My Experiment With Fire

Unlike Mahatma Gandhiji, who took several years of learning and experimenting with the ‘truth’, I look only a few days of my life for ‘my experiment with fire’. Let us see how and what all happened.

Thanks to my father’s transferable job that took us to a small city in Madhya Pradesh.

Location: Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh

Year: 1994

Life was slow there and those times were like that too I believe. We had time for everything. My school was hardly 5 minutes walk from my house. 

It was winter of that year, may be month of November, and the nights had started to turn chilly. Nobody likes leaving the warmth from the bed, to go out in such a chilly morning. But, we had the school to attend. So we had to leave the comfort in such cold mornings, to prepare for the daily school. After my mother prepared the Tiffin, she would accompany me and my younger brother to school. Sometimes, my younger brother, (3 years old at that time) would cry and refuse to enter the school premises. Then, my mother would buy a candy from an adjacent shop, which, I think, had just opened for children like my brother.

My brother after taking it would ask my mother to stay outside the gate until he finishes the class. And he was by my mother, & would ask him look out of the window if he wants, then she would go back and come just a few minutes earlier to receive us both. And then he would smile & would run back to go into my mothers arms. Children at that age would never like to walk even a small distance at that age; mothers were the vehicle for them.

Okay, let me get back to the story. We, sometimes, had woods to burns during the evening for bonfire. We would sit back and enjoy it after we all had dinner. Now, at that age we all liked to experiment with something or the other. Just for an example, I had just cut my fathers salary slip, learning to use a scissor properly, and my brother had cut my finger learning the same.

As I was born to a Hindu family, we had customs to pray before we sit to eat out for dinner. (Others too have such a custom), but we used to light a diya. But to light a diya, we need to light a match stick first. And since we were too small to play with the danger associated with the matchstick, my father used to do the honors. But, one day I decided to learn this trick, before the big thing would take place.

So, one day, when we all were standing for the evening prayer:

Gunti: “Papa, can I light the diya today?”

Father: “Okay beta”, and handled the matchbox to me.

I opened the box, took out a match stick and tried the principle of friction on it. But the action was wrong.

Father: “Beta, this is not how to do it, let me show you….hold the match box on your left hand with the dotted side facing right…take the stick on your right hand…bend it a little and give it a strike on the matchbox…and here it burns”.

Gunti: “Papa, let me try. I’ll do it his time.”

Father handed over the matchbox again to me. I followed the steps as given to me, and guess what; I learned to light the magic stick. And then my mind was filled with ideas and things that I wanted to burn with this little invention of mankind.

And to give action to my words, one fine day I took a matchbox from the kitchen, and rushed to the dining hall. Looked carefully all around, if anyone was watching me, father had gone for a bath, & mother had just entered the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Then I took few steps to reach the corner door of the room, checked if any air was coming to destroy my plan, but luckily the whether was calm. Then, I took a stick and lighted the stick following the algorithm taught to me by my father. It lit, but in sudden fuzz, I had not decided what to burn with this stick on fire, then I saw the curtain in front of me, and took the burning stick on lower part of the curtain, (to the lower corner to be precise). Remember how we used to see elders sometimes burning a paper in the same method, so I too used the same method for my experiment.

It started burning. I enjoyed the scene. But when I tried to stop the fire, I could not. At that small age, who knew that the curtains of the door were made up of a material called ‘nylon’, which rapidly catches fire? When failed to handle the burning curtain, I was too worried, but to save other things getting burned down, and to save me from my fathers scolding and beating (which seemed probable), I cried to my mother…

Gunti: “Mummy, there is fire in the house, the curtain is burning”.

Mother came running, and was astonished to watch the scene. Before taking any action on me, she decided to put off the fire first. So, she went back to the kitchen, and returned with a tumbler full of water. And finally the fire was down. My mother saved the day.

While my father was dressing for his office, he smelled something burning, and came rushing to the dining room.

Father: “Beta, tell me how did this happen”.

Gunti (with utmost innocence on my face): “Papa, I was just practicing the method of lighting the matchstick”.

Father, forgave me for all that I did, but warned me about what all could happen if I did that again.

Father: “Next time if you want to do something like this, go out and do it in the open, and if you want to burn something, collect a few dry leaves and twigs and try burning them. But take your mother along for safety”.

Gunti: “Okay, papa. I’ll remember to take mother along.”

*The Next Day*

Another morning: Same schedule for getting ready for school. This time when my father asked me to do my experiments outside the house, I followed as he instructed. So, for this time’s venture, I took a matchstick and hid it in my pocket. Just when few minutes remained to leave for school, I thought why not give it a try. So, I went outside to look out for some dry leaves, tried collecting a few which were scattered all across our lawn, took all of them in one corner, followed the same algorithm that my father taught me, repeated the same and then as I was about to touch the burning matchstick to the twigs, a voice was herd…

Brother: “Bhaiya, where are you, mummy is calling you”!

