It was a little before 1 pm when Koushik Choudhary got a call from 'the uncle next door' saying that his house was on fire. "I rushed back from my office on Outer Ring Road to unlock the door so that we could enter," Koushik told City Express.
Koushik, a software engineer who hails from Hyderabad, has been left counting his blessings. "When I opened the door, the smell was so bad, and there was so much smoke everywhere. Uncle told me not to enter since we did not know what might have been damaged inside. The fire entered the house through a wire near the window. The window was smashed and the curtains caught fire. I had left my laptop to charge. The cable had caught fire and was dangerously close to the laptop," he said and added, "If it had reached the laptop, the damages would have been much worse."
This apart, the 32-year-old has lost his new pair of shoes and his mattress.
The smell of smoke and the menace of rats has forced Koushik to stay nights at his colleagues' homes. "I'm going to start searching for another place, but this was so sudden and I haven't even started yet," he confided. Sill in shock, he questioned, "What if it had happened at night or had not caught anyone's notice?"