MY ENCOUNTERS WITH FIRE

Everyone knows about Pancha Bhoothas (five basic elements), ie. Earth,Water,Wind, Fire and Aether. Here I am going to talk about Fire (Agni) and the affinity I have to Fire right from my childhood.

I was only three or four, when I had my first contact with fire. As I recall the events, it happened like this.

We had gone to one of our relatives for a traditional family function. This function was late in the evening and there was a feast after the function. Many relatives also had come there and I had a good time playing with a few children of my age.

The morning after, we the children started the day from where we left off the previous night. We were running around in the courtyard. There were two huge fire pits where the firewood is burnt for cooking the food during the previous night. The big cooking utensils, usually varying between 50 to 500 liters in volume are kept over three stone supports kept in a triangular formation around the pit. The pit would have burning coke from the burnt wood, deceptively embedded in ashes for days after the feast is over. And while running around and playing, I managed to trip and fall into this pit. Till another child went and informed the elders and my mother ran upto me and lifted me out, I was sort of being slowly baked on my side.

After coming back to our house, I remember being treated by an old lady from the village - Madhavi, her name was - with a herbal oil, concocted by her. I had written about this in one of my earlier blogs, how my grandma kept entertaining me with number of stories from epics.

Though my right side, shoulder to feet, had the burns, thanks to Madhavi, there was no scar anywhere on my body except on the shoulder, where I scraped my wound. She would look at me, shake her head and say that she wanted to make sure that I had no burn mark on my body, but I spoiled the whole show by going and getting stuck with that pillar.

The positive from this incident was that the mark on my right shoulder is one of the identification marks given in all the relevant documents that I have.

My next major contact with fire was after about 4 or five years, from the big brass lamp from a Kathakali performance. No, I was not performing (though I had an ambition to become a kathakali artist), but sitting right under the lamp watching the story unfold. The artists through their colourful costumes made that small stage looks like another world.

As I was intently watching the artist, a few drops of hot oil and some burning wick from the lamp fell on my arm, right at the elbow joint.

Being on the elbow, it was easy to scrape the almost-healed wound somewhere and I managed it a couple of times.

Ignoring some small burns, the next big encounter was when I started working in a steel plant, as a trainee.

I was checking a switch on one of the switch boards, and had just opened the cover. Someone switched on the power from the main distribution center – though I remember clearly that I had switched it off – and there was the big flash right on my face. For about 5 minutes I was not able to see anything, nor feel anything and my first thought was my eyes are damaged and I might become blind for the rest of my life. Then slowly I started seeing the surroundings, first very dimly and then almost clearly. The relief was immense and I forgot all the other pains that I had started feeling from the burns.

I was rushed to a nearby hospital and admitted under the care of the doctor. One of the director from the company had visited after a few hours and I heard him asking the doctor,

‘Doctor, will everything be OK, or do you want me to take him to specialist?’

The doctor’s reply was, ‘don’t worry! He will not have a single scar on his face!’

For about two months, though my face was like one of those black demons in Kathakali, the doctor was as good as his word, and it did not leave any scar on my face. Of course, I also did  cooperate with him by not going and scraping my face on any pillar.

Recently, I had another interesting encounter with fire. As I was working in a steel plant, where the liquid steel at 1500 degree C spilt over. It cut through my trousers above and below the knee. What  made it interesting was, though the trousers were burnt the burns on my skin were very minor and superficial. Except there was a drop fell on to my feet and entered inside the shoe which remained there till I could remove my shoes and socks.

Yet, it did not do much damage though it took a little more to heal.