(I wrote this about 6 months back when i was in chennai.)
It’s not often u wake up in the morning with people screaming fire fire fire!!!
But when it does happen, how exactly does a person react?? Well now that I have first hand experience on that front let me share it with all of you.It was around 7 45 in the morning, I was in bed half awake when suddenly all sources of cooling shut down and leaves me no choice but to get out of bed (now being from Bangalore its hard for me to sustain the high temperatures of Chennai, yes yes I know what all u Chennai folks are saying “Its only jan and your cribbing already”). Now the boys from the second floor are creating a racket outside and suddenly it hit me, the last time that happened there was no water for the rest of the day. So first thing I do is check on the water, which seemed to be alrite. Now out of curiosity I step outside and decide to enquire about the situation. This is when I find out a small fire broke out on the first floor where 6 girls reside.With the doors locked and growing concern on how to put out the fire. We come up with the idea of using a hose and climbing up to the window. Now against all odds we managed to get a hose (considering that the apartment is occupied by bachelors only, it was quite the achievement). We decide to connect the hose to the kitchen pipe on the second floor and drop it down, the brilliant guy who was to connect the hose decided to throw both ends of the hose to us below(wonder what exactly he was trying to do).
Anyway after sorting out that confusion we seemed to have got our plan running and this is when my second room mate (let’s call him G) wakes up. Now he comes out screaming telling us to shut up and he wants to sleep(hates being woken up, last time someone did that he beat the crap out of him), when I politely let him know about the situation. Now on hearing this G got a bit hyper and started running around and in the process stepping on the hose, causing a major set back to our master plan.After setting up the whole plan again, we relentlessly tried putting out the fire but to no avail and after authorization from our land lord, we decided the only solution was to break the door open. Now we ran up and were flabbergasted on looking at the lock, it was the size of a regular pizza and as heavy as my third room mate (who was still asleep, that’s quite the talent and specially being able to do it with a room on fire right above him).
Looking at all this G runs back into the house and comes out with a bunch of keys(author thinks his room mate has the keys to the girls room, in complete shock) but to my surprise he started the bike and drove away, now that was quite the get away.We managed to gather the largest rocks around the house and went to work on the lock but with no luck what so ever. Looks like the girls anticipated all our moves, in the midst of all this G returns and lets us know the lock smiths shop is closed, what did he expect? It was 8 30 and the only people up and ready for work at that time are Software engineers!!Finally the boys upstairs managed a crowbar from some where, and still the lock would not budge, in all our efforts the latch on the door finally gave way and boooooom!! The door is open. G and one of the second floor guy dash into the room and come running back out (at that moment I think they believed they were superman and could blow out the flames).Finally after 30 mins and many gallons of water we managed to put out the flame.Now we went down to relax on a cancer stick, meanwhile the land lord turns up and we request him to call the girls. And so he did, on breaking the news of the fire and requesting them to get to the apartment asap.
Mean while the KGB (Krishnalaya apts and G bureau) went to work and found the root cause of the flames, an iron box left on for a long time!!After a while and some discussion with the land lord, we decided to call them again and check how long before they make it back and the reply we get is that they would not be able to make it since they aren’t able to get permission.Well finally they did make it after an hour or so. We were put back into the stone ages for a day with no power and water!!
So with 1 burnt room, 8 heroes and 1 sleeping man(my third room mate slept through the whole Ordeal) the apartment was saved.
And do remember to check all your electrical appliances before leaving home!!
P.S: And a general request, next time when someone says their house is on fire!! have some faith and let them go!!
Work life balancing act
6 years ago
