Escalator escapades!

These days, you cannot miss the escalator. If you have nothing better to do, head off to the mall and choose a vantage point next to the escalator!  First-time users will provide you with ample entertainment.

 “Never get on or off a moving bus” is a mental conditioning you have grown up with. And now, faced with a moving escalator, the brain refuses to give marching orders to the foot. The foot stays upraised- frozen in the act.

But then, the escalator is a narrow space. If you wait for an eternity, you will block several others who are impatient to get going. They elbow their way around you, give you an ugly stare, making you feel helpless and marooned.

Sometimes, you have a companion to assist you. “Two is company”, but not when both members are equally tentative. They hold hands and get onto the escalator at the same time! It is now like a three-legged race, each one stumbling over the other, the probability of a fall increased many times over.

A good Samaritan shows how easy it is. “You just get on, like this!”- he eggs you. Gingerly, you raise your foot. This time, even the footwear gives up and slips off! You watch your slipper riding to the top on its own, leaving you hobbling on one foot at basecamp!

Eventually, many factors come together- some helping hands and a lot of bravado. You are now on the escalator. You want to hold onto something static. There is none. Even the side-rail is on the move.

If getting on the escalator is tough, getting off is equally complicated. It is like jumping off a bicycle at top speed. The step disappears below your feet and what’s worse, it takes with it, any loose garment ends! Free-flowing dresses like dhotis and saris are fraught with extreme danger! You may find yourself without them!

Some escalators appear static.  They move once you step on them. Sometimes, they continue to stay stubborn like a recalcitrant child. You understand the escalator is switched off. You climb the steep escalator steps the hard way. Midway through it, the escalator suddenly switches on! You lurch this way and that, somehow, balancing yourself like a ballerina!

You may not be so lucky. The escalator springs to action but starts moving the opposite way! You desperately flap your hands and feet, like the proverbial rat on the wheel, but it is useless! You are back to square one.

For a simple lift, you have an attendant. He sits inside the lift the entire day and presses the floor-button for you.

Why then, you beg to ask, is there no attendant for this blessed escalator?