Afraid of the F… Word.

          Shri Husband, whenever he’s out at a public function like a music program or wedding or exhibition or sports’ event, he’s paranoid (ok, that’s his normal state) about a four-letter word beginning with the letter ‘f’.

F-i-r-e.

          As is his wont, his rant begins and continues with a ‘why’.

          “Why can’t the organizers have electrical wires neatly placed, parallel to each other? Why can’t they firmly seal the joints with sticky tape instead of keeping them naked and open to accidents? Why are the exit points not clearly marked?” You get the gist. Sometimes, there’s a string of ‘how’ questions flung in: “How can one bucket of sand help? How stupid can women get, wearing synthetic saris and going near lit stoves? How can anyone allow a child to play near live sockets? How are these people going to get out of that staircase/door if there’s an emergency?”

          The other day, he was impressed in someone’s office, that there was a red cylinder of fire-fighting chemicals, prominently hitched to a hook right at the door. He complimented the person he’d gone to meet, told him it was good to find people concerned about safety of life and property, etc. It was only when further cross-examination happened did both discover that the cylinder had an expiry date printed on it, that showed a day in a month of the year 2013. The fire-dousing chemicals must have turned into something less potent in three years, Shri Husband thought aloud, suggesting that his host might as well use the gadget as a curio henceforth. I was worried the host might think that was impolite. Shri Husband doesn’t worry about who thinks what; I kept quiet.

          After so many years of marriage, thanks to Shri Husband’s training, I’ve begun to take heed of the ‘f’ word myself. When I enter a building of flats, I can’t help but notice the chaotic, messy, tangle of wires that hangs over and around the metres under staircases, held in cohesion by cobwebs dotted with dead flies, mosquitoes and other disease-spreading vectors. The Directorate of Health must employ spiders, conscientious, hard-working creatures that they are.

          In theatres, I check the closest way to the exits from where I’m sitting. Sometimes it results in ushers looking enquiringly at me, wondering why I’m looking at them. I also make a mental note of whose head I can step on to get there fastest.

In hospitals and hotels, I take a peek at the backs of doors to see if I can follow the maps pasted on them. Of course, there are places, with or without starred ratings, that don’t bother about patient/guest safety. No hassle, I say, it’s a free country: believers in naseeb have rights, too. Why take safety precautions when your horoscope hasn’t specifically mentioned that you’ll die ablaze or of asphyxiation due to carbon-monoxide or other such tongue-twisting (quite literally, if your breathing’s impaired) gas?

          I’m sure trains and buses have anti-fire equipment somewhere. I just haven’t figured out where yet. Most of the times, when there’s an accident of any sort, newspapers print pictures of mangled and charred carriages/vehicles. They even write articles on how the fires happened.

“I haven’t come across any article that tells how to prevent those fires from happening/spreading,” I said the other day.

“Improve your reading habit,” Shri Husband retorted.                 

We’ve had bets about how many people at airports/malls actually know how to handle the cylinders/hoses provided. Staff and visitors alike. Quite often, it’s a human that’s the cause of the fire: unstubbed cigarettes, leaky cooking-fuel badly stored, carelessly installed or poorly-serviced air-conditioners or, as happens frequently these days, good ol’ bombs. The Hand of God seems to play a lesser role, what with lightning getting abnormal in this era of global warming. And electrical conductors/earthing getting better.

The recent fire that gutted Delhi’s Museum of Natural History made me sad. “Anything,” alleged Shri Husband, “even watching Chitrahaar on DD makes you sad.”

“So many memories,” I said, ignoring his remark, “We used to go there, remember? All those precious exhibits that future generations won’t see. The stuffed animals/birds/insects, the plaques… I wonder how the fire happened.”

“Slackness,” Shri Husband’s one-word answer spells out many things. 1. The fire-department’s useless. 2. The Museum’s security/administration is useless. 3. The equipment manufacturers/ servicing chaps are useless. 4. The night staff that was present to clean the premises (-- if any such were there at the time--) is useless.  5. The visitors who may have carelessly left behind something smouldering were useless. 6. The governments past and present which didn’t bother about national wealth were useless. The long, unspoken list was incorporated in a shrug and a word. To Shri Husband, negligence and inattentiveness are crimes. Were he a law-maker, a large number of us would be either behind bars or queuing to pay fines. And more judges would weep because they were overworked/understaffed.

Then came the news of a fire in Uttaranchal that had been smoking since – hold your breath--- 2 February. In Bareilly, 1995, a similar fire had blocked out sun, sky, clouds, horizon. Expectedly, then as now, the District Administration was in a flap and did what it does when it doesn’t know what to do: called the Army and the Air Force to help.

“Waiting,” said Shri Husband, “is our national pastime. We wait, even in regularly flood-hit areas, for something to happen. When it does, we wait for the something to get out of control. The media scampers hither-thither, cameras, reporters, editors on ‘high’ alert. (As we know, mere alertness isn’t good enough)…”

In the middle of his lecture, I smelt smoke. I’d forgotten to switch the iron off and a beloved t-shirt had begun to smoulder under it. I ran to tackle it with we both shouted the ‘f’ word in togetherness. ‘F-i-r-e’.

That’s when the lecture-baazi really took off.

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