Gunti: “Haan, I am ready, ask mummy to get my bag, I am waiting outside”.

Then, he went back to call our beloved mother. But, now, it did not seem the appropriate time to try it again. So I put the matchbox on the ground and hid it by putting the leaves on it, and planned it to try after lunch.

Throughout the time in school that day, I was mostly planning how I would rush back home, finish my lunch quickly, go out and burn the twigs. I would imagine that the weather and the winds would favor me with that and how I would then see the fire grow in front my eyes.

As we reached home, I was astonished to see a big truck loaded with dry woods was to be unloaded inside our compound beside the garage.

Gunti: “What is this for mummy?”

Mummy: “This is to burn, when we feel cold; we burn them and make us warm.”

Gunti: “Okay!”

The truck was accompanied by few workers from my father’s office, who would help to unload the truck.

Mummy (to the workers): “Bhaiya, do let me know when you finish the work.”

Ramesh (one of the worker): “Okay Madam!”

Then we went inside our house. I changed my dress, wore a blue sweater as it was cool in the afternoon too. Then went to our bedroom, and sat in front of the T.V. We had this custom to sit on the ground when we had our meal, may be family tradition, although we had a dining table, but we were more comfortable sitting down.

My brother was being fed by my mother as he was still learning to use his hands to eat. I had my separate plate, & I tried to finish it as fast as possible. And then Ramesh entered, who interrupted my flow of thought.

Ramesh: “Madam, we have unloaded the woods, and we are leaving”

Mummy: “Have some water & tea”.

Ramesh: “No madam, thanks anyways, we have to rush to office.”

Mummy: “Okay, thanks!”

Ramesh had left as he finished the conversation.

After we finished our lunch, mother lied down on the bed, younger brother plugged his mind on the toys that father had brought for him just a few days back. I found that the right moment, and went outside.

 I went to the same corner of the lawn and was pleased to find the matchbox still lied at the same place as I had left it in the morning. Then, I collected some twigs, leaves, pieces of wood and collected them at one place. I sat, covered them with my body so as not to allow any wind to interrupt my plan, burnt the matchstick following the great algorithm and lit it. It did light, it caught fire, I felt good, but not great. I wanted to see huge fire in front of my eyes. But how was the question. And then, I saw the unloaded wood lying near the garage. I went there, quietly as I passed the main door of the house. There were piles of wood lying there. I decided that if I wanted to see big fire, I would get that from that.

I went to one side of the pile, took the matchstick and tried burning a tiny piece of wood, but it didn’t seem to work. I was puzzled, how was it that it was not working. Then, I wondered that how was my father able to fire similar woods during night.

Newspaper! Yes, there I got my answer. He would take few pages of old newspaper, light it at one corner, wait for a few seconds for the paper to catch fire and gently inserted it at the lower gaps inside the pile of woods.

This became another method for me to fire a huge bunch of wood; I rushed back inside, got the newspaper, lit it and placed it at lower in the pile of woods. The fire became intense after a few minutes and I stepped back to prevent the heat that I sensed on my skin. Slowly and steadily it grew big as forest fire, and there my experiment with fire started, still unknown of its consequences.

I sensed that I was in a big trouble. So I went to our backyard to hide myself from my mother. I was now aware that my mother knew what I had done; she was shouting my name at the top of her voice.

As the magnitude of her voice increased, I went far towards our fields, (we had a small part of our compound where we used to grow seasonal vegetables, since it was winter, this time we had carrot & brinjal or the eggplant). So, I decided to hide myself inside the carrot plantation.

I went inside and found plants which were large enough to hide myself, I could still hear my mother searching and shouting my name. A few minutes later, I peeped through one of the plant in front, & I could see that my younger brother was also following her wherever she went, thinking that she was playing the game of ‘train-train’ where we followed the person in front.

A minute later, they disappeared from my sight and I suddenly received a tight slap on my face.

Mummy: “So there you are hiding yourself”.

A man had helped us bringing the fire down, a few people, from the neighborhood had also gathered to see the scene that I had created. It took an hour to bring the fire down. And when my father returned from office, my mother narrated the story to him. And just like most of the Indian families, father started to tell her that how she failed to look after the kids when he would not be home etc…

And then later, he turned to me and said,

Father: “Beta, why did you burn the woods?”

Gunti: “Papa, you only told me that go out and then experiment. I was feeling cold too, that’s why!”

Guess what my father’s reaction would have been when I had said this. He did not stop laughing for a minute. So, finally the experiment was over. Do not try such things at home, because you might harm not only yourself, but to all the people living & non-living around you. But, I learned a lesson from this incident, try such weird things, it makes you learn, and yes experimentation is a path to inventions…!

I hope you had great time reading the story, do leave your comments.

Thanks!