Owais Mughal
A friend has forwarded me this notice which is wordprocessor printed and taped on top of an elevator (‘Lift’) door, somewhere in a Pakistani building.
The English translation reads:
“ATTENTION: BEFORE ENTERING THE LIFT CHECK WHETHER LIFT IS PRESENT OR NOT!”
This is hilarious enough, but the Urdu message at the top of this translation has one extra sentence which didn’t get translated to English and that is the punch line. A kind of dark comedy. I’ll translate it for our non-Urdu readership. It says:
“Make sure it doesn’t happen that you reach ground floor without an elevator.”
Wise words, indeed!
Photo Credits: Unknown. If anyone knows who this is by, please let us know so that we can update.
It is very interesting and amazing and warn the people who are using the lift.
I think this sign might appear funny to some people but its important to make sure people are aware that they can open the doors and potentially step into air and fall down the elevator shaft.
I have heard stories of a family friend losing his 6-7 year old daughter in the same way in the early 80’s. They had one of these old fashioned lifts in their apartment building. They were going out or something and the little one raced ahead, opened the door, stepped in and fell about 8-9 stories. She survived the fall but the lift eventually finished the job before anyone could get to her.
So there. This wasn’t that funny after all.
Uttam. Atti Uttam. Bohat mast hai.
ELEVATOR WORLD is the international trade publication of the elevator industry and we have a page in our monthly magazine called “Last Glance” where we occasionally publish humorous pictures from the elevator industry. We would love to use the picture of this sign found in the Pakistani elevator car. Can you tell me where it came from or who we might contact to get a copy? Thanks.
I know of such an incident, infact worse. Currently, I am not in Pakistan, but the building in which I lived and my family is still living in Clifton Block 2, Karachi a person died by falling from the seventh floor on the lift which was probably on ground floor at that time. Thereafter they pasted a similar notice there, but was not as cheeky as this.
The worst part is that he did not die immediately and his body was discovered later on the roof of the lift.