A normal day and an abnormal incident

 

Our new home in this place has also changed our lifestyle. We have our evening tea outside on the brick portico, we generally shut ourselves after 7 pm in the evening. We entertain visitors outside our home, we are now okay with evening insects which dominate our indoor and outdoor lights etc.

 

The biggest change was our waking up time in the morning, especially during the summer where we could not step outside after 11 am in the morning. So we wake up at 6:30 am get our tea by 7:30 and my wife is out by 8 am to work with the farm hands

 

This day, was one of those typical summer day, the land was parched, everything was as dry as bone, the small ponds were without water, the trees had shed leaves, the grass, the small plants were wilting under intense heat. My wife’s plants, which she had planted in late March survived by the good grace of water out of our borewell.We woke up early and She was in the land directing, which plants need more water and where how the next seed bed will go and I was getting the breakfast made.

 

My wife had already started instructing about getting trenches made with two purposes, one was to stop fire and the other was to be ready for the rains. The morning work was coming to a close as the summer heat went up – upto 45 degrees centigrade on some days. Despite the temperature she was feeling good that she could make the lettuce survive with proper care and right amount of water.

 

We trooped in and were sitting with a cup of coffee, when she spots a leaping flame small distance away, alert we went out to have look and lo and behold about 300 meters of wild grass and dry vegetation was on fire and moving at high speed in the direction of the wind which was away from our land, we watched it for a while, and reassured ourselves that we were safe. Went inside for lunch.

 

By 3 pm we were wrapping up for our afternoon siesta, I went out to have a look and there the fire was just 50 meters away, the nearest date palm tree was on fire all the grass surrounding the pond was completely charred, I screamed and rushed out in my rubber slippers and my wife followed me, we ran towards the fire and on the way switched on the water pump. Then started our fight to stop the speeding fire.

 

By the time we could douse the fire of the date palm tree and the grass near the pond, I turned around to see the fire had come from the other end and was just about 12 meters away from our home, we sprinted to the south side, now we had other farm hand and a friend with us. Our friend climbed the wire mesh fence and used buckets of water to douse the dancing fire.

 

After a rigorous 45 minutes fight with fire we had stopped it completely. Amongst all our romantic thought of staying in the village, in the wilderness, in our farm, we did not bargain for this adventure, Once all the suspense and the tension was over, my wife suggested we should add firefighting in our bio data – maybe also in LinkedIN profile






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