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“DRIVER kaa zindagi bhi ajab khel hai; maut se bach nikla to Central Jail hai” (a driver’s life is a strange game if he evades death, prison awaits). I read these lines years back on the back panel of one of those Bedford trucks which used to be one of the mainstays of goods transport in Pakistan.
The poetic and grammatical merit of these lines may be questionable but the message is clear: people in such vocations continually face relentless challenges but must carry on regardless.
You may find it funny, even bizarre. But this columnist feels pretty much the same. We prepare for our column often reserving a certain number of days a week to consume and process the news. Notes are taken and various topics mulled over.
Meeting deadlines can be a huge challenge, especially when a blaze consumes your environs.
There is no concept of missing a week. The main concern is for the newspaper and its editors who have chosen to give you a weekly slot out of dozens of possible candidates. Your commitment to the reader places perhaps a bigger demand on you.
Then there is a purely selfish reason. You don’t get paid if you don’t write. If you have a pile stashed away you are fine. Otherwise, you have to do the job if you don’t wish to be staring into a financial abyss. Nonetheless, it isn’t a tragedy.
Most print journalists in general and columnists in particular love to write. So, if there are readers out there who are prepared to indulge us, we are able to make a living while doing something we love by raising issues we feel passionately about.
Despite all this, occasionally meeting the deadline poses huge challenges. Let me explain by talking you through my past week.
Last week, on Friday, I wrote my previous column even as we had three visitors visiting us in Spain where we live in a small hilly town called Javea, midway between Valencia and Alicante on the Mediterranean coast.
On Saturday, we mostly entertained our friends. We woke up to an uncharacteristically hot Sunday. The wind was strong, hot and dry. It originated inland apparently at 40 kilometres per hour. Normally it comes from the sea.
After lunch and an afternoon nap, my wife offered to show our visitors who were leaving the following day the old town centre dating back to the Moorish period. My elder daughter preferred the cool indoors to going out and braving the hot day.
I stayed back too as I have injured ligaments in my ankle. As the sun disappeared my daughter and I decided to go out and sit on the terrace hoping that at some point the sea breeze would overpower the heat.
This is when we saw a firefighting aircraft airborne and lots of smoke coming from the direction of the beautiful national park that is spread over miles and miles of hills, ridges and slopes. One of its edges is about 200 metres behind us with the sea in front.
We were curious about where exactly the fire was as it still looked far away. At that point, we saw my wife Carmen driving back with our younger daughter and the house guests. As she parked the car outside the house, we realised there was a new source of smoke and we could smell burning wood too. It was close.
Carmen went up the lane to check, came running back. “We need to get out now!” Then she shouted to our guests to get their passports. In the next three minutes, five adults, two children, our beagle and guinea pig squeezed into the car. Around now rescue services were also arriving to evacuate those who were still not aware of the danger.
As we drove out of our lane, we could see the rapidly advancing, five- to six-metre-high flames in the green belt some 30m to the left. We turned right and kept going. In about 10 minutes we were by the beach looking at the flames in the hills where we were just minutes earlier.
It transpired that an arsonist had struck in multiple locations on that particularly hot day with strong winds in the national park creating a wildfire. A feeling of doom filled us on Sunday night as we were sure we’d never return to find anything intact. A friend gave us the keys to his empty, furnished flat.
On Monday morning, we convinced our friends to leave for London as scheduled. They wanted to stay to support us. All through Monday some 300 firemen and over 20 firefighting planes fought relentlessly to contain the blaze which would end up destroying almost 2,000 acres of lush-green parkland.
Later on Monday, a friend climbed up a hill overlooking our place to report it appeared intact. On Tuesday, the police and emergency services allowed access to the cordoned-off area. Two huge green belts right behind our place had been reduced to ashes with just a few tall pines defying the blaze.
The firefighters, the ‘Bomberos’, heroically saved as many homes as they could. By the time we were allowed back they had gone, having performed their heroic feats. Our neighbourhood has scorched trees and burnt plants and grass. All wooden structures have been reduced to ashes but most houses have survived. It still looks like a disaster zone though thankfully not a single life was lost.
My wife, elder daughter and some friends cleaned all the soot and ash from our house and by the time our daughter left for London to resume university on Wednesday afternoon and utilities had been restored we were ready to return. And we did on Thursday morning.
It is Friday. I have to send my column in about half an hour. I have not really followed much news this past week for obvious reasons so struggled to find a topic. Then as I thought all I could do was to share how the last week was for us, I was reminded of the line “Driver kaa zindagi …”.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2016
