Tragedy in the morning.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The cold morning was masked in a gray fog of smoke that leapt out of the 15-storey Himalaya House, an office-complex on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, an avenue in Central Delhi’s Connaught Place.

The building caught fire earlier in the morning. It had started due to a short-circuit.

The few bystanders who were at the avenue had their eyes turned towards the flames. Some silently stood beside the Outside Broadcasting vans of TV new channels. An old man walked past a fire brigade van; he did not look up.

The birds were (occasionally) spotted flying with a hurried flapping of wings.

As the smoke spread across the blue sky, the nearby buildings, including the British Council and the American Centre, became less visible.

It took seven hours and one death to bring the fire under control. Jai Bhagwan, a security guard stationed in the building, died of asphyxia.

By late afternoon, the smoke had cleared and the sky was again blue.

The fire last time

1.

2.

3.

4.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.