The Loyola College Chennai hostels were one of a kind. Most of us who began by hating them, ended up loving them. I had for a couple of years something that was called the ‘turret room’. So called because of its octagonal shape, the room was quite an impractical one and inconvenient because of its small width walls. But the room was quaint and it grew on me.

The hostel rooms were very spartan and were furnished only with a cot, a writing/study table and a chair. We had no option but to add a table fan to help us beat the Madras heat.

While many of my friends were smokers, I was an exception. A teetotaller and non-smoker to boot. So my room was not equipped with basics like bottle openers and ashtrays.

A friend dropped by one evening to chat and since he was a smoker he landed up using my cane waste paper basket as an ashtray. We were in the middle of exams so I encouraged him to leave soon which he did.

The moment he did I took my place behind the desk and started to cram. The room’s single tungsten light was focused on to my books and my studies seemed to be going good. Suddenly there was some voltage fluctuation and the light flickered. Since this was normally a sign that we were going to loose power for a while, I silently cursed and in the same breath prayed that the Electricity God should show some kindness to students like me.

But the flickering light conditions persisted. And I was losing concentration.

Suddenly I felt a certain warmth around my legs. And since I had converted to the traditional Lungi attire of Madras, the warmth was a strange feeling. The flickering increased and so did the warmth. And I couldn’t figure out the connection between the two.

For some unknown reason I stepped back to stretch or something and stopped in shock. My cane waste paper basket was on fire. Obviously the stub my friend had dropped into it refused to die and ignited some papers that were there in the first place.

Now it struck me. The warmth was due to the flames emanating from the basket. And the flickering light conditions had nothing to do with voltage fluctuation but were just a function of the dancing flames.

Luckily I had a pot of water (yes, we used to store water in earthen pots those days) and I used it to douse the fire. Only when I was looking at the smouldering remains of my basket did I realise how close I had come to a disaster.

I decided then that even though I was not a smoker, I should invest in a couple of ashtrays. Perhaps that was the beginning…

a few years later I was a smoker, and a heavy one at that. But then, that’s a different story.