FLOOR 10

The 10th floor is a mound of debris, burning embers and fumes. Some fire-fighters struggle to cut through a twisted iron grille with a giant tool while others are busy snipping off loose ends of burnt-out wires. The heat is unbearable. “Deowaley maarbi naa, porey jabey (Don’t strike the wall, it will crumble),” shouts one fireman to another carrying an iron rod. Piles of plastic sheets and buttons litter the floor. The cracks on the walls are as wide as doors. “It will be impossible to save this floor and the ones above it. The heat from the walls will take at least three days to cool,” said a fireman.

FLOOR 9

The heat is on. It becomes difficult to see through the fumes, despite the afternoon sun shining through a hole in the wall. This floor presents an almost surreal mix of what Nandaram must have been till the night of January 11 and what it is today. A door to the left is wide open, as if welcoming a customer to a gaddi. Only, on Tuesday afternoon, everything — from the thick mattress and pillows to the telephone set and calculator — is afloat. A shelf to the left is untouched by fire or water, with deposit slips, account books, samples of fabrics stapled on a cardboard and visiting cards. In adjoining rooms, there are piles of fabrics and clothes. Elsewhere, there are rows of burnt shops. A cubicle with a lived-in look — a gas stove on a wooden table, the LPG cylinder missing; an iron cot with heaps of clothes dumped on it; utensils piled up. The droplets of scalding hot water from the roof force a hasty retreat.

FLOOR 8

Eighth is the floor where the discomfort really begins. The temperature rises palpably and the air thickens with fumes. A mesh of wires hanging precariously from outside the main electrical board, a criss-cross of hose-pipes and twisted shop shutters.... Huge mounds of what used to be garments in white plastic packs. “If you think this is bad, just go to the floors above,” warns a fireman.

FLOOR 11

As we reach Floor 11, we hear a fire-fighter cry: “Please don’t come in here. Beware of the chemicals.” His face is covered with a handkerchief. The look and feel of the water has changed; it is murky and frothy. The air is so pungent that proceeding without a gas mask seems impossible (the fire-fighters are armed with only handkerchieves). “It’s methane,” explains one of the firemen. The journey ends here.

The sound of water gushing down the stairs, the pungent smell of a building ablaze for 84 hours, and the rising heat and discomfort — Kinsuk Basu of Metro encountered all this and more as he climbed up to the 11th floor of Nandaram Market.

If the lower floors presented a now-unnerving picture of what was business as usual — nameplates atop shops and some samosas in a small cardboard packet with a half-empty bottle of water — the top floors mirrored the devastation that has brought life to a halt in the trade hub of the city from the early hours of Saturday.

(Photographs by Amit Datta and Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)