Obsolete: 25 years of poison.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

25 years of poison.

25 years ago to the day, the worst industrial disaster in history took place in Bhopal, India. 8,000 to 10,000 people died within 72 hours; the number of deaths attributable to the release of Methyl isocyanate from the Union Carbide plant has since risen to around 20,000, with as many as half a million affected in some way.

25 years ago to the day, I was born.

In my more spiritual, bullshit, irrational moments, I like to imagine that despite the fact that I came into conciousness long before I was actually delivered, and that reincarnation in any event is laughable, that one of the souls which broke free from its corporeal body in such a brutally painful fashion flew half-way around the world and entered mine as I properly entered the world. Feel free to laugh. It sounds good though.

There is though the most tenuous of further connections. Chances are, I myself wouldn't be here if the youngest of my three elder brothers hadn't died in an accident when he was 5 years old. In a way, I was the replacement, right down to being born on the same day as he was, a coincidence rather than a conscious attempt on the part of my parents, as far as I'm aware. We do incidentally share the same hair colour but not the same personality, although you can't exactly know for sure how his would have changed had his life not been cut so short.

While the personal tragedy of my own existence continues, the genuine tragedy, the outrage which took place in Bhopal goes far beyond ordinary disgrace into extraordinary, deadly farce. As Indra Sinha concludes:

When people ask, "Why is the disaster continuing? Why has the factory not been cleaned? Why have Union Carbide and Dow not faced justice?", the answer is this: Union Carbide's victims are still dying in Bhopal because India itself is dying under the corrupt and self-serving rule of rotten leaders.

For me at least, however bad this sounds, it rather brings things into perspective.

Labels: Bhopal disaster, personal shit