exit opened. I was invisible to him now as a couple stepped out of the room kissing each other and getting really wild. I moved out of their visibility and thought,” Should I bang the door, they can help me. But if I banged and disturbed them in their banging session, God knows for what reason will they throw me out of the organisation.” I moved away because the couple didn’t seem to stop somewhere. I pulled off my jacket now, opened my shirt’s buttons till the second, untied my hair from the bun and tied a pony. I convinced myself to run down for the next eight floors. It would be hardly any time. I checked my watch; it was 5:15 pm. What???  I thought I was fast. OK... Come on I geared myself for the final run. As I ran down I saw a glass door on the second floor. It was a glass door but not transparent. It was opaque. I stuck my ear to it; I could hear faint sound of conversations happening. By now I had started talking to myself loudly, so it echoed and I felt there was company to me. I said to myself, “Two more floors and you will walk out into fresh air, Why to knock on this door and create a mockery of self in public.”

I reached the ground floor and the exit door stood right in front of me. I rushed to the transparent glass square of the door and saw people outside. All I yearned for was water and air. My hand gripped around the round knob of the door and I was about to turn it round that my gaze fell over this board placed at eye level with ATTENTION, the word embossed in red. I was stunned as if I had seen a ghost in daylight. I moved back and read it. I don’t remember the instructions vividly. But yes it read somewhat like this

1. This door is to be opened only in case of fire or any hazardous emergency.

 

2. As the door opens, a buzzer alarm will ring throughout the hotel in all public areas for immediate evacuation

 

3.  Any employee if opens this door in any other situation will be liable to suspension and legal action.

A jackpot slot machine stood in front of me. There were three slots, one showed brown bread, second displayed Amul butter packet and third showed kingfisher beer. Then the door opened and lever went down again on its own. “TING” went the sound and all three slots went void with question marks in it. I was hallucinating. My watch showed me 5: 45 pm on its dial.

If there is no exit from this place, why is it called exit? My first thought. I stood there as if struck by a high voltage electric bolt.

When god closes one door, he opens another. I started wondering which my other option is. The glass door on the second floor. I gulped down the lump in my throat and went back to the second floor, stood in front of the door. I knocked on the door, but it seemed that people inside couldn’t hear it. I wasn’t audible. I sat down on the stairs completely frustrated, irritated, suffocated, tired and all such miserable emotions. The mystery was there were two glass doors, one behind the other which made it look opaque and my knocks inaudible. I got up again and this time knocked desperately. I don’t know it was my knock or the prayer that got answered. There was a voice of a lady from the other side. “Who are you?” I yelled on top of my voice with excitement. “I am the Assistant Manager of IRD. I have been caught in this exit for last one and half hour. Please open the door”

I can’t open the door, we don’t have key after 26/11. Besides there’s a door on the ground floor

“You fucking bitch, do you think I am an idiot to leave that untried.” I said to myself in light whispers. You know the quote; stay quiet when you are in shit. I was in deep shit and she was my only hope.

I got into the most polite and dainty tone I could get and explained to her, “Mam, if I open that door, there will be an alarm buzzing in all areas including your and my office for evacuation. I might get suspended. Please I request to help me, I had got stuck on the 17^th floor and it’s been pretty long time. I am suffocating.”

“I will check with my manager. Hold On. What is your name by the way? Can I have your ID card?”

Asmita Kabre ( The moron ), I yelped as I pulled my ID card out of the jacket and slipped it to the other side through the gap between the carpet and bottom of the door.

I settled on the floor, my hands folded, hair withered, clothes drenched in sweat as if I went to some rain dance. I heard a bunch of keys nearing to me. One went in after the other. It was the ninth key that worked. Well that’s my lucky number and it got proved that day. The door opened and a decent number of people stood in front of me looking at me. It was as though they were watching a circus stunt. I pulled my jacket over, did my buttons. I looked at the lady who helped me, thanked her. I was so embarrassed that I quickly demanded her for my ID card. I didn’t even wait for the office boy to get me water. I requested for the direction to the lobby. An old gentleman raised his arm to point towards the door. I rushed out of the door and bursted out laughing at my embarrassment. I reached my department and my senior manager looked at my condition and asked me, “Did you go for a jog and hey why were you unreachable for the last two hours.” I bent down on my knees next to his chair and asked him to pass me the water bottle. I drank water as if I was just out of a desert. I had not finished the first bottle that I pointed him to pass me another. “What happened?” he was anxious. I reconstructed the entire incident for him and rest of the team and they laughed uncontrollably. He even shared an old incident where one of the staff doing a 10 pm to 7 am shift had got stuck into the exit at 1: 30 am. He didn’t even have SATS office option like me. He was discovered around 4:30 am through the CCTV footage. He went off to sleep. “What?” I exclaimed. “How can someone even think of sleeping in that petrifying zone?” Well everyone had a good time pulling my leg. I almost repeated the same incident to fifteen different people. Everyone approached laughing and asking, “Kya hua?” (What happened?) Asshole if you don’t know what happened, then why are you laughing. Everyone wanted to listen to the animated version of it and then say,” You are such a clown.” 

 

Human nature, “Your misery is a joke for everyone apart from you.”

 

I was moving out of the pantry that a lady colleague of mine stepped closer to me and said. “I guess you dropped your left earring somewhere?”

“Oh yeah?” I sensed it as I touched my earlobe.

Her face developed a wicked curve as she said, “Should be in that fire exit II. Want to go and search?”

I smiled back at her and said, “No never again.”

“Never say Never”, my boss replied as he walked past our discussion.

 

It didn’t happen again. In the meanwhile my colleague had gone ahead and checked those rooms, they were affirmative, I mean ready. This is my acquired nightmare. I dream to be in the same place many a times running endlessly the “Zigzag flight of stairs”