The Girl who Broke the Masculine wall Of Fire

Julia Singh

In the early hours of December 9 th 2011 the killer inferno snuffed out nearly 100 livesthe of posh AMRI Hospital . Most of the victims were patients, some of them immobile in Intensive Care Units.  At 11th December, Sunday many Kolkatans went to of the burnt hospital building with candles in their hand to show respect to the dead and also to protest against the corrupt health sector of the state of West Bengal. Many more deaths could have occurred, many more candles would have lit, if the youths at Panchanantala slum, just behind the hospital, didn't jump into the fray to rescue stranded patients in the chamber of death. The ‘untrained’ rescuers scaled walls, climbed pipes and bamboo scaffolding without thinking anything about their own safety, at a moment when the hospital staff failed to respond, leaving the patients to succumb to death. They shattered the glass panes of the blazing building and saved over 70 lives. A few of these saviours are fighting for their lives when I am writing this.

Being a journalist I too went to the burnt hospital and to the slum of Panchanantala to gather news for our news portal, where I happened to meet a young woman named Julia Singh who was the only girl among the saviours. The slum’s champion ‘tomboy’ Julia –she’s a regular member of football and cricket games—worked hand in hand with men and boys in the blaze to rescue patients. The 21 year old Julia owns a small cigarette shop at the slum, whose father Babu Singh is taxi driver. This story will always be one of my favorites; not only I cracked it first, and it became an ‘exclusive’ but for the opportunity to meet Julia. who refused to be ' Just another girl to get married'.

 AMRI, being one of the most expensive health care system in Kolkata, has always refused to admit any patient from the slum for obvious monetary reasons. And for that, the hospital has always been a target of hatred for the slum people. But when disaster broke out, these slum people acted with utmost bravery rather than the loyal staffs of the hospital. I have no answer for this peculiar behavior though…

 with other boys of the slum Julia too entered the building that night with the hope of saving few lives as she happens to be a trained disaster management personnel who attended a course offered by The State Government one year ago. Probably she was the only rescuer among the slum-dwellers with a proper training. Here's a blow-by-blow account of brave Julia:

1.30 AM: I and my sister, Papia Singh, had just gone to sleep after finishing the day’s work. For some reason the halogens of AMRI compound was turned off and I was quiet happy for that. The bright light always disrupts my sleep. It pierces through the tiny holes of our closed door. But suddenly I felt something wrong; smell of something burning woke me up. Initially I thought somebody burning tyres and junk, but then I heard a commotion and screams. Then, someone started knocking on the door frenetically and shouting, 'Fire...fire'. As soon as I came out I found the whole slum engulfed in smoke.

The Hole In The wall She dug

1.45 AM: Then we noticed everyone running towards the front side of AMRI Hospital’s Annex Building. I felt a sudden relief that it wasn’t my dukan (her cigarette shop). Amidst the pandemonium I decided to follow the crowd towards the main gate of the hospital, but found it locked from inside. Thick black smoke engulfed the building and made us cough and choke.

2.00 AM: I along with my sister and a few local boys ran to the back side of the building. But the wall (almost 15 feet high) and the barbwire was too high to be scaled. While standing helplessly under the long wall, we heard a shrill cry of a child and someone wailing. Something terrible was going on inside the dark building.

2.15 AM: We decided to dig a hole at the bottom of the wall. Papia got hold of a shovel and we took iron rods or whatever we could lay hands on, to dig a hole big enough for us to get inside the hospital compound.

2.30 AM: It was completely dark inside. The first thing we noticed amidst the choking fume on the upper floors were tiny dots of lights moving frantically across the dark glass panes. We were puzzled. We had to reach there, but how? Sooty fumes were coming out from the gaps of big basement door and the scorching smoke burnt our eyes and nose. We needed a ladder, or at least a rope to reach the upper floors. Then Nitai spotted a bamboo ladder, part of the scaffold used by painters employed by the hospital. As I climbed up near the darkened glass pane we spotted the patients in hospital clothes; what appeared tiny dots of light were screens of mobile phones. The patients were using these as signals to attract our attention! We didn't notice any staff; and there were no lights. The darkness and the billowing fumes made our job nearly impossible.

