Delhi fire: The marble floor, roofs and walls of the house were razed.
On Monday, when the world was celebrating Diwali, their world was reduced to ashes.
Vandana Verma had gone out with her husband and son to a relative's home on Diwali evening when a stray firecracker - a rocket - likely entered her home through the balcony and a fire started.
Neighbours filmed the flames leaping out of the windows.
By the time the family returned to their two-bedroom home in Dwarka on the outskirts of Delhi, the fire brigade had put out the fire. But their home and everything in it, including clothes and appliances, had been destroyed.
"Diwali is an important festival for us. I had made a rangoli with flowers. We came back for Diwali puja at our home," Vandana told NDTV, showing images on her phone.
She and her husband bought the house a year after their wedding. She showed the remains of her son's study table. Her son, in the seventh grade, has lost all his books.
The family doesn't have clothes to wear.
"The life that we had built in this house for 13 years...is now scrap. Our computer, piano, AC, inverter, TV, fridge, laptop...everything gone...It is a very shocking day for us..." she wept.
The marble floor, roofs and walls of the house were razed.
"By God's grace the neighbours escaped the fire. I appeal to the government to strictly ban firecrackers. I also request people to stop bursting crackers. This is a congested area. Even a sparkler can be dangerous. And here they used a rocket," she said.
Firecrackers are banned in Delhi, which struggles with pollution and virtually unbreathable air at this time of the year. But like every year, thousands of residents defied the ban on Diwali night.
The Delhi fire department received 201 calls related to fire incidents on Diwali, 32 per cent higher than the last year.