TeaTimeTreats: REVISITING TRAUMA - LACERATIONS & ABRASIONS

 

REVISITING TRAUMA - LACERATIONS & ABRASIONS

LESSONS LEARNT FROM A FIRE THAT RAVAGED MANY

AMIDST PEELED OF WALLS STOOD PIC OF SAI BABA INTACT

#AvinashSingh

For the last 24 hours, I have been kind of afraid, almost frightened, about visiting my balcony. I couldn't muster the courage to see a black spot smeared upon several apartments of my society - the iconic green, yellow, and white - Gaur Green Avenue, that stands out from a distance off NH-9, owing to a raging fire that wrecked many yesterday (Wednesday).

It started from my floor on the ninth floor of D block and engulfed close to a dozen properties, including three in adjacent C block, where journalist Ajit Anjum's efforts prevented its spread. At least five apartments have been completely reduced to rubble, and seven others are affected, suffering mild to extensive damage! Night has been extremely traumatic, with sleep being disturbed by horrific scenes, making you sit in the bed recalling dreadful images.

To ward off the fearful thoughts, three of us, our neighbour Kalyani Kumar, wife Neelu Varinder Kaur, and I decided to revisit what was a beautiful, well-decorated and artistically styled home till yesterday, now matching haunted dwellings strewn with mangled steel, glass pieces, burnt acrylic waste mixed with noxious chemical smell. The lacerations and abrasions were to be believed to be felt.

The most heart-rending and poignant moment was visiting an architect's family that had taken over a year to design their home aesthetically. Members were busy rummaging and scanning the debris to look for valuables, if any, after the devastating fire. This was on the .....th floor. They probably had lost everything! The neighbouring house had a few costly items to salvage!

Surprisingly, the 11th, 12th, and 13th floors were as wrecked and ravaged as the flat D-943, from where the fire is believed to have been triggered. Wish the hailstorm that hit the area today had happened a day earlier. The damage probably would have been less!

The leftovers of the accommodations visited presented an awful, rather horrendous picture, as also two/three balconies of the adjacent C block.

Surprisingly, D-1043, directly over the apartment in question, had suffered less damage compared to others! Unusual as it may seem, in D-942, bang opposite the 'culprit house', where Ruchi (wife of dear friend Anoop) was initially stranded with parents-in-law, had all their ACs, TV, fans, and other equipment melted down in the drawing room, but for a picture of Shirdi Sai Baba, blackened a bit, staying intact. So was the case with Shiv Puraan in the first room.

The last person to be rescued on our floor was Sarika, the wife of Supreme Court senior lawyer Sudhanshu Choudhari. They have temporarily shifted out.

The house in the eye of the storm belonged to Pt. Kamal Paliwal. For years, Paliwal used to feature on a TV channel discussing ‘kundlis’ and the future of people. Ironically, despite indications galore, he couldn't secure his own 'kismet' (and that of many on floors above, the next block, and flats underneath).

Paliwal, one of the progenies of Raja Man Singh's brother, has been investing in this apartment, and outside it, for the last five years, almost without a break, trying to create a mahal (palace) inside a four-bed property with as many balconies. Every inch of the apartment, from floor to walls to roofs, had costly designs, arcs, artefacts, patterns, and motifs that gave the property the look of a museum in the making! All balconies stood covered, and part of the structure was closed from all sides.

There were occasions earlier when he had plans to shift. This was as far back as 2022 and 2023. He stayed with his wife on rent in another block while his daughter married in the UK, and his son stayed somewhere else.

Many reverses apart, Paliwal went on to add antiques and mementos, pumping in big money that he got from land sales, as revealed by him only. I always dreamt of making a short film on the place! Alas! It was not to be.

For Paliwal, there were enough cautions to read as to what God intended him to understand. About three months back, one of the glass floors (all were similar with murals and paintings underneath) cracked, resulting in a big loss.

He was robbed of a really 'heavy' gold chain a fortnight back!

Inordinate delays and reverses, we believe, always conveyed to him the ordeals of his floormates, people staying directly under him on the floor down, and neighbours, whose pathways, approach to their flats were always blocked with building material.

