A Tribute

It was a regular morning of May 2005. Just within an hour of reaching office I got a panicky call.

The retail distribution company in which my neighbour (cum friend) works, was on fire. Oh my God! I immediately called her to check her safety and thankfully she was fine. She was saying it was such a sight to see the whole huge office cum warehouse in flames.

But she added, that one of our common friends who works there as a warehouse manager was not to be seen around & nobody knew where he was for sure. I kept praying frantically that he should be safe.

He was a sweet, friendly & very helpful person in his late thirties. He was married with two daughters. He had left home the usual way that morning and everything was absolutely fine and normal till the fire broke out.

I kept calling to check if there were any news about his whereabouts. Nothing was known still. But people slowly started loosing hope that he might be alive. Unfortunately they were even unable to find his body as the flames were still high.

After great efforts by the firemen, the fire then was under fair control. And everybody started hunting for him.

And finally after over 3 hours they found his body hidden under a table....fully charred due to the high amount of smoke that had suffocated him, causing his death. The irony was, I believe, he was out that morning and after seeing the smoke had lead many of his warehouse workers to safety and he has gone inside again to check if all the workers were out and in the process got caught in the fire.

Apparently that morning in their warehouse there was a short circuit and since the warehouse stocks many things including highly inflammable items, the fire caught on very rapidly even before anyone could realise.

It has been a year since we lost this good friend and it still pains us tremedously when we even think of this tragic incident.