{"id":535,"date":"2016-05-14T03:36:50","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T03:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=535"},"modified":"2016-05-14T03:36:50","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T03:36:50","slug":"fire-safety-fireworks-mumbai-sivakasi-bangalore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=535","title":{"rendered":"Fire Safety be Damned. We are the Olympians of Stupidity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>must have been in the third standard when I first heard the term \u201cplaying with fire.\u201d I was watching a movie where a nun believes in a miracle and the priest warns her using those words. I remember pestering my cousins \u2014 all much elder \u2014 about how someone can play with fire. One of them was decent enough to reply, \u201cCome Diwali, I will show you.\u201d\u00a0 And he showed me alright. By dropping a fire cracker on my toe.\n\nThere\u2019s something up with us and fire. Fire accidents keep happening around us at an alarming pace. A Level-2 fire at Crystal Tower in the Parel area of Mumbai has already claimed the lives of four people with ten others injured. This comes on the heels of the fire in Mumbai\u2019s <\/p>Kamala Mills<\/a> area, which killed several people.\u00a0 The fire accident at a plastic factory in Ludhiana last November claimed the lives of thirteen people, including three firemen. In 2016, a fire in Odisha\u2019s SUM hospital killed<\/a> 24 people. Apparently the hospital had \u201coverlooked a 2013 advisory of the state government to improve its firefighting mechanism\u201d and did not even have a fire safety certificate. Well done, folks \u2013 this is what they mean when they say that the smell of death looms large in hospitals. Even our temples are a good place to go out. In April 2016, organisers of an annual pyrotechnic show in Kerala flouted safety warnings of the district administration and went ahead to stage a forgettable fire tragedy in India that left over a hundred people dead<\/a>.\n\nA (WHO) factsheet states that in India there are over one million burn injuries every year. Records from our National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicate that 19,513 people died due to fire accidents in India in 2014. That amounts to about 54 deaths a day. Accidental fires<\/a> are the third leading cause of unnatural deaths in India after car accidents and drowning.\n\nOur first reaction, as always, is to lash out at the creators and overseers of the system \u2013 the government. After all, ensuring compliance with fire protocols, emergency responses, and safety regulations is the duty of the authorities, isn\u2019t it? But, I can\u2019t help but paraphrase what Barack Obama said at the funeral for police officers in Dallas a while ago. For long, he said, we have put too much blame on the government without being conscious ourselves.\n

Into this already crackling mix of idiocy, callousness, and entitlement, we will soon be throwing a lit matchstick: Diwali the festival in which we literally play with fire and encourage our children to do so.<\/blockquote>\nThe fact is we\u2019re a reckless country made up of relentlessly stupid people who will switch on their mobile phones before landing to tell the driver to \u201cget the BMW, not the Endeavour\u201d (#truestory). The sort of folks who rush to the boarding gates breaking all protocol, as if the pilot has some proven record of leaving passengers behind. Who will stand when we\u2019re told to sit, who will repeatedly drive drunk, who will think nothing of texting while driving, will steadfastly refuse to use skywalks. We are a people who will spend a small fortune on a refrigerator but never think of installing a fire extinguisher. How can a country of so many smart people suddenly strike gold repeatedly in this Olympics of stupidity?\n\nI think the answer lies somewhere in a complex knot of uniquely Indian attitudes. Somewhere between our fatalism, our belief in the afterlife and rebirth, our ignorance, and our \u201cchalta hai\u201d attitude. But there\u2019s more to it. We, especially those of us who belong to privilege, also have what has been labelled<\/a> \u201ca ferocious sense of entitlement\u201d. Entitlement is the handmaiden of a cavalier attitude and superciliousness. When we skip a traffic signal or dive into a sea of oncoming traffic, it is with the assurance that it is the duty of the world to align itself to our behaviour, no matter how dangerous or egregious it might be.\n\nLast week, just as the light turned green at a signal, a young lady no more than 15, suddenly started her pirate\u2019s walk-of-death. With her umbrella tilted to her left, she walked headlong into raging traffic, earphones plugged-in, eyes trained on her phone screen. The car on my right screeched and I too put all my weight on the brake to avoid hitting her. The youngster looked up for a second before going right back to tap-tap-tapping on the cellphone. Forget offering anyone an apology, she was oblivious to the fact that she\u2019d almost been run over.\n\nInto this already crackling mix of idiocy, callousness, and entitlement, we will soon be throwing a lit matchstick: Diwali, the festival in which we literally play with fire and encourage our children to do so. Sivakasi or Tamil Nadu\u2019s Cracker Central, will no doubt get its once-a-year place in the news cycle when we will hear of deaths caused in the firecracker godown or workshop, as we have so many times in the past<\/a>.\n\nLast Diwali, I saw the grown-ups in my colony go into an orgy of bursting crackers. One guy \u2013 a grown-up \u2013 flung a firecracker from his balcony that landed on a biker, who perhaps thought the Armageddon had arrived. He skidded hard but managed to escape unharmed and instead of dragging the pyromaniac-psychopath to the cops, the biker embraced him after a small exchange of invectives. Bura na mano, Diwali hai, after all.\n\nI don\u2019t know if the solution is to go the American way and put a blanket ban on the sale and use of consumer fireworks (as we did this year during Diwali, although we heard what kind of furore<\/a> that led to) but I know that a solution needs to be found. Giving unregulated, unsupervised fire in the hands of the irresponsible is like giving a child a fully loaded gun. He may not necessarily shoot with intent, but if he plays with it long enough, you can be sure someone\u2019s gonna die.\n\nThis is an updated version of an article published earlier.\u00a0<\/em>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent fire incidents in Mumbai, including the current one at Crystal Tower in Parel are evidence of what a reckless country we are. We will spend a small fortune on a refrigerator, but never think of installing a fire extinguisher or following safety norms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[186,863,864,865,866,867,868,869],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-diwali","tag-festivezone","tag-fire-prevention","tag-fire-safety","tag-fireworks","tag-sivakasi-accident","tag-sivakasi-fireworks-accident","tag-standard-fireworks"],"yoast_head":"\nFire Safety be Damned. 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