Kamal ji, you have suffered an unbelievable loss, both in terms of money and years put in. It is irreparable, we all agree! What about others? Many have suffered for no fault of their own! Think about those who went through the ordeal, having gone through the non-stop 'thak-thak', even at odd hours for long durations.

Sir, we respect you, but need to be accorded privacy and peaceful moments in return! We all must take a cue from signals being sent forth by the Lord Almighty! You are a ‘bhakt’ of Shiva, the Lord of transformation and ultimate compassion! Please understand the divine indications from the all-powerful, do some self- introspection, and let's do something constructive, rethink together rather than pointing fingers at others and cursing them! I'm a friend who wishes you well

----

@timesofindia @the_hindu @IndianExpress @HindustanTimes @livemint @DeccanHerald @ETRealty @PTI_News @ANI @IndiaToday @Outlookindia @thecaravanindia @Frontline @TheWeekLive @EPW_in @swarajyamag @down2earthindia @TOIDelhi @htdelhi @IE_Delhi @ndtvindia @CNNnews18 @TOIDelhi @htdelhi @IE_Delhi @ndtvindia @CNNnews18 @IndianExpress @IndiaToday @the_hindu #AvinashSingh #GaurGreenAvenue #DelhiFire #FireSafety #UrbanIndia #IndiaNews

#BreakingNews

#NewsUpdate

#Press

#Journalism

#Headlines

#DelhiNews

#NCRNews

#DelhiNCR

#DelhiFire #Longform #IndiaNews #MustRead #FeatureStory  #AvinashSingh #GaurGreenAvenue #FireSafety

 

TeaTimeTreats: The Fire Remembers What We Forget

The Fire Remembers What We Forget

Delhi burns in patterns now

Shaheen P Parshad

The sun set on the lives of some people in Delhi even before it could rise on May 3. A spark inside an AC unit in Vivek Vihar became a verdict. By sunrise, nine names were gone. Arvind, Anita, Nishant, Anchal, and eighteen-month-old Akash died on the second floor, a family extinguished in one room.

On the fourth, Nitin, Shailey, and Samyak were found on a locked staircase, their bodies curved toward a terrace they could not reach. The smart lock held. The grill held. The fire did not.

Days earlier, on April 29, Gaur Green Avenue in Indirapuram lit up from the 9th to the 13th floors. Eight homes turned into black skeletons. No bodies this time, only the arithmetic of near-miss: ten rescued, hundreds displaced, and the same PVC sheets on balconies acting as fuses between floors.

The details repeat until they become a doctrine. Single staircases. Terraces padlocked for ‘security’. Exit paths turned to storage. Awnings hung to keep out dust and pigeons, but made of a material that melts at 160 degrees and carries flame like a promise. Ghaziabad’s ladders reach four floors. Noida’s best machine stops at forty-two meters. We build to thirty stories and gamble on luck for the top twenty.

Summer exposes what winter hides. Power loads swell. Wires fray. ACs, the city’s breathing machines, choke and spit fire. And the response arrives late, throttled by cars parked in fire lanes, gardens built over access roads, and systems that were never tested when there was no smoke.

We call them tragedies, as if they fell from the sky. But fire is honest. It follows the path we leave for it. Up the PVC. Through the locked door. Into the room with no second way out.

In Vivek Vihar, a cake waited in Manesar for a boy who would turn five. In Gaur Green, children ask why their books are ash. The city keeps rising, glass by glass, floor by floor. Yet the oldest questions remain on the ground: Where is the second exit? Who holds the key? Why do we seal ourselves in?

The fire remembers our answers. It remembers every bolted terrace, every blocked corridor, every clearance signed and forgotten. It comes back to read them to us, in smoke.

@timesofindia

@the_hindu

@IndianExpress

@HindustanTimes

@DeccanHerald

@livemint

@PTI_News

@ANI

@IndiaToday

@Outlookindia

@thecaravanindia

@EPW_in

@Frontline

@TheWeekLive

@down2earthindia

@swarajyamag  

@DelhiNewsLive

@htdelhi

@TOIDelhi

@IE_Delhi

@ndtvindia

@CNNnews18

#DelhiFire

#VivekViharFire

#FireSafety

#BuildingSafety

#UrbanIndia

#IndiaNews

#BreakingNews

#MustRead

#Longform

#TheFireRemembers