Locked In

We had a small bit of Sunday drama this morning when Kaia locked himself in our bedroom. As I’ve learned is the case in many recently built Indian flats there are a locks and fixtures on just about anything that has a door, often times in multiple forms. Our front door, for example, has two key locks (accessed with different keys, of course), two sliding deadbolts and a turn lock. I still have not seen one person exit our front door cleanly when attempting to get out for that first time. It is quite the effort. When we moved in, we were handed this fistful of keys—probably 12-15 in total (no joke)—that opened everything from the laundry room door to the promenade drawers. Unlike how I eventually learned the many light switches and what they turn on and off, I never really got that hang of all of the keys. I suspect that, with just about everyone employing domestic help (the only person I ever met here without domestic help was my friend Sumiwati, from Indonesia, who did everything herself with a 2 year old!), people want to be able to lock things away. Regardless, to have more keys than a school janitor seems a bit excessive for a 1,800 square foot flat.

But back to our story, Kaia had just finished breakfast and had adjourned to our bedroom to have his morning poop in private. Recently, he’s been taking to closing the door to ensure full privacy while he reads his books and does his thing, but today he decided to bolt the door as well. Don’t ask me why there is a need for a deadbolt in the bedroom, but sure enough all of our rooms have, not just one, but two on each door—even the kitchen! When we figured out that he had done this, and that he couldn’t open it because of a hurt finger (he pinched it yesterday) on his right hand and a sticky bolt, all we could do was try to ‘coach’ him through the door as to how to open the bolt. I actually found the entire episode to be rather humorous (to the annoyance of indiamama and Joyce) as how could you not laugh at how this little guy had locked himself in and responded to pointers by saying, “Kaia’s locked out papa!” We have a window into our bedroom toilet that is accessible from the back deck, but it (like all of the windows in our place) has an iron grate on it. But at least we were able to see him and talk to him through the grate (Joyce passed him juice like he was in prison or something) and he just laughed and laughed at seeing us.

But after about 90 minutes it wasn’t so much fun for him (or us) anymore. Repeated attempts to walk him through the bolt moving exercise were coming up empty and we resorted to contacting the local locksmith. Since it was Sunday, the building maintenance man was on holiday and Sekar had taken leave as well. So we sat and waited for the man to come—and it was coordinated by our resident superhero, Sethu. Anyway, after about 3 hours of waiting, indiamama asked Kaia to try one more time with a big push and he was able to do it—some 30 seconds before the locksmith walked in the door with Sethu! Just amazing timing. We paid the man 150 rupees for his trouble and Kaia had a huge grin on his face. “I got out papa,” he said. “Kaia escaped!”

Why I Love this Time: Lazy Sundays, listening to the Paperman make his rounds as I settle into the Sunday Hindu.