Elevator Etiquette

He was on the phone as he entered the elevator. It was just the 2 of us. He hung up and both of us watched the floor-display like our lives depended on it. As his floor arrived, he stepped out briskly, but not before smiling widely at me and saying "Have a great day then." I was taken aback and said "fjghafklgh" with a feeble smile but by then he had left already.

Our Bombay apartment had one of those old-fashioned, sliding grill-door lifts, which had a one-track mind. So if Floor 5 called it, and on its way from Floor 1 to Floor 5 it also registered a request from Floor 3, it would ignore it happily, gliding in its transparent empty splendour, mocking the waiting passenger on Floor 3, before drawing up - a worthy, loyal chariot - on Floor 5. Floor 3 and 5 would then play a game of one-upmanship. Once Floor 5 got in and slid the door shut, the lift was fair game for everyone. So if Floor 5 hesitated even a second before hitting the "G" button, and Floor 3 hit the "call" button first, the lift would forget all about the Floor 5 passenger standing in it, and fly off to Floor 3. Of course, if Floor 5 hit "G" first, Floor 3 could "call" the lift endlessly, but the lift wouldn't deign to go to it before safely depositing Floor 5 at G.

So when you come from a place where the person in the lift is your rival, and has established their superiority by winning at "First-press-first-serve", politeness in lifts is a bit alien!

Elevators are funny places. Everyone tries to find a little space for themselves on the ride. Of course, it's the four corners that get occupied first. Then the middle, then the middle back, and then middle front. Anyone who comes in after that destroys the balance and necessitates a collapse of public space boundaries that most people find uncomfortable. (Of course, if you've done 5 years of higher studies hanging in a DTC then elbow room is a luxury, so I'm more relaxed than many.)

But what I find even funnier in elevators in Dubai, and elsewhere outside India, is the social code. The Westerners usually nod/smile/say good morning. The Indians rarely bother. The Arabs never do. The others fall somewhere / anywhere in between. And so, I am never sure whether to say it first. I have on occasion brightly smiled and met with a blank face. I have tried to strike up conversations and realised language was a problem. And then I feel really stupid. Like, who tries to make friends on a 15-second elevator ride anyway? And come on, isn't it totally mechanical to do this anyway? I don't get the whole smile-when-you-get in/stare-at-your-feet/ watch-your-phone/stare-at-the-floor-display /inspect-your-nails/smaile-when-you-get-out funda. I mean, really it's just a half-hearted social thing to do. In India, with how many people and for how long do you just smile and move on? Sooner rather than later they will find out whether you had an arranged marriage and where your family is from.

Here, you could smile at the same woman in the lift everyday and never go further than that. And I am never sure what the other person expects. I guess this comes from my whole personality flaw of always wanting people to like me. So if I decide to smile and the other just looks taken aback, I feel silly. Or if I decide to just look at the wall the other will turn out to be a social butterfly and give me a happy grin and make a general remark about the weather, and then I look anti-social. Me anti-social? ME? ME? I am then seized by the urge to restrain them from leaving the elevator, talk to them about a while to establish just how social I am, and then let them go their way. Thankfully I have not tried it yet.

Too much pressure. What do you do in the lift? I know, I know, all you sane people out there will say, just smile anyway. Reminds me of that T-shirt "Smile at a stranger, it'll scare them silly." I'm not sure I really want to practise that.