SMS exchange:
Me: Lets begin (for playing badminton) half-an-hour early tomo mrng (by 5:30am)
Ashwin: Y so?
Me: I just wanna play continuous for 2 hrs & check my capacity.
Ashwin: Seems lil difflt but let me try.
Me: Ok!
Next day morning: (5:34am)
On my bike heading towards my school; we group of few ex-students play badminton, every morning. It was cold enough to allow me the pleasure of breathing out white frost in the morning. This promised to be a chilly December. Reached school in just 5 minutes (5:39am); Ashwin, was already waiting at the parking.
Didn’t you notice that huge mountain of fire by the highway? Ashwin Said.
What? No… where? I Said.
Let’s go: Ashwin Said.
Immediately we rushed to the scene.
On the way Ashwin told me that he had already called-up the Fire-Station (101) at 5:35am and they would be reaching at the sight, anytime.
It was still dark and no sign of any extra terrestrial lights. Fire sight was horrendous, a huge house was burning full throttle.
(I am still not that expert a writer to describe the fire scene, but let me try).
A huge Indian structural design, basically a hut, neighboring to it was a motorbike repair garage. Flames all over, forming mountain like image, intensity of the fire was so high that although we were standing a good 50 yards away but we could still feel the warmth. Barely, countable heads were present at that hour of the day; a by stander (local guy) informed us that no one is inside the hut. It was just an Indian liquor bar shop (local daru ka theka).
Ashwin was already on his 3rd call to the Fir-Station as there was no sign of Fire Brigade (6:00am). As expected everyone started getting buckets of water to extinguish this giant mountain of fire (Situational Heroes, our country is full of these situational Heroes).
6:15am still no sign of Fire Brigade; the mountain started melting on it’s on as the fire had already done its job good enough to go on a weekend break!
I was sure by the time Fire Brigade would reach; this place would have already turned into remains.
6:20am: I Said.
I have never seen something like this before, this is an experience: Said Ashwin.
Fire brigade….. Fire Brigade… screamed a local boy; his excitement was equal to, if would have got a chance to see a live dinosaur.
Fire had already burnt all the electric, telephone and TV transmission wires.
A small toddler of fire was slowly trying to get into the bordering garage via ventilator-window without anyone’s notice. By the time we all could spot it, the fire had already trespassed borders into the garage territory.
Firemen were immediately on their job, it took hardly 5 minutes for them to break through this mountain of flames with their fire-guns. Although there wasn’t much left to work on.
Local guys were trying their best to break the shutter of the garage as good amount of fire was already in the garage. It took good 5 minutes to open the shutters; it was shocking to see the two LPG cylinders were just a foot away from the live flames (Anything could have happened). A situational hero jumped inside the room and took out both the cylinders.
Finally everything had come to an end. I just happen to realize and told Ashwin. I find all this so funny that just out of the blue last evening I called you-up to come half an hour early for badminton. If not we would have never been part of such an experience.
We simply laughed and drove back to the school….
This whole incident reminds me of…
[When I was in school, I was a big fan of this television series called ‘World’s Most Amazing Videos on AXN'. I always wondered that when will I get a chance to see at least one video from India; I always waited assuming some day there will be a video from India. Finally, the day arrived they screened an amazing video which was from my country; a multi-story building had caught fire and till one hour there wasn’t any police or fire-brigade and how amazingly the local guys worked together to come over the fire.
I had a mixed feeling, happy to see a video from India and at the same time a little low that they were trying to show the world that how terrible systems and facilities are in India, even during such major emergencies]
