Life goes on...

Twenty-two years after the tragedy, being around the Union Carbide factory will give you the goosebumps. Really. We visited the area yesterday, led by a group of enthusiastic four-foot-somethings who were more than happy to gain the attention of the Americans in our posse. The ground's contamination was evident by the lack of grassy growth, and the air reeked of something pleasant. Chemicals are not supposed to smell pleasant, but the smell around the factory was definitely different, a floral freshness. But I didn't see any flowers, nor had the area been scrubbed by Lysol recently. The strange odor didn't seem to bother the kids that were asking me about my mehndi-ed hand. They claimed to play in these open fields all the time, deeper in than we dared to go, for fear of being affected by the smell. We even ran into children playing cricket near the factory at that time, and they didn't seem to mind. There was a large wall along the road which separated the factory grounds from that side of the streets, but a few turns into narrow alleys and stepping over half broken stone bridges led us to a line of small cement shanties that were a stone's throw away from the factory. There was no wall that protected these people, only a few trees that were shabbily leafed. One of the boys I talked to looked 8 or 9. He claimed he was 12 years old. Others had spots on their lips or differently colored irises. Despite all of this, they were kids, joking around, talking about the circus they were going to go to, asking question after question. This was their reality and our worst nightmare.

So I think I finally have some idea of what I will be doing as my long-term project here. Of course there will be the daily translations from Hindi to English or vice versa, visiting the gas-affected and water-affected communities with the health workers, data entry, working in the pathology lab, etc. In addition, there is a Population Based Cancer Registry (PBCR) that is supposed to collect cancer data from each hospital in Bhopal. They claim that the chemicals in the gas didn't cause cancer and through a Right to Information application filed by Rachna, we found out what hospitals they claim to go to and how many times a week/month/year they go there. My job would be to visit as many of these 64 private and public hospitals that I can and confirm whether the PBCR does indeed come as often as they say they do, and if not then when. We are debating whether I should go under the guise of someone working for Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) or a medical student working on a project looking at the cancer diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up process in Bhopal. I've always fancied myself as a journalist, but that might be romanticizing it a little too much :)

There is a small boy named Altaf whose twinkling eyes and flawless complexion are beauty exemplified. He's in the first grade and loves anything to do with putting a pen on paper, whether it be writing the alphabet or drawing. He drew a picture of me that was the exact clone of his depiction of Kate, and Jen, and Tony, and Michael. Today he discovered he can read when I showed him how to put two letters together. He is a real bright kid, already reading three-letter words with ease. I doubt I learned how to read that quickly. His mother is a sanitation worker at the clinic, and he keeps himself busy by hanging out with the volunteers, riding on the portable ferris wheel outside, making up games, and just using his imagination in general. And he has the cutest singing voice :)

In the evening, we went to Shahid Noor's place for an Eid dinner. He is one of the survivors of the Bhopal disaster and leads the solar lantern project that Aid-Austin is currently funding. The two rooms of his home were brightly decorated, the steel utensils gleaming clean under the single lamp that lit up the living room. His three children, Aman, Anshu, and Muskan were just as hospitable as their parents and fed us chhole, chapatis, and a desert called seviyan. Even though the place was small, their love for Rachna and Sathyu seemed immeasurably large. Watching their interactions made me smile, and though I barely spoke, I thoroughly enjoyed being there with them on such a joyous occasion. The girls had started developing spots on their face, which their parents said was because of the water which is contaminated. That is what really breaks my heart. These kids are the same as kids anywhere else, if not more passionate about life. They too have dreams and aspirations, and yet they are inflicted with such problems by no fault of their own. But they were jumping around, and Aman, their youngest, was stealing chocolates from his sisters. I noticed the same thing when I went out with Taznim, one of the community health workers, today. We visited the houses of numerous girls to check on their period regularity or lack thereof, and symptoms they experienced. Some were doing fine because of the treatment they were receiving at Sambhavna, while others hadn't menstruated for months. Even though pain and suffering is a constant presence in their lives, marriages are taking place, cricket games are being won, Eid is being celebrated. Even though they've been through so much, they continue to be tested. Life goes on for these people. How can it not?