It was a night like any other in the sleepy town of Bhopal, a bit colder. 4 year old Karim snuggled closer to his mother. His father turned over to face him on the other side, covering Karim with a part of his blanket. Yes, it was definitely colder and the little family of three tried its best to ignore the cold and go to sleep.
Their shack was a small one, one of the hundreds that filled the shanty towns lining the walls of the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, the one that Karim’s father worked at, as did the fathers of his friends. Tonight his father decided not to go to work as it was cold and he was unwell. Karim loved the days his father was at home. It meant he could listen to stories that his father would narrate of his own childhood in a small village. For Karim, who had grown up playing in the narrow alleys between these shacks, the stories his father told of green fields full of corn, sparkling blue rivers where one could catch fishes with bare hands, and climbing trees full of mangoes, was nothing less than fairy tales. He would tell his father, “Abba, when I grow up I will not work in a factory, I will work in a field. Bhola also wants to work in a field. We will grow lots and lots of corn.” Today’s story was about an old peepul tree near the river, where his father and his friends would catch ghosts. He must tell it to Bhola tomorrow.
Karim closed his eyes, imagining himself lying on the bank of a river, looking up at the sun. He felt warm. Almost warm enough to go to sleep. Suddenly, he felt too warm. His mother was shaking him awake, calling out to his father and him, “Get up! Someone is burning red chillies! We have to get out!” Karim sat up and rubbed his eyes open. He could feel the burning too. Not understanding what was happening, he ran out with his Abba and Ammi. There was smoke all around, and he could see a big cloud on the factory. He saw his friend Bhola lying on the ground outside his shack. Rubbing his burning eyes, he moved towards him to pick him up, but was pulled back sharply by his father.
“Come on Karim, run!” shouted his mother, covering her mouth and nose with the edge of her saree. He ran behind her; the smoke was denser now and he felt as if someone had pushed him into fire. He couldn’t breathe and his eyes were streaming with tears even though he was not crying. Unable to see anything, he tried to feel his way forward, pushed along by others running in the same direction.
“Ammi! Abba! I can’t see you, where are you?!” he called loudly, but did not hear any response. Somewhere, someone called out his name, but he could not see who it was. He was finding it hard to breathe now, and his mouth felt full of water that burnt. Someone ran past him, pushing him down into the mud. He lay there, until someone’s foot caught his head and knocked him out.
Today, December 3, 2015, marks 31 years of the Bhopal Union Carbide Disaster, commonly referred to as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, one of the worst Industrial catastrophes till date that occurred due to the negligence of a handful of people; a day when 15,274 stories came to an end. A day that has caused 35,000 more stories to end before they were complete and changed the stories that could have been for another 1,00,000 people. We, at Tell-A-Tale, pay homage to all the lives that have been lost on that day and since then.
“…without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering…” – The one time Dolores Umbridge got it right.
—
