The man who waited for the Up lift

I can still vividly recall my first meeting with the hapless Seshadri not surprisingly outside a lift It was close to 5 pm and I was leaving my office on the 17th floor of a prestigious Mumbai highrise building As we passed the 9th floor I noticed a nondescript fellow gesticulating frantically in my direction His wrist was held stiffly out forefinger at an angle pointing upwardsI do not know what made me get off the lift and accost him but that is how I met Seshadri an ordinary Indian who could never get clear directions to any place in any cityThere are Seshadris wherever there are highrises with elevators He is the morose man never fortunate enough to board always reaching the elevator just as the doors slide shut He is the one who gets squeezed out when the lift is overfull He presses the Up button repeatedly when everyone else is going down or gets off on the wrong floor where he will wait another quarterhourYet Seshadri is the epitome of utter faith and hope in the face of overwhelming odds and statistics As the full lift passes him aloofly by his face will unfailingly light up His wrist will shoot out the forefinger pointing tremulously upwards In a quavering whisper that no one will acknowledge or answer he will ask nobody in particular ldquoGoing uprdquoAs the lift doors close you may glimpse Seshadri unanswered nodding to himself as though everything was as he had suspected all alongThis was the man waiting I met ldquoSir it has taken me all day and I still have not reached my floor The lifts going up were full so I kept taking the ones going down And now here I am sir on the 17th floorStill so far from my destination the 9th floorrdquoFeeling pity I took him to a coffee shop where I heard his harrowing taleIt was as a lad of 18 selling carbon paper door to door that Seshadri had first entered a lift He was terrified The idea of standing in a claustrophobic little box hanging by a cable over an abyss several hundred feet over ground zero filled him with dreadldquoI realised early sir that there would be a big challenge when a liftrsquos doors open there is no way an ordinary man like me can figure out if it is on its way up or down The lift is stationary when its doors openrdquoTo resolve this Seshadri took to addressing polite enquiries to the occupantsldquoBut no one was interested in answering merdquo he said ldquoSome would deliberately mislead me causing me to travel in the opposite direction Eventually however I grew philosophical about it and began to study the Vedas hoping for illuminationrdquoIt was there at age 33 that he found the words The fool searches in darkness but the wise man seeks where the light is brightestSeshadri imagining that people in cars might be more inclined to answer his questions took to standing along the traffic lights along the Queenrsquos Necklace with his thumb held out stiffly As vehicles stopped at the signal he would approach them and ask in the same tremulous voice ldquoGoing north sirrdquoDid this improve mattersldquoFar from it sirrdquo he croaked ldquoNot once in five years did a driver answer merdquoIn the process Seshadri became a wreck His forefinger and thumb were reduced to stiff stumps Worry lines creased his face He had no job left because all jobs according to him consisted of ldquoeither mounting buildings or being mounted by themrdquoHis children graduated His wife left him and returned to her parents in Changanacheri He lived aloneldquoWhy are you doing this to yourselfrdquo I asked him ldquoYour fingers are devastated Your mind is a mess Is it so importantrdquoldquoYesrdquo he screamed ldquoThe world has ignored me too long I must be answeredrdquoI had an epiphany Revenge was what Seshadri needed I pondered the matter a moment and did a small calculation of the usable fingers on Seshadrirsquos handsForefinger uselessThumb stiff from overuseLittle finger dead through neglectOnly two fingers remained of which the fourth was a relic anyway That left oneToday Seshadri is a happy man well as happy as he will ever get He may be seen in any of the highrises in downtown Mumbai waiting in the elevator lobby He no longer wants to know if the lift is headed up or downAs the lift doors open at his floor he makes a warbling sound calculated to attract every passenger in the lift Then with a deliberation born of years of frustration he raises his wrist and carefully sticks out the middle finger in the timehonoured proctal suggestionBefore anyone can react the lift doors hiss shut Seshadri wins every timeHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcom Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper