Book: It was five past midnight in Bhopal

When was the last time you read a book, cover to cover, in one go? I did, a short while ago. In the course of a normal family day in the life with the usual distractions of television news, friends, family and dog, 3 hours to consume 370 pages, non-fiction, full of technical descriptives on the pesticide industry, often hard hitting, never condescending. Another couple of hours to go through the book again.

For many of us in India, the gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, 1984 December, was just that: another industrial disaster in a country where safety at work or at home is an unaffordable luxury. Between 16 and 35 thousand dead, and anything between half and one million people affected. Political vultures, compensation battles and all very soon forgotten in the debris of getting along before the next sunrise.

A pesticide factory, gone to seed because of poor sales. A dangerous production process, the ramifications of which are not divulged even to the management. The whole scenario devolves into shambles as a variety of power-plays try to control and milk whatever is left. That is one part of the book, as it juggles between 270, Park Avenue, New York and the Orya bustee Slum of Bhopal.

Bhopal. A feudal Indian city with connections to the Afghans. Hindu-Muslim tinderbox. More into poetry and society than engineering and industry. Union Carbide, a company which only 25 years ago made 8 out of every 10 shopping bags used by Americans. Sevin, the wonder pesticide that was safe for humans and would provide 500% profit if used. Another part of the book.

India 1970s and 1980s. Indira Gandhi, the Emergency, the Punjab troubles. An agricultural revolution about to go bad. The realities of politics. Organised workers versus contracted labour.

Lots more. Read the book?

(From the blurb: Hundreds of characters, situations and adventures are telescoped into this fresco full of love, heroism, faith and hope. A real tragedy of crucial relevance to our times, which is also a warning to all those sorcerer`s apprentices who threaten the future of our planet.)

Sorcerer`s apprentices?

After reading this book, I decided to get in touch with a "very senior sarkari person" who was part of the Bhopal regime in those days. I have known this person for the past, oh, 15 years, post Bhopal, but never really discussed the gas leak with him. It was one of those subjects, pushed under the carpet and of relevance only when Bhopal agitators caused traffic jams near the Supreme Court or trashed the Union Carbide offices.

This is what he said:- "The book is not 100% accurate." Implying that it should, therefore, not be given any credibility. Obviously in reaction to some of the hard facts of life presented by the authors about the government`s role. So is it 90% accurate, less, more? I don`t know, those of you who live in the Bay Area may wish to get in touch with Eduardo Munoz, now selling wine chillers from Sausalito. He fathered the factory.

Agreed, there are errors, of the railway sort which I can spot and of the chemistry sort which my sister spotted. There may be other errors too. Fine. But there is also deep investigative content of the sort which I had not seen in the Indian media over the last 17 years, too.

So, back to the fundamental question: why is this particular non-fiction book so readable? After all, there exists enough on this epic disaster, already.

I think, as an Indian used to reading increasingly complex reports on most any subject, because it lays out the tale in a very simple manner, juxtaposing the technical details with a "life as viewed from a labourer`s viewpoint" narrative. I think this book was addressed to make sense to those who died or got injured, if they could read, and to try to give them some semblance of an answer. And if in the bargain "accuracy" suffered, then so be it, beats non-information anyday.

But most of all, I think this book was supposed to jog your conscience. If you were an adult Indian in 1984 and never bothered to find out more, shame on you.

At the end of this book, as I digested the little futuristic cameo played out on the topic of geneticaly modified seeds, I realised one more thing, which does impact chowk.com too.

How little we know about the way our countries and the people therein are being manipulated. It takes visitors, scarcely call them outsiders though, like Dominique LaPierra and Javier Moro to walk the talk and tell it to us us like it is. This book is not for the weak kneed. At the end of the day, I had to make myself really small, as I realised how comfortably, without any self-respect, we accept the role of servile desi from bhopal, in contrast to the self-righteousness on display by others over the WTC bombing.

Of Warren Anderson, Chairman of Union Carbide, there is no trace after he managed to "vanish" from Vero Beach, Florida, despite a sovereign promise by him to return to face trial and an Interpol warrant.

Payout? One thousand four hundred dollars per death.

I used to go to Bhopal in the `90s to set courses for motorcycle rallies. I guess nobody spoke about the gas leak; for sure it was never part of the agenda. The thought that maybe I should check it out never arose to me. Mind you, as a shippie in the `70s, I took the effort at great cost then to check out the memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no visible memorial for this gas leak in Bhopal, except the remnants of the factory.

Please forgive me, I have never reviewed a book before. This one has made me lose sleep. It is past three in the morning (night??) here as I type this, and I think I shall read this book again before going to sleep.