The Electric Fire

This morning I suddenly woke up to a loud sparkling bang, almost like a fire-cracker had gone off. For a moment, I wasn't sure I was fully awake or for some reason had dreamt about an explosion. My eyes were open so I couldn't have been dreaming and when I looked at Prachi she too had her eyes wide open. This was for real!

The loud noise continued and we realized it was coming through the balcony of our room. I checked the time - 6:25am. What the hell was going on. I got out of the bed and walked up to the balcony to see a large enough spark being lit close to the wall right in front of our neighbours' balcony. From the sound of it, it was obviously a fire caused by some sort of short circuit. I was trying to explain the whole situation to Prachi who was no doubt scared with the whole ordeal and she shouted back amongst the noise, "Isn't it obvious from that smell, the wires are burning!"

Well, at that moment I didn't feel like reminding her that my nose was badly blocked and the smell of the fire was probably the last thing I would have detected. The smoke, however, was now prominent and I too could judge that the situation could soon get out of hand.

I looked around to see the fan was still running and the little green light on the wireless router was still on. The electricity was very much still running, but the fire outside was getting louder and louder. Then I saw the watchman running by towards the main pump room and a few minutes later, the sparks subsided and a little blue flame was all that was left.

My sleep was almost gone by now and I could judge that the Watchman had probably turned on the water pump in the morning and something had obviously gone wrong and caused a fire. Then slowly, it struck me that they had just replaced the pump the previous day and the it appeared that the electrician in charge had really done a clumsy job.

The situation was now under control. The fire subsided and the smoke was starting to disappear. I asked Prachi to go back to sleep and as she tucked back into her bedsheet she remarked, "If my Dad was here, he would have been out there by now and would have sat on their heads now itself to get this thing fixed!"

Well, if you are married to the ex-Chief Safety Officer of Tata Power Limited, you kinda learn to expect things to end this way. :)

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