WHEN THE SKY LIT UP

I

“There are twelve fire-trucks. I counted. I've been here for quite some time.”

Deben and a bandaged Tara were seated side by side at the rear of an ambulance near the Leopold Cafe.

“How did you get here?” Tara asked Deben.

“Oh, I lived up on the third floor. A little way off from that charred window.”

“Hey! How are you feeling now? Are you okay? Are your insides all fresh?” Arnav had jogged up to them after having talked to one of the firemen for a while.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

"Alright, we've got to wait till the firemen have finished their work before we can get back to our car. It’s going to be late.”

“Okay.”

“Hello! Nice to meet you. Are you okay baba?” Mir asked, having arrived at the spot unnoticed.

 “As good as I can get.” Deben replied, grave and slightly morose.

“Hope we meet again.” Mir smiled to Arnav and Tara as he helped Deben up. 

II

It was that time of day when the bright summer sun was beginning to weary of its day-long duty of looking after the earthlings. Shadows had begun to stretch their limbs all around the regal circle. The stalls and meagre shops that nudged each other for space through the length of the footpath opposite the metro house building -- and sold everything from food to earrings, clothes, toys, jewellery, other accessories and electronics -- began to get a busier as more tourists walked into their open arms now than only a little while earlier.

  Drained and famished from the trip to the Elephanta Caves, Arnav left his sister, Tara, in their car to wait for him till he returned with burgers and fries from McDonald's. Their red Suzuki Dzire was parked in a cosy spot on the narrow street behind the Regal building, Lansdowne road; a lane that also served as a sort of side alleyway for the Metro Plaza building and led away from the row of shops straight to the Gateway of India. The front of the Regal building looked directly toward Madame Cama Road emerging out of the shade of the University buildings via The National Gallery of Modern Art; the one that the two tourists from the mall were ambling down at the moment.

 

Tara sat in their Dzire, feet up on the dashboard, window pulled down two inches, eyes closed and head swaying to the melody of her playlist floating out from the speakers. 

“Here in these... deep city lights.... girl could get lo-oo-ost tonight. I’m finding, every reason to be gone, there’s nothin’ here to hold on to-oo-oo... Will I find..” A scream, yells; Tara opened her eyes to the fart of a fat man hurrying his family into their SUV. On the rear view mirror were people rushing out of the Metro Plaza building, hollering at each other. A group of young men ran past the Dzire, one of them losing his balance and crashing into it, rocking her off her comfortable position. 

 Before she could register the sudden burst of frenzied running, a tumultuous dispute of car horns and yells had ruptured that world -- people mercilessly shoved and tugged at each other, cars backed up and left, the whole population around that building erupted in a manic erratic charge down the adjoining roads.

And then it hit, with no warning whatsoever: the torrent, the deluge, the barrage of black smoke and debris gushed out from the alleyway behind the Metro Plaza building, only a few feet away from where Tara was. Darkness devoured the car; the toxic blackness seeped in and choked it.

Tara groped at the door lock in panic and yanked it, letting the door fly out and smash against the rear end of a passing bus that had been diverted back to the regal circle due to the chaos. She jumped out, slammed the door shut and began to run towards the front of the building, trying to force her way through a bombardment of bodies. Arnav hadn’t come by the car.

The air grew denser by the second. Fists, palms, elbows, torsos, knees, shoulders kept smashing into her small form, turning her around in every direction possible, driving her along with the raging horde. Without breath, space or foothold she drifted to the intersection of one of the lanes leading out to the main road.

All air and light had been expelled from those streets. The smoke was creeping into her whole being, taking her soul hostage. The crowd crushed her gasps, her agonizing shouts to Freedom. And as though in answer, the thick sooty blackness of the air began to give way to a peaceful obscurity. A cool serenity eclipsed the heat of the fire in her body. She was floating, tranquil. Her eyes didn’t burn anymore. There was nothing to hear, soft or hard. A simple void embraced her.

 A gigantic force jolted her back to consciousness. In a fuzzy world she found herself being carried down the lane by a broad chest, beyond the toxic fog and away from it. Phantom faces floated out of the mist towards her. And then she crashed into a parked car. A searing pain shot up her head and threw her back into oblivion.

