Locked inside the BBMP office waiting for my rescuers
BANGALORE (Nov. 28) —“LOL. It was a lot of fun—especially the lunghi guy!” Rutvick, a fellow student, wrote in an SMS he sent me, recalling the events of last Tuesday.
That was Nov. 22. I was having a bad day on my reporting beat, to say the least. None of my sources were available. I spent two hours searching for a building in J.P. Nagar that turned out not to exist because a leading multinational corporation had an invalid phone number and an incomplete address on its website. It was one of those days when even your best friend misguides you (JustDial, in my case).
When everything goes wrong, a sub can make your day. But no sooner had I stepped into Subway than the power went off. “Sorry ma’am, we can’t make your sub,” said the man across the counter. It was beyond me why they needed electricity to stuff vegetables into bread.
After aimless wandering, repeated visits to the city corporation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, and a couple of phone calls, I fixed an interview appointment for 6 p.m. with BBMP official V.N. Puttamurthy.
When you think things can’t get worse, think again
Damned Bangalore traffic! I arrived at the BBMP offices 15 minutes late.
The first thing I was taught in journalism was to “observe keenly,” but I failed to notice that the entire campus was deserted. I ran up the stairs to get the interview that I prayed would save my day from being utterly fruitless.
I went to the second floor only to find that Mr. Puttamurthy wasn’t there. This was when I remembered that all government offices close by 6. But why would Mr. Puttamurthy have called me if he had to leave? I spent two whole minutes brooding—an act that was to seal my fate for the next two hours.
As I walked downstairs I noticed that all the corridors I passed were deserted and all the offices in them were locked. I was still fantasizing about that sub when I reached the lobby.
The grilled gates at the building’s entrance were locked. I was trapped inside.
Imprisoned
Anyone’s first instinctive reaction would have been to yell for help, and that’s what I did. I banged on the gates and hollered, but there was no one around to hear me. I stood there looking around, glumly inspecting the dingy stairway and deserted corridors, wondering if I would have to spend the night there.
“I left because you didn’t come,” Mr. Puttamurthy told me over the phone.
“Sir, I am locked inside,” I told him. “And I’m scared.”
He was there within 10 minutes with another BBMP official. He told me that the watchman who had locked the gate had gone off boozing and they couldn’t find him. How irresponsible can you get? He locked the building without checking who was inside and nobody seemed to know where he was.
“Can you please break the lock? I’ll pay for it,” I told him.
The precious lock that the people there just wouldn't agree to break!
“No madam,” he said. “There are security issues. It’s a government building.” He fished a large bunch of keys from his pocket. Naturally, I thought one of them would be the key to my freedom. But Puttamurthy was merely redefining optimism by trying to pick the lock with a combination of wrong keys, pushing my patience to breaking point.
“Aren’t there any spare keys?” I asked, on the edge of panicking.
The man with the spare keys was at the other end of the city, it turned out, donating blood to his mother who was hospitalized.
Everything seemed too much like a bad film to be true. It was as if there was a conspiracy to keep me locked up in an under-construction building that did not even have a washroom (none that I could find at least). I texted my professor, explaining the situation, expecting a reply of something like “Oh my goodness!” But his first reaction was “Eh? Take some pictures. You can write a story about it.”
Journalism, I tell you!
Then the night watchman arrived at the scene. His breath, wafting through the grille gates, smelled so strongly of alcohol that the only reason I didn’t throw up was because I had more pressing issues to worry about.
I called my roommate to tell her of my situation.
“Hey—I’m locked in the BBMP building!”
“Come fast!” she said. “The bus hasn’t left yet!”
“I can’t—I’m locked in the building!”
“What are you doing there? We are still at Corporation. Come!”
“Dude, I’m LOCKED INSIDE!”
While I was on the phone, the tipsy watchman—doubtless with good intentions—was trying to communicate with me. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. I was sure he was going to attack me (yes, it slipped my mind that the grille gates were locked and he couldn’t get in), and I started crying on the phone. Seeing me sob, he panicked and fled the scene, telling Puttamurthy not to leave him alone with me in case he was held responsible for prompting my tears. Hearing all this, my roommate panicked and said she’d call back in five minutes.
A chain of calls and messages then began. Some people were concerned, some were amused, some were curious and some just called to confirm that I really was trapped, after which they burst out laughing.
A video recorded by Christopher Isaac of the heartstopping rescue
The rescue
By this time, many people from the nearby hospital had gathered at the entrance to the BBMP building. One man tried to break the lock with a rock, but in vain. Others tried to pull the grilles apart, expecting me to squeeze through a very small opening.
There were two grille gates to the building, both of which were locked. I was instructed to shuffle between the gates for a while as plans for realizing my escape from one or other of the entrances were advanced one after another. By then, three of my IIJNM fellow students, Christopher, Nivedita and Rutvick, had arrived to try to help me. Rutvick, I learned later, was unwell but felt the moral obligation to help save a girl in trouble.
Seeing my fellow students’ tense faces, I suddenly became highly amused by the turn of events and struggled to keep a straight face.
I was told to go to a first-floor walkway and climb down the pipe. I can’t believe people were willing for me to risk my life but not break a Rs.15 lock!
What happened next was surreal. The night watchman removed his lunghi, tied his scarf to it, flung this improvised rope to the first floor and asked me to rappel down. No comments on how that made me feel.
More people gathered, and Christopher took some pictures and video footage. I couldn’t have felt more like a museum piece on display.
After about a million misbegotten rescue plans, which included parking an ambulance or a truck close enough for me to jump onto its roof, the municipal corporator arrived. He finally gave permission for the lock to be broken.
“That’s what I was saying from the beginning! It’s just a Rs.15 lock—break it!” said Puttamurthy, much to Nivedita’s irritation.
Stares and giggles
My misadventure gave people plenty to talk and laugh about for the next couple of days. Some even came up with headlines for the article my professor asked me to write about my experience, including “Man strips, saves girl” (in reference to the lunghi episode).
The most mortifying part was when I had to go back to the BBMP office the next day. The whole building knew me. “You’re that girl, right?” people would say, before doubling over with laughter.
No one tells me, “Have a nice day!” or “All the best!” before a beat anymore. They say, “Please don’t get locked up!”
