I survived

It has been a while since I blogged and I thought, what better way to resume the activity, than by updating my survival story.

I had gone to watch “The Amazing Spiderman” with Raghu and Madhu last Saturday, for the 7 PM show at Santham – part of Sathyam Cinemas, Royapettah. Some 10-15 minutes after the interval, Raghu asked me if I smelt anything burning. As should be evident by my facial structure, my power of smell is probably the least potent of my senses. But despite that handicap, I did my best to sniff strongly without making a noise and I did sense a burning smell.

Even as we were debating in mild tones as to what it could be, a couple of the staff members were seen running from one door to another; from our left to right to be precise. This running happened a couple of times within a minute and that did seem to attract the attention of a lot of the audience. The others may have mistaken it for some 3D effect in the movie, though thankfully they didn’t applaud.

A lot of thoughts went through my mind about how the public would be informed about the possible fire – Raghu and I pretty much confirmed that viewpoint – and how the evacuation would be done. Would they just sound sirens and ask us to follow the Exit – and I just remembered that they hadn’t shown the customary Fire Exit slide before the movie was screened. Or would they put up some notice on the screen that due to technical issues they won’t be able to screen the movie any further and then ask us to leave?

Were their staff positioned at the right places to guide the crowd? Was the issue localised to just this theatre or all the theatres in that complex? And what happens to the ID restaurant? Won’t it add to the hazard? And if so, what happens to our plans of having dinner there? Where do we go around at 10 in the night for a decent meal?

Obviously all these things went through my head for less than 5 seconds and in the meantime, I did notice that the running around activity of the staff had reduced. As had the burning smell. Like Raghu rightly pointed out right then, the AC had been cut off. We also noticed that one Inspector type of dude walked across the passage where the staff had been running around and we presumed he was some kind of Fire Marshal. Somehow I felt that the fire was under control and started concentrating more on the movie, feeling quite relieved that my dinner at ID wasn’t going to be impacted.

You can read the report about the fire here: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article3590467.ece. And if you can read Tamizh, check this link as well: http://www.dailythanthi.com/article.asp?NewsID=741468&disdate=7/1/2012&advt=2