Time For a Real Update
Today is the....13th? How does that happen? You wake up one fine morning and bam! Three days have gone by. If a time machine has been invented yet can someone please tell me? I'd like to remember what I did two days ago.
Oh, right...there was another health camp at the Chinghari Trust. Last time the health camp had been for children with congenital defects, and doctors from Delhi had come to see who would qualify for plastic surgery and other operations at their hospitals in the capital. A list is being compiled of the families that are going to go to Delhi, and they will be sent as a group. This time, the doctors were from local hospitals, and I saw many new pre-adolescent faces. There was this one boy, eleven or twelve I'm guessing. The left side of his face was flattened as if someone had ironed out the cheekbone, eye, and ear. But he was just as mischievous as any other pubescent male. After I'd let one of the patients in to see the doctor (that was my job, calling out names and sending kids in), I'd see him on the stairs, grinning in that conniving way that young boys do. And we'd stick our tongues out at each other, competing for who did it first. Maybe its my slow reflexes delayed by twenty-two exruciating years of tongue-sticking-outs. Maybe he was more prepared. Whatever it was, he won ninety percent of the time. It really wasn't fair, because he would wait for us to make eye contact, and then do it immediately afterwards....Whatever, I'm not bitter. Heck, who am I kidding. Let's just say losing to an eleven year old wasn't good for my inflated ego.
Seriously, it was a blast hanging out with the kids, playing ball, consoling them that no, they would not get needles stuck into their butts. Just smiling at them and seeing them light up as they smiled back was worth the painstaking effort it took to stretch my mouth after standing/walking/climbing stairs for seven hours, four of which were spent thinking about food. When our meal of namkeen, samosas, mithai, a banana, and poha was served I gorged it all down within minutes. Back to the children- they are amazing individuals that manage to laugh despite the pain that they are going through, physically and emotionally. I respect them a great deal for the courage they have.
Yesterday was another jam-packed day, spent protesting at the Tata office in Bhopal. Before you get on my case on how Tata is this wonderful corporation that has done nothing but good deeds for progressive Indians everywhere, hear me out. Even better, hear what the Indian Express has to say:
"In a first-of-its-kind corporate move, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has volunteered his services to the UPA government for “remediation” of the Bhopal gas tragedy site to pave the way for Dow Chemicals, now the majority stakeholder of Union Carbide Ltd, to invest in India."
So Tata wants to clean up the factory so Dow can invest in India. The same Dow that has run away from its criminal liabilities for years. We're talking about the multi-billion dollar corporation that is afraid to invest in India, afraid because of the fight the Bhopalis have so admirably been fighting for twenty-two long years. So how does Dow get itself out of the nasty mess it has gotten itself into? Getting an Indian corporation to do the dirty work, of course. How convenient.
Mr. Tata, before you decide to clean up someone else's mess, how about cleaning up Sukhinda, Orissa, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, Mithapur, Gujarat, Jamshedpur, and West Bokaro in Jharkhand? You know, where your factories are.
You can visit http://www.bhopal.net/blog_pr/ if you are interested in getting more information. Or just ask our friend, Mr. Google. Me? I'm boycotting Tata salt and tea. But I don't even drink chai, so that won't be too hard.
Oh, right...there was another health camp at the Chinghari Trust. Last time the health camp had been for children with congenital defects, and doctors from Delhi had come to see who would qualify for plastic surgery and other operations at their hospitals in the capital. A list is being compiled of the families that are going to go to Delhi, and they will be sent as a group. This time, the doctors were from local hospitals, and I saw many new pre-adolescent faces. There was this one boy, eleven or twelve I'm guessing. The left side of his face was flattened as if someone had ironed out the cheekbone, eye, and ear. But he was just as mischievous as any other pubescent male. After I'd let one of the patients in to see the doctor (that was my job, calling out names and sending kids in), I'd see him on the stairs, grinning in that conniving way that young boys do. And we'd stick our tongues out at each other, competing for who did it first. Maybe its my slow reflexes delayed by twenty-two exruciating years of tongue-sticking-outs. Maybe he was more prepared. Whatever it was, he won ninety percent of the time. It really wasn't fair, because he would wait for us to make eye contact, and then do it immediately afterwards....Whatever, I'm not bitter. Heck, who am I kidding. Let's just say losing to an eleven year old wasn't good for my inflated ego.
Seriously, it was a blast hanging out with the kids, playing ball, consoling them that no, they would not get needles stuck into their butts. Just smiling at them and seeing them light up as they smiled back was worth the painstaking effort it took to stretch my mouth after standing/walking/climbing stairs for seven hours, four of which were spent thinking about food. When our meal of namkeen, samosas, mithai, a banana, and poha was served I gorged it all down within minutes. Back to the children- they are amazing individuals that manage to laugh despite the pain that they are going through, physically and emotionally. I respect them a great deal for the courage they have.
Yesterday was another jam-packed day, spent protesting at the Tata office in Bhopal. Before you get on my case on how Tata is this wonderful corporation that has done nothing but good deeds for progressive Indians everywhere, hear me out. Even better, hear what the Indian Express has to say:
"In a first-of-its-kind corporate move, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has volunteered his services to the UPA government for “remediation” of the Bhopal gas tragedy site to pave the way for Dow Chemicals, now the majority stakeholder of Union Carbide Ltd, to invest in India."
So Tata wants to clean up the factory so Dow can invest in India. The same Dow that has run away from its criminal liabilities for years. We're talking about the multi-billion dollar corporation that is afraid to invest in India, afraid because of the fight the Bhopalis have so admirably been fighting for twenty-two long years. So how does Dow get itself out of the nasty mess it has gotten itself into? Getting an Indian corporation to do the dirty work, of course. How convenient.
Mr. Tata, before you decide to clean up someone else's mess, how about cleaning up Sukhinda, Orissa, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, Mithapur, Gujarat, Jamshedpur, and West Bokaro in Jharkhand? You know, where your factories are.
You can visit http://www.bhopal.net/blog_pr/ if you are interested in getting more information. Or just ask our friend, Mr. Google. Me? I'm boycotting Tata salt and tea. But I don't even drink chai, so that won't be too hard.
posted by Pragya | 5:20 AM
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