I went to watch a movie the other day with my mother and sister. On our way out, I spotted an interesting dessert counter placed very strategically. It was meant to attract everybody's attention as they walked out of the theatre, and so it did mine too. My sweet tooth got the better of me and we all sat down on a bench nearby to savour kulfis. After I was done, I behaved like a brat and insisted on having another one. I felt like a complete brat when my sister went and got me another kulfi. I'm the elder sibling, hello! Nevertheless, I am glad I sat there for another round of kulfi. For if I hadn't, I'd have missed a very amusing set of incidents.
Now visualise this. The bench I sat on, faced the escalators. A couple of bites into the kulfi I spot a man ascending the escalator with his toddler. The child was a replica of the father, only with a ridiculous amount of very curly hair on his head. The father's hairline had long receded. While I fixated on the similarity of the child with his father and imagined how he'd look when he grew up with all that hair the duo reached the landing. The father walked nonchalantly and his son even more. As if he had come up with a plan, the child promptly turned towards the descending escalator and moved on. The father kept walking till a few seconds and then casually glanced around only to find his son on his way down the escalator. All his nonchalance evaporated into thin air as he ran panic stricken after his child. A couple of seconds later I spot a boy in housekeeping uniform bent over the moving railing following the father and son. He had bent over with a duster and by virtue of the automatic movement was cleaning the sides and in-betweens of the railings. He looked like a corpse taking a ride up and down.
Halfway through my kulfi I see a couple ascending the escalators, again with a toddler! The couple was engrossed in some discussion. The child was on his own. He seemed to be enjoying the tow. Children seem to enjoy just about anything anyway. As the trio reached the floor, the parents were still in the midst of a discussion that seemed to be of utmost importance to the future of the world. Involuntarily they stepped off the escalator but forgot about their son. He did not know the tricks involved in using these devices of modern world, and is he to be blamed? So he just kept moving with the escalator belt and got launched off it on to the floor when it was time. It seemed as if he had been shot out of a cannon. The amazing thing was that he landed safely, and the garrulous parents, oblivious of the stunt, went on. As I turned my attention to my kulfi again, the housekeeping boy was back; still bent over, but coming upwards this time. It was a task for me not to guffaw! I finished the kulfi quickly and we finally went down. The housekeeping boy crossed us on the other escalator for a second, this time bent over on the other side with his duster.
Some dress on the window of some shop had caught our attention, so we decided to browse a little. As I looked through a shelf of garments I suddenly realised that the shop had glass walls and I was facing THOSE escalators again; and before I knew what was going on, I see a little girl - bringing in some gender diversity in the prevalent madness - walking up an escalator that was moving downward. She did this in a very systematic way and looked like a pro. The next second I see a little boy doing the exact opposite on the next escalator. They seem to have worked up a synchronisation and as they reached the same spot on their respective escalators they began to chat. They probably had a script ready too. There was no adult in sight. Their parents seem to have abandoned them or perhaps these children had abandoned them - which could be a greater possibility given their smartness and theatrics. By the time we came out of the store the escalator kids had moved on to a different level in their game. They were now leaning on the railings and moving upward or downward sideways. They also kept changing sides very often to keep the game interesting enough. The only obstruction in their game was the housekeeping boy who was relentlessly bent over, still.
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