The Liftman

The house that I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence in was one of the newer buildings in the neighborhood. Situated amongst the winding lanes and crumbling old buildings of Kolkata, our building was the only one that had freshly painted walls and a wrought-iron gate. There were no banyan roots clinging from the parapets, and our plumbing worked just fine. In fact, we had geysers in every bathroom, and our toilets were modern and “Western style.” But these features were spread out amongst the other homes in the area. What made our house truly unique was the lift. Our building was only three stories high.

The lift was nothing fancy. It was a small rickety box (even when it was brand new) with two sets of collapsible gates for doors. The doors often needed oiling, and even when they were freshly oiled, they would creak and groan every time they moved, like a grudging office-goer who whines and moans on their way to work. The buttons were knobby and often hard to push. The doors would get stuck. And if you ever pressed a button without fully shutting the gates, it would let out a horrifying shriek. The occupants of our house decided we needed a liftman. A high stool was placed in the corner where he would sit and operate the lift all day, coaxing and cajoling the buttons and the doors to work as they should. Ratan was his name.

Ratan was a man who must’ve been in his early thirties, although at that time, I didn’t give much thought to his age. He was an adult and I was a ten-year-old. To me, he was just another adult doing another adult job.

Ratan came into our lives suddenly. One day, we were struggling to make the lift work, something that we had done ever since we’d moved into the house when I turned nine, and the next morning, he had arrived by magic. In hindsight, it was probably something that the adults in the house had considered, discussed, and then done. But to me, a child, it seemed as if Ratan had dropped into our lives by magic.

He was a small man who wore faded, button-down shirts with equally faded grey trousers. Unlike the fathers in the neighborhood, he never tucked his shirt into his trousers. He wore worn-out, open-toed sandals, usually abandoned on the floor while he sat cross-legged on the stool. I wondered how he managed to balance on a stool that had an unusually small seat. It never bothered Ratan. Tucked into one corner of the small lift, he leaned against the back wall and diligently pressed the buttons all day. Sometimes, we found him engrossed in that morning’s newspaper, reading it by the light of the dim bulb in the lift. Other times, he blared music from his small cassette player. In the mornings, he played religious songs, venerating one Hindu god or the other; in the afternoons and evenings, however, he listened to Bollywood numbers. Adnan Sami’s “Lift Kara De” [1] was evidently his favorite.

Ratan would be stationed inside the lift between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. He took a long-ish break for lunch when he walked to a nearby dhaba [2] to eat his daily meal of rice, dal, and fish curry. At night, after his shift, he walked back to the same dhaba for a similar meal. I saw him sitting on one of the long benches in front of the dhaba, chatting with his friends for hours into the night. His friends were employed by nearby families.

While many of these folks came and went, there were a few who were constant. Ganesh the chauffeur, Mahesh the dhobi [3], and Netai the cook always joined Ratan. From our small balcony, I often saw them smoking beedis [4], playing cards, and chatting loudly. Sometimes, they were joined by a few others, some of whom were visibly drunk, causing a ruckus. The brawls didn’t happen too often since whenever they did happen, a few of their employers would come to sort it out. “Sorting it out” wasn’t what it really was. The patriarchs screamed at the working-class men, cursing at them and showing them their place. They said all sorts of things about how that behavior was not acceptable in that bhadralok [5] neighborhood.

Our neighborhood was very conscious of its status as a place for bhakdraloks. Many of the families owned ancestral property in the area and held onto deep-seated class prejudices. Yet, many of those ancestral homes were in ruins, and the families could do very little to contribute towards their upkeep. In some families, the men worked in local offices, bringing home an income that was never enough to keep the buildings from crumbling. Yet, they felt that upon their honor, they couldn’t let their women go out to work. In other homes, the men prided their lineage too much to go out and work. In some cases, they owned some adjacent properties that they would lease out for small sums as stores, tuition centers, and even flats for residential purposes. Those who did not own their own homes in the area lived in these rented spaces. No matter how hard I try, I cannot recall if these people had always occupied these rented homes or if there was a time when they lived somewhere else. In these homes, the patriarch often worked in the local offices, banks, or even ran their own stores. The bhadralok sentiment was deep-seated here as well. The only time anyone came out of the shell to deal with the working classes was when it came to dealing with their chauffeurs, cooks, maids, and (in our case) the liftman. These men and women occupied the periphery of the lives of the bhadralok, gliding in and out on command. They cooked our meals, made our beds, raised our children, operated our lifts, and then blended into the crumbling walls. Most homes had separate eating and drinking utensils for them. While Ratan would eat exclusively at the dhaba, many of the others ate meals with us. “With us” is probably an overstatement. They’d generally eat after everyone else had finished, squatting in the corners of the kitchens.

