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Journalism of Courage
A day in the life of Abdul Majeed Sheikh
Fireman,Srinagar
Sheikhs life revolves round a big metal alarm bell that hangs in the fire station. When the bell rings,it means Sheikh has to rush to the fire tender
Last week,Abdul Majeed Sheikh was loitering in the garden when the bell rang. He rushed to the garage,jumped on to a fire tender and left for Khanyar in old Srinagar city. In five minutes,he was outside the shrine of Sheikh Syed Abdul Qadir Jeelani,fighting the blaze and an unruly crowd.
Sheikhs life revolves round the big metal bell that hangs in the fire station at Babademb,less than two kilometers from the shrine in old Srinagar. When the bell tollscalled turnout in the fireman lingoit means Sheikh has to rush towards the fire tender,no matter where he is or what he is doing. Sheikh,whose family is in Budgam,lives on the fire station campus with 14 other firemen.
Sheikhs day starts at dawn. After a six-hour sleepmost of the nights disturbed by the turnoutsSheikh gets ready for breakfast. Mostly fires break out during the night,and I have my breakfast only when I get back to the fire station after work, he says. We dont make any plans for the day or for the night because we never know when a fire will break out.
Many times,it is not only the raging fire that Sheikh has to control but also rising tempers of the peopleas was seen at the Khanyar shrine where the mob damaged more than six fire tenders and beat up many of Sheikhs colleagues. When we leave on a call,we have only one fear at the back of our mindshow will the people behave? Sheikh says. Most of the times,they are angry. They feel we are late. They expect us to be there when the first smoke billows out. They expect us to put out the fire in a minute. It takes us some time to reach the spot. We are not magicians. We are fire fighters.
At the fire station,firemen take turns to man the fire posta control room that receives calls from the people and the headquarters of the fire services in Srinagar. The man on duty at the fire post rings the bell and the firemen rush out of their barracks,sometimes jump out of their beds in the dark of night. The fire tenders rush out of the garage. On their way,the man in the control room directs them about the location and remains in constant touch with them, Sheikh says. He cant leave the fire post unless the men return,even if they only return after a day or two.
When Sheikh and his colleagues put out the fire,they take a sigh of relief but it doesnt mean the end of their work. We cant enter the fire station with empty fire tenders. Water is our ammunition, he says. We drive straight to the nearest water source to fill the tanks. We get ourselves ready for another operation if we get a call on the way. And if they dont get a call,they return to their fire station,check their equipment and machines before jumping into their beds.
When we are at the spot,we dont pay any heed to the abuses or the violence by people. If we do,we cant work, Sheikh says. We jump into the fire. We put our lives at risk because we feel it our duty to safeguard the life and property of our people. When we are at work,we think of the property on fire as our own. A fireman will never jump into the fire if he thinks otherwise.
In the conflict-ridden Valley,putting off a fire is not easy. I remember instances when we doused fire while militants and security forces exchanged fire, says Sheikh. Once there was an encounter and I was asked to retrieve the body of a foreign militant from a burning house. I brought the body out but the ammunition pouches and the grenades fell in the fire. There was a huge explosion. I was thrown down the ladder but survived.
Not everyone has been lucky to survive such mishaps. In the past two decades,the department has lost 44 firemen to bullets or fires.
More fires break out in Kashmir Valley than in Jammu due to the use of wood in construction and storage of charcoal and wood in houses for use in winters. In the past five years,the Fire and Emergency Services department has received 14,978 fire calls from the Valley alone.
At the Khanyar shrine,Sheikh was among the first firemen to enter the shrine. He helped people guard the holy relics. It was all smooth for the first few minutes, he says. Suddenly,some people turned violent. They started beating us. Even an old man who sent me inside to safeguard a relic abused me when I handed it over to him.