“Tara... Tara...” Arnav was shaking her. His face was beginning to pierce the hazy daylight that had begun to stream through the slits in her eyes. The acrid taste from the smoke still filled her mouth. Arnav hauled her up by her arms to a standing position and with her weight on his shoulders she dragged herself to an ambulance. A deep gash sat on her forehead on its left side.

III

 “Oh! There it is. CR2 Mall. I’m sure we’ll find a good place to lunch in there.”

“There are quite a few restaurants here according to Google.”

 “Food court upstairs.”

“Looks like it’s been closed for a while.”

“Oh, come on! We can’t very well stand and try to stuff a gigantic hot dog into our tiny little mouths, can we? I don’t want any ketchup and onions on my dress!”

“To the Italian one then; although pasta makes me feel heavy for a long time later.”

“It’s okay. We’ll walk it off.”

“So it didn’t occur to them to provide spoons and forks to eat, the food came in a teeny little pothole at the centre of an ocean of a plate – I could probably fit it within my hand-span and THAT is less than the average second grader – and they sneered at us for ordering vegetarian.”

“I think they understood that we did it for its lower price.”

“And they have the nerve to hand a feedback form to us! Oh, and look: the lowest check-box reads average. As if it couldn't be worse!”

“A light drizzle! Pleasant, isn’t it?”

 “You know when I first came here, I thought this place looked like a post apocalypse city that had reconstructed itself. Such an uncanny mix of old modern buildings and shiny Victorian buildings. So different from Delhi. And there is some kind of peace to the existence here; you don’t have to be on your toes all the time. People are good to you.”

“ And have you noticed that we've come all this way and not once did we see a car jump signal or go the wrong way.”

“Not much honking either. No people walking in the middle of the narrower roads. Turn right.”

“Very responsible driving too.”

“Maybe we are overwhelmed because we come from Delhi.”

“That place! Gosh!”

“Even the weather’s better here. It’s not as humid as I thought it would be. I imagined it to be like Kolkata. I can’t breathe there.”

 “I could live here. You know, settle down and have a family and shit?”

“Yeah whatever man.”

“Left. I think. Wait. I’m confused. The Google map is so not like the real place!”

“Hey lets go over to those shops there. We can ask one of them the way after we’re done shopping.”

“Okay.”

“Oh wow, a Kashmiri emporium!”

“These earrings are so cute.”

“Yeah we’ll pick up some later.”

“This place is so happening. I think we’re here.”

“Here? Where?”

“Cafe Mondegar.... Regal....Gateway is straight ahead.”

“It’s too costly.”

“What?”

“That kaftan at the Kashmiri emporium. That one.”

“There are more emporiums down this road.”

“Oh. Look, there’s smoke coming out of that third floor window over there, above Cafe Mondegar.”

“Shoot, you’re right. That can’t be good.”

“It isn’t much though.”

“Nevermind, let’s just go to Gateway. It’s through that lane by the Cafe.”

“Alright.”

“Oh my God! This is crazy! Everyone is running out of the building! Shoot! Where did all that smoke come from?”

“This way! Come on, we can’t (cough cough) run through the smoke.(cough) It’s toxic. Through here. (cough cough cough). Follow me! (cough) RUN!”

“Careful! You’ll get run over!”

“Come on, we’ve got to outrun the smoke!”

“Ouch! Douchebag pushed me!”

(panting) “We made it out good. They’re closing down all roads that way now, see.”

“I think I hit a girl on her head with my purse on the way.”

 “Yeah.  ... Hey, let’s join those people there and watch the fire. This isn’t something that happens in everyone’s life right?”

“Three fire-trucks already. That’s prompt.”

“And an ambulance too. I hope no one’s hurt.”

 “Remember our PG? We had planned to jump out of the balcony and all, but all of us knew that it was a disaster waiting to happen.”

IV

“Well, hasn’t it been a day to remember!” Deben sighed, the feather of a mellow smile floating down onto his lips as he placed his cup and saucer on the table. Mir had only just come out to the veranda to chat away the drowsiness of a forced awakening from an afternoon nap and was sinking into one of the cane chairs beside Deben.

“Hmm”, he grunted in reply and followed it with a mammoth yawn. 

“It’s almost eight, and so bright yet! ” Deben continued, turning to Mir. “In Kolkata it must be dark by now. Oh, but this is the best time of the evening. The birds are on their way back to their nests. Look, that tree down there is where the crows are, and that there on the opposite complex is where the parrots go. And the pigeons of course are all over the buildings. That...”

