And then it spread. Orange flames rose up to lick the
dried leaves into glowing grey embers. People were running downstairs carrying
buckets of water and desperately throwing it into the spreading fire.
Thick black smoke spiralled up and filled my floor reducing my visibility to
nearly half. The fire was like an enraged serpent hissing and sputtering its
way into the hillside dangerously close to my building.
Two parallel thoughts wrestled
with each other inside me. Help them in this losing battle or flee. There was
still time to make away with a few things before the flames swallowed the
buildings and trees. I ran around the house like a trapped animal, now gathering
my stuff and now returning to the balcony to stupidly throw coffee mugs after
coffee mugs of water into the sputtering flames below. It was as if my mind was
split into two each grappling to take control of the body.
And suddenly someone ran down
with a large water hose and started spraying pressured jets of water into the
fire. For the first time, it displayed some signs of recession. About
fifteen-twenty minutes of spraying two tanks of water, the maddened creature
disappeared into the blackened soot leaving an emasculated smoke that smelt of
defeat.
With a thumping heart, I went
inside the house to slump onto the sofa and closed my eyes for a while. When I
opened it, through the smoke-induced tears, I saw the bags I had packed.
Certificates, laptop and some books. Weirdly, books. The possessions that might
have defined my life had the fire ate the rest.
I remembered Frances
Harrison’s narration of the civilians caught in the final battle between the
Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan Army in 2009. With indiscriminate shelling all
around them, they moved from one "so called" safe zone to the other
with their belongings as the war progressed. There were bags full of
certificates which were thrown away along with the other things in their order
of priority in the course of their exodus to death.
Life, defined by one’s instant
possessions.
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Image courtesy: wallpapercave.com
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