The Mirza Chronicles – Chapter 1: Mirza and the Fire Extinguishers

Preface: Mirza is a fictionalized and combined version of the several fascinating people I've met in my 28 odd years on this strange planet. I will be recounting various stories like this one, some weirder than others and I'm gonna call it the Mirza chronicles.

Mirza was, for the lack of a better expression, “a regular Joe”. The only distinguishing feature about him was his height and build. But he kind of cancelled those features out with his meek demeanor, if you know what I mean.

At that time, Mirza was staying with his friends at Indira Niwas, which was at a walking distance from Vista Do Rio, the hotel where he was carrying out his summer internship. Indira Niwas is a legendary house and this is one of the many stories associated with the place.

Mirza was a teetotaler, striking a stark contrast to his housemates who were habitual drinkers and dopers. But they got along well and that’s all that mattered. In the winter of ’09, Mirza was working night shift at the resort’s front office department. This meant that for most part of the night, all he had to do was mind an empty lobby, print some reports out and munch on fries that the kitchen sent to him before they closed for the night. He liked the night shift.

He would get off early in the morning at around 4am and come home to a dirty disheveled floor scattered with unconscious adolescents, day in and day out. He woke up around noon and by that time, his housemates were already up and about on their way. So, he would laze off, order food and laze off some more till 6pm. Then he would get ready for his shift. For some 3 months that season, this was his routine. Except for that one morning, when Mirza came home to all the Fire Extinguishers.

It was a strange morning, which was preceded by a strange evening. A group of Japanese tourists had checked in at the Vista Do Rio that evening and some of them had taken special interest on Mirza, making his job way more frustrating than it had to be. He was dead tired by the time all the Japs were assigned rooms and the rest of the night was uneventful.

There was some problem with the internet connection that evening so Mirza couldn’t log into his social media accounts to kill time and hence it felt like a long long night.

So his mind was rather numb when he walked home at 4:15 am. Indira Niwas never needed locks and keys. Anyone could walk in and it was okay because there wasn’t really anything to steal in there. When Mirza waltzed into his room, a bright red fire extinguisher greeted him near the shoe rack. It was odd but it didn’t bother our protagonist. It was the second and third extinguishers, each larger than the earlier that caught his attention. There was an eerie silence in the house, which was strange even for 4am in the morning. There weren’t any fans running nor any music playing, not even the light humming sound from anyone’s headphones. The house indeed was vacant. And that was a reason for concern.

Usually, Mirza wouldn’t care about the lack of people, but coupled with the fire extinguishers, it seemed like a reason for concern. He called up his housemates but nobody received his calls. The night was getting more ominous by the minute. Was someone hurt? Were his mates at the hospital? And if yes, how did the fire extinguishers involved? What role did those play? He decided to step out and look around.

The silence of the dawn hit him hard. The sun was yet to rise and the people in the neighborhood were still asleep. Mirza came across a jogger after a little while and thought about asking him what was going on. That’s when the futility of it all struck him. How in the world was the jogger supposed to know the whereabouts of the dopers of Indira Niwas? Regular folks in that neighborhood usually pretended like these guys didn’t exist, such was their effect on the society.

So Mirza, like any of his friends would have done in his situation, decided to go back and sleep the confusion off. And it certainly worked. When he woke up, his roommates had magically appeared around him. They were scattered like dust all over the place, which was usual. A couple of them were spooning the fire extinguishers too, which frankly, wasn’t a treat to the eyes. But they were all there. Mirza even took an inventory. Later that day, they recounted the memoir of their last night’s escapades.

The earlier evening, after having smoked the good stuff, his friends had stepped out to get food. Short on cash, one of them visited a nearby ATM machine. Now the last available balance in his account had been Rs. 810/-. But when he tried to withdraw Rs. 800, his transaction was declined. Apparently, the bank had debited Rs. 20 from his account for transactions at other bank ATMs. Enraged at this, he had decided to get back at “bank man” by stealing the fire extinguisher at that ATM.

When he’d returned to Indira Niwas with that fire extinguishers and no cash, the other dopers had decided that it wasn’t revenge enough. So they raided another 2 or 3 ATMs and stole their fire extinguishers as well. And they had stepped out to get another one when Mirza had gotten back from work. That was the story behind the missing dopers.

Mirza often wondered why he lived with these outcasts. The answer was actually very simple. He was an outcast too, and maybe more of a deviant than these guys. But that’s a story I will tell you in the upcoming parts of the Mirza Chronicles.

Stay tuned.