Fire safety paramount as candles find their way into more homes
The accident at a Gurugram hotel, where a couple received burn injuries from a lighted candle kept in the reception area, is a strong reminder of the burn and fire hazards from candles and the need for exercising utmost caution while using them.
As a general rule, candles should always be placed on noninflammable, stable, flat surfaces, so that they do not start a fire or fall on someone. It is also important to keep them at such spots where people do not accidentally come in contact with them-this is particularly important in public places. They are also to be kept away from flammable objects like curtains, wood furniture and paper. Two years ago, a television actor in Mumbai received burn injuries on her hands and neck from a fire started by an aroma candle kept in her bedroom-the curtains in the bedroom first caught fire from the candle and it spread.
It is also extremely important to keep candles away from balloons and I specifically refer to birthday parties here, where balloons could well be filled with the highly combustible hydrogen gas. In April this year, a joyous birth day party turned tragic for Sanjana, a young resident of Mysuru, Karnataka- she suffered serious burn injuries on her hand and face. The video of the tragic incident that went viral on social media, shows the beaming girl standing amidst pink and black balloons, with the birthday cake in front of her. As her friends watch, she lights the sparkling candle on the cake and immediately there are explosions, as a spark from the candle hits a balloon and starts a chain reaction.
In July last year, a woman in Texas, United States, suffered burn injuries on her face, when she tried to blow out a vanillascented candle. Apparently, she found the flame unusually high and decided to blow it out. She tried to do so twice and failed and on the third attempt, it just blew up in her face. I must mention that the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the US regularly orders recall of unsafe candles and often, the reason is the high and erratic flame.
Once upon a time, candles were used in India only during power outages. Subsequently, they replaced the traditional diyas during Deepawali and now candles are used for deco- rations, for their aroma and for creating the right ambience on special occasions. So here are a few safety tips for their use indoors.
Choose candles whose shapes give them stability and therefore are less likely to fall. Also, choose those with a well-centred wick. If it is stuck to a side, there is every possibility of the burning wick coming in close contact with the sidewalls of the container, damaging or breaking it. And if you use candles for long periods, buy only natural candles made of bees wax, without artificial colours or fragrance.
Before lighting the candle, trim the wick to one quarter of an inch so as to ensure that the flame does not become too big. It is also better to extinguish the candle when there is still some wax left- about half an inch if it is in a container and about two inches if it is without a container. It is also good to turn it off if it repeatedly flickers, smokes or the flame is too high. The safe way to kill the flame without any unpleasant smoke or smell is by using a pair of tweezers or pincers to bend the wick down until it is fully submerged in the liquid wax.
Keep the candles in well-ventilated rooms, but away from drafts and flammable substances. And always extinguish the candle when you leave the room or go to sleep. NEWDELHI:A performance about a story of two friends – one Hindu and one Muslim – and how partition affected their lives, won hearts at Connaught Place’s Central Park on Sunday afternoon.
‘Topi ki Dastan’, a 90-minute production by Wings Cultural Society, began with six performers – four men and two women seated on a white mattress. At the outset rested an X-shaped foldable book (rehal), used for placing religious texts. The rehal, placed in front of the artists, caught the attention of the audience at the packed open-air auditorium.
As the show, adapted from 1960’s Hindi novel “Topi Shukla”, penned by Rahi Masoom Raza, continued, six artists wearing caps (topis) representing different political parties kept narrating event after event in the lives of the two childhood friends – Balbhadra Narayan Shukla or Topi and Zargham Hussain or Iffan in the form of a dastan, a 13th century Urdu oral storytelling art. The narrators told the story of two friends, who had different religious identities, bond over bicycles and grandmothers’ stories before their friendship fell apart due to Partition.
“The lotus symbol on a topi (cap) means the person who wears it is a BJP supporter, a cycle symbol-wearing person is a Samajwadi Party supporter and a broom on the cap means he/she is an Aam Aadmi Party supporter,” Tarique Hameed, the director of the production, said. “But, there is no topi for an Indian,” Hameed, who also played a narrator and one of the ‘Topis’, said to thunderous applause from the audience. To addcontemporarypoliticalreferences, the director had modified the original novel to give the story a satirical edge. Instead of two characters in the novel originally, the performance had six artists narrating the story.
With the Tricolour flying in the backdrop, the performers used voice modulations to describe some of the powerful scenes from the novel. “We don’t eat anything touched by miyans (Muslims),” one of the ‘topis’, a Brahmin, said when he visited Iffan’s house. The conversation led to the formation of Pakistan in post-independent India. “We are not here to talk about how Hindus and Muslims are bhai-bhai (brothers)?” Hameed asked during the performance. “In our homes, do we tell our brothers that we are bhaibhai?” he said.
The show was part of the ongoing Urdu heritage festival which began on Saturday. The festival is being organised by the Delhi government.
“I had heard about the novel but they have modernised it, which makes it more interesting,” Ankit Kumar, one of the hundreds present, said. NEWDELHI:SIX cops patrolling west Delhi streets on the recently launched ‘Raftaar’ motorcycles arrested two suspected snatchers after chasing their two-wheeler for almost 5km in the narrow lanes between Ramesh Nagar and Kirti Nagar last week. One of the policemen was injured in the operation after the two men rammed their bike into his.
Police said 13 cases of snatching and theft were solved with the arrest of the two men, identified as Harpreet Singh alias Preet, 27, and Harpreet Singh alias Honey, 26. A country-made gun was also recovered from them.