For ghazal singer Talat Aziz, Friday, October 2, was like any other day at home. In the evening, he was watching television in the living room of his Juhu duplex apartment, while his wife Bina was upstairs and their sons were in their rooms. Within minutes, however, the family found itself fighting for survival as a fire rapidly engulfed their home.

“I think there was an electric short circuit. And the funny part is that it was one of the ACs that wasn’t even on at that time,” says Aziz.

What followed was a terrifying 15 minutes that he says he will never forget. “I’ve never seen a fire spread so fast. In 15 minutes, the whole house was engulfed in black smoke and raging flames.”

The family had fire extinguishers, but there was little they could do as the flames spread rapidly. Aziz and his sons were on the ground floor, while his wife Bina was trapped upstairs in the bedroom.

“My sons and I could not even go up the stairs to rescue Bina. She was in the bedroom, locked. But then she managed to escape through the bathroom window. My son who was on the ground floor outside, spotted a ladder that had been kept there because construction work was underway in the building. He took the ladder and put it against the wall. Thankfully, it was exactly the right height. Bina managed to squeeze out of the bathroom window and then they brought her down.”

The family eventually made it out, covered in soot and struggling to breathe. “It was a horrifying fire and all of us had a miraculous escape. My sons were running around. We were all black, with the soot all around.”

The ambulance arrived and the family was rushed to hospital. Doctors found that they had inhaled significant amounts of smoke and carbon monoxide and admitted them to the ICU for observation. “They wanted us to be monitored to check if everything was okay and wanted to keep us for another day. But since we were fine, we asked to be discharged on Saturday afternoon.”

The living room and dining area have been completely gutted. Glass, furniture, paintings and belongings were destroyed. “The whole apartment is black and burnt down. I haven’t been able to see everything properly. There are some paintings left upstairs, I think, but I don’t know in what state. Everything is just black and burnt down,” he says.

Yet, amid the devastation, Aziz says he is trying to hold on to what matters most. “Yes, it’s been traumatic. We still have to process it all. We have lost stuff in the fire, but the very fact that we came out alive, that’s important. That’s the biggest. Anything could have happened. It was a major fire. I am still trying to recover. We hadn’t slept the whole night for the last two nights.”

In the middle of the trauma, however, Aziz says he has been deeply moved by the response from friends, neighbours and well-wishers.

“We have been staying at a hotel and on Monday we will temporarily move into a fully furnished four-bedroom apartment in Santa Cruz that our friend who is in Hong Kong offered us. They have said we can stay there as long as we need to, till the time everything is sorted out.”

The offers of help have come from across the music fraternity. “The goodwill is amazing,” he says. “Sonu (Sonu Nigam) just called me from New Zealand or Australia, wherever he is. He said, ‘Talat ji, my house is yours, you can come and stay.’ Anup Jalota also called to offer help, while several neighbours invited us into their homes. I am touched by all the love. The outpouring of love and concern is unreal. I’ve got millions of messages. I can’t even reply to all of them. We had not told anyone, but the fire department put out the whole story on Saturday. After it was out in the news, people haven’t stopped texting.”

“From today we are starting the process of cleaning and rebuilding. There’s so much to be cleaned first. Debris has to be taken and thrown out. I have asked the building authorities to conduct a fire audit of the entire building.”

He is grateful for the speed with which emergency services responded. “Everyone has come forward to help and I’m really grateful to all of them. Even the authorities were so quick to respond, which I’m really, really grateful for. The fire department, the police, the ambulance — within 15-20 minutes they were there. The whole building would have been gutted if they didn’t arrive on time.”