"This is not punishment- it is for your own good"

That is what the guy was saying as we walked along the dusty road in the 97 degree sun. Jim was at the office and had just started to talk to one of the other people in the group we heard the fire alarm go off. It was not very loud, but it was followed soon by announcements over the loudspeakers to evacuate the building. It sounded like it was a drill, but since there was fire at a building in the city a couple months ago in which a 9 people died- many by jumping out of windows, this was taken seriously until we got outside and realized it really was just a drill. Jim had his computer and grabbed other things in case we did not come back soon. We marched along the dusty roads in the hot sun and around a corner where this guy was saying "This is not punishment, it is for your own good". The only thing Jim could think of, was "well, then why does it feel like punishment?"
They insisted that everyone stand in long lines in front of signs indicating each floor of the building we came from. Here there were 2 big buildings being evacuated- so, lots of people. Since Jim is on the first floor (first one above ground level) it was relatively fast getting out and over to this line, but then it meant standing in the sun longer while all the other people accumulated.
After a few minutes Jim began to look for a shady spot to stand, but the only one close was next to the building of another company and the security people don't want anyone else close to their building. So, He walked around a corner where there was some shade from the building on the road. After awhile, all the people were in the lines and the guy was giving a lecture on fire safety, which was for everyone's own good, though it still did not seem that way. It seemed easy just to walk back closer to the office and just sit in the shade and work on the laptop. Jim missed much of the lecture delivered to the hundreds of people standing in the hot sun (seems reminiscent of a scene from "Bridge on the River Kwai") but he heard most of the story last year in a similar drill. Eventually, they let people go back to their offices. All together it was about an hour out of the office. In the shade, and sitting the temperature was OK, but in the sun it is bad. Most of India is really uncomfortably- even dangerously, hot now.