On a hot but soporific afternoon a few days ago, I was in my Chennai flat located on the fourth floor, working assiduously on an official assignment. I hardly had a clue about the impending commotion that befell the house. My wife and son had left home to pursue their jobs and I was all alone in the flat.
I was at my desk in one of three bed rooms in the northwestern corner. I was so engrossed in my job that I even failed to note if it was time for a cup of filter coffee. But my concentration was suddenly disturbed by a deafening bursting and shattering sound. I froze for a few seconds, puzzled as to what could have happened. The sound had come from within the house, from very close to where I was working. But as I turned around, I could find nothing of significance in the room where I was seated.
Something told me it could be a déjà vu moment. In December 2016, when the Vardah cyclone struck Chennai, I had `heard a very similar sound in my flat. I was alone then too. As the cyclone howled and massive trees on the roads danced dangerously, a large aluminium window shutter housing a glass pane came flying out of my balcony, rammed into to an adjacent glass door and crash-landed on the floor. Glass pieces fell in one heap and it cost me quite a lot of effort and money to restore it to normal. Could it be a repeat now? I came out of my room and checked the balcony and the window shutters. It was perfectly fine, totally oblivious of the flare-up in its neighbourhood.
On an earlier occasion, a coconut had burst from inside our kitchen cupboard creating enormous panic in us before we could zero in on the source of detonation. Could it be a rogue coconut again? I remembered only that morning my wife had told me before leaving for her college, “We have no coconuts in the house. Can you buy two or three today when you go out?” So, I eliminated coconuts and stealthily moved on an investigative mission.
I entered the hall and moved southwards towards the kitchen. I noticed something unusual, very unusual indeed. I saw miniature white cloud inside my house. Cloud? How can a cloud get in and that too on a hot April summer noon? ‘No way. Check your eyes dear,’ I told myself and scratched my head. Then it struck me it could be thermocol (polystyrene). A box of thermocol whacked and pieces lying all around? But there was no thermocol box in the house.
As I came close to the white cloud, my legs twisted and I began to skate. I arrested my fall holding on to a grip. The floor was soapy and slippery. I turned to my right. I looked into the kitchen, then its adjacent room and a wash basin area tucked away cosily between the hall and another bed room. I was shocked, for it was a sea of foam all around – on the floor, walls, ceiling, almirahs and the wash basin mirror. Everything was covered by foam; it was a riot of foam on all sides.
I quickly cleaned the floor with a wiper lest I should fell down. I cleared a portion of the wash basin and spotted an object lying at the far end of the floor. It was my shaving foam canister that I had kept near the wash basin. I lifted it and found out its bottom had been ripped apart. Now I could join the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
The pressurised foam canister had exploded, spitting out jets of foam in all directions. The container’s bottom had been ripped apart. It had flown like a projectile and landed with a cracking sound. The container was supposed to withstand 50 degree C. As the temperature then was around 40o C. It was a case of a container failure possibly resulting from inferior quality, corrosion and the atmospheric heat. I could now appreciate why such canisters are not allowed in an aircraft.
My wife who returned in the evening and our maid did a massive operation clean-up. Never had I thought a shaving foam canister could put my house in disarray. Perhaps, if someone had been in the vicinity, the canister flying as a missile could have harmed the person. It was a close shave, after all.
