The dancing flames

I have not stepped out of my apartment since late spring. The lockdown was certainly one of the reasons. At my age, as the advisory warned, it was risky to step out of doors. But I used the forced confinement to take a complete break from work. I hated the back biting, politics, and gossip in my workplace and could pretend that I was in a self-serviced apartment in a green resort if I shut myself in. I had a million plans for the extended break. I could write the book I had been planning to write on the interconnected world. I could begin the novel that I have wanted to write but could not take time off. I could at least complete pending assignments so that when I returned to work, I could start with a clean slate. More than anything else, I looked forward to being by myself and enjoying my solitude.

The first fortnight was blissful. I stopped reading newspapers. I rarely switched on the television. I remained away from social media. I got groceries and other essential items home delivered making sure to stock up for the next few months. After making calls to check on the wellbeing of those who really mattered to me, I stopped calling or replying to emails other than the most unavoidable. Fortunately, no one called me. Neither colleagues nor neighbors; neither family nor friends. Everyone was too busy spending quality time with their families and posting pictures of getting haircuts, cooking fancy foods or fitness selfies. I had all the time to myself and I was not complaining.

Since there was any movement on the roads, I could easily pretend that I was in a resort away from the madding crowd.   I could occasionally hear delivery boys climbing up the stairs, neighbors moving about their apartments, sounds of masala being ground or fragments of telephone conversations wafting in through the open windows. But my view was essentially a window or balcony view. From my bedroom windows I could see the sun rising, the rose garden below the window in the front and the unbroken green of the cashew orchard, the brilliant orange gulmohar and the bright yellow amaltas trees from the windows on the left. In the evenings, the intoxicating fragrance of the shiuli flowers wafted up along with strains of conch shells blowing.  I had learnt to keep time by watching the shadows cast by the sun and by the carefully spaced out movements of morning and evening walkers. The larks among my neighbors were up at the crack of dawn and by the time I opened my windows to breathe in some fresh air, the family upstairs was returning from their morning jog. The lady in the apartment below was the next to return around 6.00 a.m. after which she would dutifully walk with her husband, more than a decade older than her, for a few rounds around the compound. Soon after, I could spot my female colleague’s grey head from a distance as she scurried to get her bit of oxygen.  The gentleman with the red car would drive his wife and daughter two kms away to get some fresh air. The couple in the top floor apartment in the block opposite mine would be down tending to the plants in their garden by the time the red car returned. The couple, who owned a fancy big car, would stop on their way up to pick up some immunity boosting neem leaves from the garden below and look embarrassed when I caught them stealing red-handed   I would watch them all unobserved from my window or balcony as I performed the yogasanas I remembered from my previous yoga classes or by watching the yoga guru on television. On rare occasions, I would make out a face turning upwards and shout a greeting. But since I cannot see much without my glasses, I could not identify any of the women, with some of whom I had a nodding acquaintance, and pretended I had not heard them.

After six months, I stepped out and decided to take an evening walk wearing a protective mask. I ignored the few other walkers who passed me by and focused on the sky and the trees lining the road. For the first few minutes, I stood staring up at the open blue sky. I could see bits of the sky from my window or balcony but there was nothing like being under the open sky. I breathed in the fresh air and gave in to the rejuvenating breeze. This is how prisoners must feel when they come out of solitary confinement, I told myself. I could sense the stares of passersby who looked amused by the lone walker frequently stopping to look up at the sky or the trees but did not care.  I walked a few steps further and could see that the sun setting in the west like an orange ball of fire. The entire sky was aglow with its golden orange light. I kept walking my head turned leftwards so that I did not miss the changing colors of the sky. I stopped several times in my walk to watch the birds perched on the branches of trees and tried to remember their names. I could recognize the call of the koel and the mynah but many birds whose names I did not know had migrated from the adjoining forest taking advantage of the absence of human footprints. I tiptoed closer so that I could take a better look at them. I had been wandering for nearly half an hour and now was opposite the football grounds where the sun was about to set. As the sun set, the sky turned a bright peach color like the veil of a new bride. I could not take my eyes away and saw the entire sky suffused with the peach hue before it is turning light blue, gold, and light grey with orange streaks. Absorbed as I was observing the changing colors of the sky and the green of the grass that I did not notice the flaming building opposite the football field.

The building housed several offices and was shut for the day. The building had several floors and had offices opening into open corridors. From a distance the façade appeared like a giant cobweb. I noticed that each hole in the cobweb was aflame with a brilliant orange. Perhaps there was a short circuit, and the building was on fire. Alternatively, the cook in the open-air canteen below the building might have left the gas stove burning and the burning oil in the huge wok might have caught fire and set the building ablaze. A month earlier, this is exactly what had happened because a gas cylinder had burst in one of the snack kiosk in the shopping center in the middle of the night and reduced all the adjoining fruit, greengrocer and florists shops to cinders. All those shopkeepers. With little savings had lost their source of income overnight due to the carelessness of one owner and were now seen selling their produce on the pavement. I began to imagine the loss if the office complex were to catch fire and hurried closer to the building.   Meanwhile, I was looking up the emergency numbers to inform the security hell bent on being a good Samaritan.

The flames appear to be dancing in the holes in the cobweb. I stood watching them for a few minutes completely mesmerized. They formed a pattern like that of the windows in the medieval fort of Hawa Mahal in Jaipur. I imagined a Rajput queen leading her attendants and cowives into the flames to avoid the dishonor of being taken prisoner by marauding invaders. The colors of their brilliant orange veils merged with the color of the flames. I could almost hear the flames crackle as they moved towards them singing a heroic dirge. In that enchanted moment, I forgot to call the fire ambulance. Suddenly, I heard someone call out my name softly, “Are you all right? What are you gazing at?’’ “The fire,” I murmured. “What is on fire?” I head the voice inquire. “The building”, I muttered my eyes transfixed on the wild play of flames. Suddenly the flames disappeared as the setting sun cast its dark shadows and the building turned a deep shade of grey. It was nightfall and the birds began to screech back I to their nests in the trees. Someone had let his cows to graze in the football ground. I could hear the cows and calves majestically mowing out on the road and was jolted out of my reverie.