“Dummm-duh-du-dumm-du-dummm-aaaahhhh-tisshhhhh-pssssssssss-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh” The sudden cacophony—of screams tangled in between the sounds of metal clanging to the floor in a hissss of what could only described as angry hot water hitting the floor—pierced our otherwise silent home. I don’t remember running the 15-odd feet to get to the bathroom. I only remember the feeling of utter terror I felt at the thought of 3-year old Keshav who I was supposed to bathe in a few minutes. I don’t remember the heat of the water or the steam that engulfed the room as I rushed in. I only remember the feeling of panic as I picked up a shrieking Keshav off the floor and dashed to the bedroom. I don’t remember who offered me a towel or whose voice asked me what happened or who was holding me as I held Keshav. I only remember his crying face as my spinning mind jumped rapidly from one terrible possibility to the next.
I didn’t know then what had happened, and we wouldn’t know for another 15 minutes until we pieced together what happened from the fallen pieces in the bathroom—the huge metal drum and stool askew on their sides, and a wire dangling off a power point on the wall leading down to a heating coil grazing the floor, like a kid whose legs are too short for the chair she’s in. I didn’t know then that little Keshav had bobbed into the bathroom, a few minutes early for his bathing appointment, found a huge gleaming copper drum twice his size with light glinting off its polished surface in a way that only tiny kids and tinier birds seem to find tantalising, and tried to touch it, because why not. I didn’t know that not only was the surface of the drum hot (as it was supposed to be, with the heating coil plugged in and placed into the water), but that it was also buzzing with electricity from leaky insulation in the coil. I didn’t know that Keshav had touched it, felt the shock, and somehow managed to peel his hand off the drum, dislodging it in the process, and bringing it crashing down with hot water pouring out all around. I didn’t know then that somehow he miraculously escaped the drum clanging to a halt on the floor and the water hissing as it hit the floor. All I knew, with tears in my eyes and a tight knot in my stomach, was that Keshav wouldn’t stop crying in pain, that he’d gotten hurt, and that I’d let him.
Over the next ten minutes, we turned him around to see if he’d been bumped or burnt or bruised, none of which he was, thankfully. We tried to pick him up to get him out of his wet clothes and into dry ones, quite the challenge with his flailing arms and legs. And we tried to figure out what had happened. And through it all he never stopped crying
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To be continued
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