3:00 AM: We decided to break the window panes first. But those were so thick. Then I asked Papia

3:30 AM: But I knew there were more patients waiting to be rescued. There was so much soot in the air that I took a curtain to cover my face. Then I ran towards a patient standing like a ghost in his white hospital robes. He was acting like a living puppet as I held his hand tight and pulled him towards me. He seemed to obey me like a child, as I guided him towards the broken window. He was safe at last.

3.35 AM: Suddenly I remembered about the crying child. Even amidst the hellish clamour, the sound of the shrill cry was ringing in my ear. But for that I had to go to the balcony, opening the door. Once again I went to the window and took a deep gulp of air. I had to save the child! As I stepped into the balcony, I found darkness and fumes. It was difficult to see. Then I heard the cry again. I heard other voices too. I followed the sound blindly and saw three shadowy figures of children at the far side of the balcony. But I could not spot the children when I went there.

The Way She Tried to Climb the at First 

4.05 AM: Then I could hear loud shouts and sound of breaking glasses from various rooms. “May be help is coming,” I thought. “May be more people from my slum have entered the building… but where are those children have gone?” Thick smoke almost blinded me and my cheeks were burning in the scorching heat.

4.30 AM: I took the stairs looking for those children, and for the first time I spotted some men in uniform. The firefighters have arrived at last! They were trying to rescue patients along with some local youths. One of them spotted me and asked me to get out of the building. But I had to find the children! Then I saw an old woman climbing down the stairs, blood dripping from her injured head. The sight reminded me of a personal tragedy. A couple of years ago, once my mother fell in the toilet and injured her skull badly. We’d rushed her to AMRI Hospitals, only to be turned away just because we were poor people from the slum. We had to take her to a government hospital four kilometres away from our house. The memory slowed my pace. Suddenly a man in uniform grabbed my hand and ordered me get out.

5.15 AM: I was feeling drowsy and asphyxiated. The fumes had got into my lungs. I was causing a heavy breathing problem. I couldn’t climb down the stairs to go outside. I needed some fresh air immediately. I ran towards the room where we’d first entered, where my friends were waiting but couldn’t find it in the smoke. It seemed that I have lost the way to the room among numerous balconies and the rooms of the big building. Finally I spotted a room with glass panes broken. I rushed to the window and took a big gulp of fresh air. I had to get down. I grabbed the curtain and some bed sheet, knotted them together to make a rope out of it. I remembered the lessons learnt during the 17- day Civil Defense class I’d attended last year. We were taught how to make strong knots, how to enter a burning building and rescue the victims. But I never thought I could put my training to use in such a circumstance.

6.00 AM: Finally I touched the ground climbing down the rope. Some of my neighbours were standing there. I leaned on them for support. My entire body was aching, my face was burning, my eyes inflamed. I thought I was choking to death…suddenly everything turned dark.

9.00 AM: I found myself lying on my bed. Slowly I regained conscious and remembered everything in a flash. I recalled the dark smoke-filled interiors of the hospital, the cry, the patients…. My hands were aching, there were deep cuts and I needed medicine. Yet I rushed back to the hospital’s main gate. The scenario was completely different. It was chock-a-block with thousands of people. At least 50 fire brigade engines were there. Police, firemen, TV cameras, journalists, VIPs so many people. And a lot of them were interviewing my friends at our slum. Our slum became the centre of attraction for the world! But the cloud of smoke still engulfed the hospital was still there. Now no one will need us there in the rich man’s hospital. We are unwanted inside the towering glasses. Standing alone in the crowd, tears rolled down my face. I was happy that I helped the hospital that refused to admit my mother just because we were poor. But there’s a regret, because I couldn’t rescue those children…

The children Julia failed to rescue couldn’t be traced. The government authorities however countered that there were no such children in the annexe building of the hospital. Meanwhile the state government decided to felicitate 36 rescuers from the Panchanantala slums. But Julia’s name is not in the list, for some ‘mysterious’ reason. “Julia’s father has affiliation with the ‘wrong’ political party,” said a senior resident from the slum on condition of anonymity.