As we all know, on the night of December 28, 14 people died as the result of a fire on the sixth floor of a building in Kamala Mills, in a restaurant called One Above. As luck would have it, it was not the fire which destroyed the entire premises and the roof that killed the 14. What did them in was the carbon monoxide poisoning secondary to smoke inhalation, which suffocated them. Mick Mayers, who spent 30 years working intimately with fire, tells us, If I were caught in a fire, I would hope the CO got me first. Its a painless way to die. What does one say to those victims who died in this man-made, unforgiveable tragedy? Bless your stars that you died because of CO poisoning and not the fire?

The 14 people who opted to dine at One Above were, ironically, packed off to meet the One Above who stays, it is rumoured, up in heaven. The question is: Who sent them there? Make no mistake, it was the august body which sits in that Victorian architectural masterpiece next to the Central Railway terminus in South Mumbai.