A 30-year-old filmmaker, Vinusha Sundaresan, has been left homeless and forced to live in an expensive pet-friendly hotel in Mumbai despite once living next to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Her residence was turned into a pile of ashes following an explosion in her air conditioner (AC) compressor that led to a fire on May 15. Vinusha, claims two mechanics from Urban Company had been called to repair her AC compressor as it had stopped cooling, but the “explosion took place minutes after they left her house”.

The massive fire engulfed two water tanks, washing machines, expensive clothes, a CCTV camera, plants and doors, among other things. The woman had a narrow escape in the incident. “Today, the situation would have been different had I been on that floor. But I was doing my laundry on the fifth floor where the washing machine was kept,” said Vinusha, who owns the fourth and fifth floors of Engineer House.