There is something deeply revealing about a society that can install a lift, polish its brass buttons, paste a sanctimonious notice beside it – and then deny its use to the very people who keep that society functioning.
‘Delivery boys are not allowed to use the lift.’ A sentence that manages to be both efficient and inhumane. Efficient, because it wastes no words. Inhumane, because it wastes no thought.
The vertical caste system
Welcome to the modern apartment block – where equality ends at the lift door.
Residents glide up effortlessly, groceries, gadgets, and gourmet indulgences arriving at their doorstep with the tap of an app. Meanwhile, the man carrying those very goods is instructed to take the stairs. Six floors. Sometimes more.
It is not policy. It is prejudice with a notice board. One might call it a vertical caste system – those entitled to ascend, and those condemned to climb.
The customer is always comfortable
And then comes the second character in this little morality play – the customer. ‘I don’t care whether you take the stairs or the lift, just bring my order.’
That single sentence deserves to be framed – not in the living room, but in a museum of everyday cruelty. It is not anger. It is worse – indifference.
The customer does not shout, does not abuse. He simply refuses to think. The delivery boy’s exhaustion, his aching legs, his possible asthma, his long working hours – all of it is beneath consideration. The order must arrive. Preferably hot. Preferably fast. Preferably at the doorstep.
Empathy, it seems, does not come with home delivery.
Lazy bodies, lazier consciences
There was a time when people walked to the neighbourhood shop. Then came two-wheelers (forget bicycles). Then cars. Now, even that seems excessive effort.
A packet of milk? Order it. A sprig of dhania or pudina? Order it. A late-night craving? Definitely order it.
What has been outsourced is not just convenience – it is basic human effort. And along with it, something more serious has been outsourced – responsibility. Why step out when someone else can climb six floors for you?
The invisible pain of visible labour
We do not know who that delivery worker is. He could have knee pain. He could have a breathing issue. He could be on his twelfth delivery of the night. He could be working double shifts to make ends meet.
But none of those matters, because he is wearing a uniform and holding a parcel. That is all the identity required.
In a country that prides itself on hospitality, we have perfected a peculiar skill – treating service providers as if they are part of the service, not human beings.
A simple test of decency
Here is a radical idea. If someone is bringing your order, meet him halfway. Or better still, go downstairs.
It requires no policy change. No committee meeting. No society resolution. Just a functioning conscience.
That Rs100 fine for using the lift? A trivial sum! The real fine is paid elsewhere – in the quiet erosion of empathy and in the normalisation of small cruelties.
A society that denies a tired worker a lift ride is not saving electricity. It is simply losing its soul – one floor at a time.
Extremely well written. Thank God, there are some apartments where service lifts take care of delivery boys which also is discriminatory but a shade better.