Ratan lived in a small room that was just within the confines of our elaborate wrought iron gates. The ceiling was too low to install a ceiling fan, so in the summer months, Ratan used pieces of newspaper to fan himself to sleep. The summer heat in Kolkata can be cruel. The humidity was a whole other beast of its own. The year after I turned eleven, Ratan appealed to the adults in our house to purchase a table fan. Most of the adults in the building were in favor of this plan. But the old doctor and his wife who lived on the third floor decided that this was an extravagance. Without their contribution, the plan was stalled and the fan was never bought.

In his small abode downstairs, Ratan made himself at home. He fashioned a bed out of a plank of plywood and a few cushions. The legs of this “bed” were made up of bricks he found in the neighborhood. The bed “legs” were both a curse and a boon to whoever slept there. For, on regular days, they would make the bed sway and groan at the slightest movement. But during the monsoons, when the entire neighborhood turned into a pond, more bricks could be added to the legs to avoid the water below. The walls were covered with torn out calendars, as if someone had remembered to preserve only the bits that had the photographs of gods and goddesses. Apart from the “bed” and these posters, Ratan did not seem to have any other belongings. It was as if he was trying to occupy as little space as he possibly could. While he was operating the lift all day, he remained invisible to everyone, becoming an automaton that was performing a function. In his quarters, he maintained the same sense of invisibility, camouflaging himself amongst the images of the tiny devotees that sat at the foot of the images of the mighty gods in the calendar-posters, as if he existed only to serve them.

***

Every year, right before our school ended for the winter holidays, we had annual exams. They would determine our promotion to the next grade.

I was never great with graded exams. They filled me with dread as a child, making me feel as if my lungs would collapse. Many years later, I learned that I was living with anxiety: the crippling fear I felt was much more than in my head.

That day started off like any other exam morning: I hurriedly went to school, sifting through my notes in the car. As the 8 a.m. bell rang, we put our books into our small bags and left them outside the doors of the classrooms. The teacher reminded us to leave all reading materials outside, but also to make sure that we didn't leave any valuables there. We checked our pockets to make sure that we hadn’t left any notes in there. We checked our hands and legs to make sure that we hadn’t accidentally scribbled anything. Finally, we settled down at our desks that were marked with chalk to indicate our roll numbers. The question papers were distributed. We took the exam.

Two hours later, we walked out of the classroom and into the dull November sun. The area around the school gate, where parents and chauffeurs gathered to collect their wards, seemed different that day. This area was generally crowded when it was time to go home. But today, it seemed extra crowded. There was anxiety in the air. Beyond the din of the group of parents clustered at the gate, I could hear raised voices.

I scanned the area to look for my mother. I couldn’t see her, but she was often late, so I waited.

An hour later, I was marched to the Principal’s office with the other students who hadn’t been collected. Had I done something wrong? The Vice Principal gathered us in her small office and told us that violence had erupted outside our school gates. A religious group had taken offense at something an author had written and were protesting in the area. The protest had turned violent. There had been stone-pelting and fistfights. This was probably why our families had not been able to reach us. My chest tightened as anxiety got hold of me.

One by one, we called our families from the landline in the Vice Principal’s office, hoping to get some clarity. When it was my turn, nobody picked up. If the anxiety was stifling me before, it now started to make me feel faint with fear.

We were taken to the library where we sat and waited.

Hours passed before we heard that the crowds at the gate were dissipating. We hoped we’d be able to go home soon.

One by one, parents, chauffeurs, and maids arrived to take the remaining students home. Nobody came for me. We tried to call home again. This time, my mother picked up but we couldn’t hear each other because there were disturbances. I hung up and called again. Again, we couldn’t hear each other. I resigned myself to sitting in the library.

Another hour later, a man in a faded, ruffled shirt and grey trousers walked into the library. It was Ratan.

We walked out of the school gates together, taking back alleys to reach the car, where my mother was waiting. On the way, he told me about how my mother had tried to make it to the school, only to be met by an angry mob, which is why she had missed my call. My father was stuck in his office because the city had come to a standstill. When my mother couldn’t find anyone else to help, she turned to the otherwise invisible man in the lift.

[1] A song whose title roughly translates from Hindi to “Give Me a Lift”

[2] Roadside food stall

[3] Washerman

[4] Local cigarettes made of leaves and tobacco

[5] Bengali word for “gentleman”

This story was written by Toonika Guha, learn more about her work here.

Artwork: “Painter’s Life” by Catalina Aranguren

Catalina was born in Bogotá, Colombia and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She is an artist and community organizer actively involved in enhancing and promoting Jersey City’s vibrant arts culture. An immigrant herself, Catalina is passionate about fostering social equity and giving everyone a voice, incorporating her passion for visual arts in grassroots creative placemaking efforts.

Catalina studied photography and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received her BFA. Before she graduated, she studied abroad for a semester at the Spéos Photographic Institute in Paris, France.

She is currently raising three bustling, bilingual, biracial, and bicultural boys in New Jersey with her husband and their giant dog.