It sounds like it could be the start of a bad joke, but no, today it actually happened. The hilarity of the situation is going to be lost a fair bit but here’s what happened.

One of the rooms in my apartment has been locked since I arrived due to a faulty door handle. This morning it was eventually opened by the manager of the apartment block. To prove that the door handle was working again, he demonstrated several times that the lock was going in and out as normal.

Then, for reasons unknown, the manager, the watchman and Aravind’s father went in to the room, shut the door behind them and attempted to open it again from the other side. The door handle broke.

For about 15 minutes there was a lot of shouting on the other side of the door and the door handle was turning furiously as they tried to escape. I was on the other side powerless to help, but creased up laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

Eventually I saw a builder passing by my door (the apartment block still isn’t finished yet) and I managed to flag them down and explain the problem by means of some vigorous hand gestures.

The builder disappeared and came back with 4 of his mates and they set about trying to open the door.

After about 20 minutes the men were finally released from their inpromptu cell.

As I said, the humour is lost as I retell the story, definitely something you had to be there to get.

Mosquito Bite Count: 22