The Escalator

Sunil got the news that he has been waiting for. His company's tender has been approved by the Railway Ministry. He and his company are now responsible for installing escalators at four of the overhead metro railway stations in chennai within two months .

Sunil desparately needed this Rupees 10 lakh contract to revive his company that has been in hibernation for some time now.Sunil picked up a piece of paper. He began to write ...

Contract price = 10 lacs

less:-
Steel & Rubber = 2 lacs
Labour = 1 lac
Friction foot grip = 1 lac
Electronic Items = 50k
Emergency valve = 50k
Reverse up/down = 10k
Miscellaneous = 40k

therefore , Profit = 5 lacs

He smiled...

He at the beginning expected a profit of 5 lakhs . He thought he had achieved it. However his happiness was short-lived. He almost forgot that he had already paid around Rupees 1 lakh(underground) to railway officials in order to get a firm grip on the "Overhead Metro Escalator contract ".He himself knew that '1 lakh' was the only reason that secured the contract in his favour. There was nothing special in the tender. Dissapointed he picked up the paper and continued...

less:- Bribe
Contract charges = 1 lac

therefore , Revised Profit = 4 lacs .

He hated the word bribe.

A month passed by . More bad things happened.The Inflation in the market soared up the prices of Rubber and steel . They now cost him 3 lakhs. His profit was also the same figure now.
He wanted a profit of atleast 4 lakhs. He had to compromise on quality. He thought that no one would either notice or be affected by these faults since the metro rail was having a poor patronage.

He decided to dispense with "Emergency safety valve" which stops the escalator immediately on accidents and the "friction pattern foot grips" which prevent the sarees's , slippers from getting stuck in between the moving staircase.The installation was complete and only 2 days were left before the escalators were dedicated to the public.He would recieve his payment 5 days hence.

A day before...
Sunil went to test check a escalator that he had installed.The station was deserted. He climbed up and down & was immensely satisfied with its performance. He was happy. This happiness made him to act childish. He began to climb up the escalator that was moving down. "A good exersice for obese people like him" - he thought . Every time he was up 5 stairs he would be down again. In desparation,he tried to skip every alternate step and reach upstairs. Unfortunately while doing so , his shoes got stuck in between the moving staircase. It was pulling him inside. Fear gripped him. He screamed for help.No one arrived. There was no emergency valve which would stop the escalator.His feet got cut. He was in pain. Within seconds the staircase collapsed at the bottom. His body was smashed and the escalator stopped . It was too late. He perished.

The 'Escalator' had escalated his soul to the heaven or maybe hell(???!!!).