This is a real life incident which happened in feb 1999
that’s more than 12 years old.
My full family including my uncle, aunt cousins had planned
to visit lonavala over the weekend to take a break from the hectic and
exhausting city life. We had intended to stay at my dad’s friend’s bungalow
celebrating a long weekend. Friday was un-eventful, the same story of kids
shouting over corn and visiting monkey point and irritating the hell out of us
elder cousins. (I was 11 then but was also one of the elder kids as the others
were 7 and 8 years old) every one can imagine how irritating kids can be.
We were planning to leave Lonavala on Sunday morning so that
we could rest the day out and prepare our self for the boring set of weekdays
to follow.
We had not expected that Saturday to unfold many events,
unfortunate ones.
I call it the “JINXED” Saturday. In the morning my aunt was
boiling water for drinking purpose and she was standing very close to the gas
stove and she while busy gossiping didn’t realize that her sari had caught fire
and was literally in flames. Quick thinking by my uncle saved her, who poured
water on her in the nick of time.
Afternoon soon followed when one of elder cousin who had
gone to buy some stuff from a shop came limping back. We soon realized that a
car ran over his feet leaving him badly bruised.
It didn’t end there. How can a story end without a bang!!!
We had decided to have a born fire or a camp fire late in the evening in our
compound. We collected dry wood and somehow managed a bottle of petrol to help
us light up the woods. My dad was pouring petrol on the woods when someone lit
a match stick, they didn’t realize that the bottle was too close to the lit
stick and the bottle caught fire, the bottle was thrown away by my dad. It took
some time to realize that there was no harm caused as yet by the fire and that
the woods had not been lit. Once again my eldest cousin picked up the bottle
and decided to pour the petrol completely over it and then lit a stick, which
sounded like a good idea. As soon as he inverted the bottle to pour petrol,
there were flames on the dry wood, and again the same thing happened. The bottle
caught fire, and my scared, dumb, idiotic, stupid brother who wanted to become
a hero, kicked the bottle hard.
Poor me I was quietly standing in a corner of the compound
waiting for the fun to start. Never had expected to get so much fun at my
expense.
Boom!!! I had no time to react and the bottle of petrol came
flying towards me. It fell a good 2 feet away from me but the petrol in the
bottle came flying out and caught my leg. I was wearing polyester trousers
which added fuel to the fire and it didn’t take time for everyone to realize that
my right leg had caught fire. I was running around the compound shouting and
trust me it completely seemed like a bollywood flick but the only difference
being, me experiencing the pain rather than watching it from the other side of
the screen.
Somehow the fire was extinguished and we all were preparing
for a very long night ahead. Symbolizing a typical Indian woman, my mother
fainted at the sight of my leg being in a very bad condition. Her emotions and
tears would have left all the actors of the ‘k’ serials by Ekta Kapoor gasping
for breath. The night followed was very painful. No doctors and no options but
to use traditional methods like cooling it by applying potato skin on the wound.
Somehow the long wait ended and the next afternoon we returned back to Mumbai
This incident it like a decade old but I still do have marks
on my leg which remind me of that eventful night. Though painful but I got a
lot of publicity after this incident….. J
