Make a Wish....

I curse myself for a wish I made a few days ago. I wanted something interesting to happen, to write about.It had to come in the most ugly way possible. I was driving my friend back to his place this evening after a day full of jobless activities . We were talking about something quite interesting, which I can't recall (the reason of which you will find out..soon) . I got so deeply involved in the talk that I missed the turn to his house. When you have gas in the tank and taurine in your blood you don't think of the reverse gear. So I just drove and opted for a longer route around the Gurudwara. As we approached, we could make out a huge crowd on the turn in front of us. The kind of crowds India has when there's anything out of the normal happening.. the kind of crowd that usually does nothing but make things more miserable, and I was about to join in. 
Being the kind of photo-seeker I am, I parked instantly and took out my phone to click pictures. 

There were people everywhere and I had a hard time getting through, not that I couldn't see the very dark patches of smoke in the already dusky dark sky. The onlookers seemed to be limited to a certain degree of closeness to the fire because of the heat waves coming with each gush of flames. "Paaji eh agg kiddaan laggi??"(Bro, what caused this fire?) , I asked one dude standing there. He told me about the LPG gas filling station that had caught fire after a re-fuelling. I nodded and continued with my cam-phone.. ah.. nightmode.. God Bless Nokia. But no, I was too far for clarity... I always have had a strange courage infest me when I have a camera in my hand, and yeah the taurine was still there accompanied by the newly added adrenaline! So I dragged my friend with me and carefully sniffing for any trace of that "mercaptan-methyl-something" compound that commercial gas has, I walked as close as the heat allowed. One click.. two.. video.. wow.. nice shots.

 

"Peeche hato.. photo kheenchne aa jaate hain..... DADDYYY!!!!! phone nahin lag rahaa fire kaa.. " screamed a twelveish year old girl whose eyes looked like they went through a little cleansing session.. " 101 lagaao .. 101 lagaao... landline se.. mobile se nahin miltaa... " ... I was about to utter technical bullshit on how to get connected with the fire brigade when a sudden feeling of being absolutely USELESS overtook me. What the hell are you doing ? Someone's losing his shop.. You have any idea how many years he must have spent to earn enough to even set that up? I just realised I was clicking pics of the destruction of a man's dreams, a family's income and plenty of feeding jobs. And I felt miserable. Instantly the phone found way into my pocket. The fire brigade had been contacted... and they were coming. But after all, these are times you pay, for being an Indian citizen...there was to be no sound of sirens for the next 25 minutes.

The neighbouring empty plot had loads of junk piled to several feet...which was catching fire very soon. The owner of the shop, a middle aged sardarji, was standing there with the little girl tightly clutching his belly. The look on his face was agony. Pure unadulterated sadness. It was something that had a more make-people-cry-potential than any SRK expression. You'd cry if you saw it too long, even if you didn't cry after taare zameen par ... I too felt that surge of something making its way into the inner corners of my eyes... and I truly wanted to help. But only wanted, I stood there, still, my thoughts slowly shifting from sadness.. to a study of emotions, hoping they'd help me at some stage in one of my film making endeavours. "How selfish!" I thought, and continued to observe. I realised I had lost my ability to act on impulse. Five years ago, I wouldn't have thought once before trying to help. Too much conditioning. Too much worldliness. Too many intentions. :( . 
As I pondered over characters, a group of undernourished individuals from the "jhuggis" (slums) in front of the shop had started pouring buckets of water into the fire. Another group of white-collar people had joined the spectators and they were making all sorts of oohs and aahs ... but none of us helped in. The fire saw seemed to be lesser, but most of the small place had already been burnt down. I stood there. No thoughts. Just the mental silence you have after you realise something. My friend shook my arm .. "Lets go Arjun, its all finished now. No more action". Thats all it was to all of us. ACTION. "I need to be more human", I thought, and turned around to walk towards my car.

BANG .. There was a blast and I felt the strong heat wave strike me hard.

The huge LPG cylinder inside had exploded.

I wished I had recording on...