“Baba, you’re sure you’re alright?” Mir broke in.

 “Yes, yes, don’t pester me”, Deben snapped irritably, resuming his skyward gaze. “You’d do better asking about what really happened inside that building”, he continued after a pause, much more composed, although still annoyed.

“Alright then, what happened?” Mir asked quickly, resigned, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand and adjusting himself to a cross-legged position on his chair.

They were both staring out into the city, the deepening sky, the louder lights, the growing bedlam of birds chirping as they bickered over branch-space and let loose the deluge of their day’s happenings.

“I was in my bed taking a nap, Aarti was reading or something. Well, at least that’s what she says she does in the afternoons. Anyway, I woke up at some point feeling a little bit too warm for the day and called out to her. But there she was, hurriedly gathering her things and making a dash for it. ‘There is a fire Uncleji, big one. It is catching fast. My two childrens, what I can do? I am going. Sorry. Bhagwaan raksha Karen aapki.’ That’s it. She said this much, flinging her arms about, and ran out by the time my feet had found the slippers! And she left the door wide open too!”

Mir’s back had shot up straight by now. He was a pursed lipped statue of contempt.

“I don’t blame her of course, in hindsight. Such a tiny little thing, and she is, after all, the only one to feed her children. She got scared that’s all. But she could have at least passed me my walking stick before she left,” Deben continued, unaware of the grimace beside him. “Anyhow, I helped myself up by the bedposts and hobbled to the window where my walking stick stood. I picked up the phone from the table to call you. And that’s when I saw; the black smoke gushing out of the fourth floor like a flooded river discharging itself to the sky. It was the window near the stairway area. It was monstrous! I thought I would never escape! So I wrapped my muffler around my face, whisked myself around and shuffled along to the door as quick as I could. But the air was thick in the hallway by now, dark grains that hit your skin like pebbles and stoke it like you would burning embers of coal. Oh, yes! That’s how the skin feels: as though you are the one ablaze, not the wood.

“The acridity poured in through the wool and scraped my insides, but I still pushed on toward the main stairway. The neighbours were gone. The other end of the floor was afire. It wasn't a crackle; it was a roar! A maddening, deafening roar of laughter mocking me, calling out to me: a hungry fiend!” 

Deben paused, his nose flaring with a fiery breathlessness.

Mir and his sister Bela were staring at him wide eyed. A nacho lay on the tray in pieces, crumbled and fallen from Bela’s hand by the force of the worry that her father’s blood pressure would rise.

“At this point, a loud crash thundered. A stairway had given.” Deben began again. “This was impossible. I could not see anything much anymore. I was burning inside and out! I thought the window might have fresh air to give me, so I turned around, dragged myself back to our apartment and opened the window. It was hardly any better other than that it seemed like the firemen had arrived. I leaned out wanting to wave to them, but ... jah! I can’t remember this part.

“Never mind; after that I found myself lying in an emergency ambulance a little way off from the building, one of those ridiculous breathing masks on my nose. Apparently, I had fallen unconscious and been rescued!”, he said and turned to his own two children. “Don’t look at me like deflated balloons! I’m real; not a character from a movie.”

“It does seem like you've watched too many of them.” Bela winked, exploding into a giggle.

“And what about your heroic dismissal of healthcare?” Mir added, grinning.

“Yes, yes, you young generation keep making fun of everything,” Deben grumbled, looking away into the sky.

 “You did tell it well, I’ll give you that!”

“You will give me nothing! Grew up in my lap and now telling me what is real and what is not. What days have come!”

“Come now, I was only joking.” Mir laughed.

He was looking out into the sunset sky, a testimony of the story he had just seen play out on its canvas. Bela, too, had lost herself to the deepening dusk, one leg crossed over the other, her cat clawing at her dangling pyjama strings.  The ghosts of their voices faded into the spectrum of twilight, dispersing itself in the rings of occasional chirping, distant honking and cold sweat-beads trickling. Then was as withdrawn from now as it was within.

“Well, that’s that then!” Deben declared suddenly, struggling up from his chair and adjusting himself against his walking stick. “I’m going to flip through the news. What’s for dinner?”