Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Fire!


The other day, at my favorite bookshop in the Village, the fire alarm went off.

In the closed confines of the bookstore, the shrieking of the alarm was even louder than usual - deafening, for once, was not an exggeration. A few minutes later the fire trucks arrived, sirens wailing, to add to the cacophony. In trooped five of New York's brvaest, in full combat gear. The owner/ manager/ person in-charge of the shop told them it was a false alarm, they checked that everything was alright, switched off the alarm and went back.


No one left the building, no one panicked, no one stopped talking except to assert, with the absolute certainty that only New Yorkers have, that it was a false alarm, heck - no one even stopped browsing! The sales clerks continued to ring up sales and other than the approx. 6,000 db sound level inside the store and men in red hats and axes standing around the entrance, it was as if it was business as usual. Come to think of it, it was business as usual. Through all the brouhaha, the people in the bookstore reacted - by not reacting at all!


Only in New York, folks, only in New York!

3 comments:

--xh-- said...

yuo - only in new york... a alarm of that kind is enough to get go a stampade @ brigade road or commercial st here, @ bangalore...

Kautilya said...

Ah, Brigade Road! Have some good (liquid) memories of the place. BTW, did you check out Mugen? And...?

--xh-- said...

not yet... will try one of these days... and will sure tell you how it is :)