# 11 Gas

It happened when I was seven or so.

She was my mother’s best friend from college. And had moved to Delhi, close to Rajinder Nagar, where we stayed. She had two children, happy, just as she was. Aunty looked a lot like Zarina Wahab, so we always called her that, between us.

Zarina aunty was a great cook, and my mother let her indulge us. My brother and I spent a lot of time in her home, playing, sharing our dinky cars, gobbling freshly baked cakes. We would stuff ourselves and run down to the corner bakery for more cream rolls and gold coin chocolates. Calories were never a problem then.

One day we came home from school and mom was crying. She told us that we would no longer go to Zarina aunty’s place. In her favourite kitchen, surrounded by her favourite baking dishes and cookie cutters, she had died, in the flames stoked by a gas cylinder.

I never went back to see the charred home or the empty faces of her children, but my imagination filled in the details, and every time I saw someone light a burner, I would see the flame rush down, stumble and trip the regulator till it was hissing with anger and soon flaming with rage. And shudder. Every time.

Even today, as I stood watching two imbeciles struggling with my brand new regulator on my brand new gas cylinder, I shivered.

One was wearing a dirty unwashed HP Gas uniform, and the other, a tattered something. Both sweating so offensively that my sandal agarbatti curled in and died. They had no idea that it was the first time I was setting up home, that it was the first time I would be the only one in the kitchen, reaching for the knob, clicking the lighter, again and again.

The two struggled with the regulator, pushing it in, and it plopping out. Pushing. Plopping. Pushing. Plopping. My heart was doing the same. I thought I’d have an anxiety attack. Push. It stayed. They turned the knob. Held the flame to it. I held my breath. Waited for a boom. Instead there was a swish of a flame. They nodded their heads, and were about to leave, when I noticed the metal ring on the granite slab. It had to be placed around the end of the pipe to hold it securely to the regulator. They hadn’t put it on.

I pointed to it; they looked at it like the Masai looked at a Coke bottle, and my heart skipped a beat. They discussed, pulled out the regulator, fastened it, pushed, and left.

Left me with a heart beating faster than the July 26 monsoon on a tin roof. I called up a girlfriend who suggested I call a trained mechanic to have a look, and not turn it on till he’s had a look. I called HP, who gave me a number and asked me to call the mechanic. I called the mechanic who asked me to call another mechanic. Or wait till tomorrow. I waited. For a second after I put the phone down to let my tears fall.

I hadn’t cried like this in ages. It was utter helplessness. The worst emotion in the world.

I was hungry after the excess of salt and wanted to set my rice cooker. It was right above the cylinders, separated by a fat slab of granite. I hesitantly bent down to sniff, to reassure myself. And a strong smell hit my nostrils. I rushed to open the windows, and stood frightened, thinking of no worse way to die. My fear paralysed me. I sat there for what seemed like hours, but what must have been seconds. Till the air brushed some life into me. My nostrils could still smell it, but now it was familiar.

Tyres. Someone was burning tyres.

Tears ran down my eyes. I laughed at myself. But my heart refused to lighten up.

Her name was Asha. Hope. I wish I had called her that.