A 24-year-old woman was sitting on a sofa 40ft above Rashbehari Avenue, holding a two-month-old baby tight. Vineeta Keswani had only one thought on her mind - how to reach the infant safely to her mother, who was standing on an adjoining terrace, her hands outstretched.

Hours later, Vineeta was in tears while recounting the horror at dawn to Metro. "We could have met with the same fate," she kept muttering, looking at the burnt remains of her house. Excerpts of her account.

 

I was at a loss trying to figure out what would be safer - to walk or crawl across the sofa. What would be safer for my tiny niece in my arms?

I don't know why but I decided to sit and drag myself. When I stepped on the sofa, my brother, who was still on our terrace, handed me his two-month-old daughter.

My sister-in-law, who was on the other terrace, was stretching out her arms to take the baby from me. I had to cross the gap fast as the sofa had started bending under the weight of the four people who had crossed over before me.

My only concern was to safely hand over my niece to my sister-in-law and then allow my brother to quickly escape the black smoke, which had by then filled our terrace.

Earlier, bhaiya had tried to go downstairs to get some help but he failed to make his way through the smoke. He fortunately found one of our sofas on the terrace. It had been lying there since his room was renovated a month-and-a-half ago.

When we realised that it was impossible to go down the dark smoke-filled staircase, we decided to go up. Much to our horror, the terrace door was initially not opening.

It was after several attempts that papa could unlock it. He goes up to the terrace every morning to feed the birds....

Our house is all burnt now. Even yesterday we were sitting in the hall, chatting. It all seems so different now. We could have been here and met with the same fate as our rooms.

My brother's room was recently renovated for my niece, and my nephew was so excited about the butterfly room (one of the walls had images of butterflies on it). Now they are all black and burnt.