777 the Newsletter of the Bhopal Medical Appeal, Autumn 2007

777 The newsletter of the Bhopal Medical Appeal, Autumn 2007

Amir, 8, is one of hundreds of children born malformed in poisoned Bhopal SPECIAL REPORT: BHOPAL’S DAMAGED CHILDREN how many morE? The newsletter of the Bhopal Medical Appeal Autumn 2007 Bhopal, a brief background Bhopal’s poisoned children: T HIS FAMOUS, TERRIBLE & TENDER PICTURE was taken by MAGNUM photographer Raghu Rai on the morning after the night of horror in Bhopal, on December 3, 1984, when a huge cloud of poison 500 times more toxic than cyanide spewed from a factory belonging to the cruellest injustice of all Union Carbide Corporation. Thousands died in the most hideous ways. As the sun rose on piles of corpses, Raghu found himself in a graveyard where a man was burying WHEN THE BHOPAL MEDICAL solely to your generosity, is the only EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Bhopal his young daughter. The father had covered the tiny body but then, Appeal was founded in 1994, on the medical facility in Bhopal offering Medical Appeal was registered as unable to bear parting from her, brushed the earth away for one last look. 10th anniversary of the gas-disaster, free treatment to people who are ill an independent charity. We’ll have For Bhopalis this picture has come to symbolise more than two we did not yet know the extent of from the water-borne poisons. Not more on this, and our new trustees, decades of unimaginable suffering, an injustice that has never been righted, crimes that continue to go unpunished, and a community that the damage that had been inflicted officially recognised as victims of in our Spring 2008 issue, when most of the world has forgotten. on the people of Bhopal. Union Carbide they have had no we’ll also unveil plans to share the Today in Bhopal, well over 100,000 people are still chronically sick Five slow years passed before a compensation whatsoever for the medical expertise we have gained in from the gases of that night, while some 26,000 more are suffering from 1999 Greenpeace report exposed appalling illnesses that afflict them Bhopal – in particular of treating illnesses caused by poisoning of their wells and stand-pipes by chemicals the scale of the second catastrophe and their families. chemically-induced illnesses with leaking from the plant, which remains derelict and full of poisons. Union Carbide and its owner Dow Chemical continue to deny responsibility for – the slow, systematic poisoning of non-drug therapies – to benefit the water poisoning and refuse to clean up the factory. the drinking water of local people WE ARE THRILLED to announce poisoned people the world over. 777 by dangerous chemicals abandoned that Sambhavna has been joined in We are already exploring ways WHY IS THE NEWSLETTER CALLED 777? by Union Carbide in its factory. the vital work of caring for Bhopal’s to share our knowledge with the saat saat saat 777 in Hindi and Urdu is which with a slight twist of the For a decade, Union Carbide damaged children by the Chingari chemically-devastated community Photos by tongue also means together, together, together. The Bhopal Medical Appeal RAGHU RAI is an effort of ordinary people round the world to bring free medical help had known that the soil and water in Trust, founded by two inspirational of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan and MAUDE DORR to victims of the gas and water disasters. Who are we? We’re survivors, its plant were lethal, for a decade it survivors’ leaders, both old friends with those treating banana workers RACHNA DHINGRA Sambhavna and Chingari staff in Bhopal, donors, volunteers, supporters kept silent. Today the horrific effects of ours. In 2004 Rashida Bee and poisoned by nemagon in central and ANDY MOXON and organisers in the UK and elsewhere. We’re all equal, all together, of the chemicals are seen in the Champa Devi Shukhla were jointly south America. Nearer home, and MICHAEL PATAULT and all together we’re the Bhopal Medical Appeal. DAN SINHA births of hundreds of malformed awarded the prestigious Goldman thanks to our partnership with F.C.

GIVING SOMETHING BACK and brain-damaged children, often Environmental Prize , described by United of Manchester, children in Design by We have learned a great deal about treating chemically- and industrially- to people already sick from Union the Guardian as ‘the Nobel Prize for Lancashire suffering from asthma JAMRACH & SONS induced illnesses with therapies that do not add to the body’s toxic load. Carbide’s gases. the Environment’. and diabetes may soon benefit from We are looking to share knowledge with people and organisations all This issue of 777 documents Despite themselves being poor, yoga programmes developed and Editorial over the world who may benefit from it. Ideas welcome. INDRA SINHA some of those stories. It has taken a Rashida and Champa donated their proven successful at Sambhavna. KATE BOOTLE DONATIONS (NO STAMP NEEDED) CANBEPOSTEDTO: year to collate, so is larger than entire prize money of $125,000 to Freepost RRLG-EEXR-BSZK, The Bhopal Medical Appeal, usual. The newsletter raises vital establishing a fund to treat children NONE OF THESE THINGS would Printer Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT funds for our medical work and we born damaged either to gas affected be possible without you. We – that MILLENNIA PRINT LTD (To save us the cost of a stamp simply address your envelope as above, ask you to be open-hearted as ever parents, or to families whose water is, those involved in Bhopal, in omitting the Freepost number.) Contact us in your support. is poisoned. Chingari is established editing the newsletter and in the [email protected] OR MADE DIRECT TO OUR ACCOUNT: Our Sambhavna Clinic, which in Sambhavna’s old building and BMA office in London – urge you The Bhopal Medical Appeal Account No: 15501, CAFBank Ltd, was founded and owes its existence opened its doors in December 2005. to become more closely involved in We b s i t e 25 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, WestMalling, Kent ME19 4JQ the good work we all do together: www.bhopal.org Sortcode 40-52-40 send in ideas, volunteer in London ( Apologies if we don’t respond to a donation made directly to our bank or Bhopal, do fundraising events. as your details are not forwarded to us.) Reading the stories in this issue of 777 it is unbearable that innocent TO DONATE NOW WITH A CARD PLEASE CALL children in Bhopal should have to pay the price of corporate greed and FREEFONE 0800 316 5577 of realpolitik that values investment dollars more than justice or health. Bhopal’s sick children need us The Bhopal Medical Appeal because miserably, unforgivably, no Champa Devi (pale blue) and Rasheeda (in red) with Chingari trustees & staff one else seems to give a damn. http://www.bhopal.org • Independent Charity No. 1117526, registered in England & Wales • Company No. 5826888 Bhopal’s damaged children Heirs to a poisoned city

A S THESE WORDS ARE WRITTEN it’s raining in the bastis of Bhopal. The rain comes as a relief, after the burning heat of summer. As the first drops hit, the air fills with the delicious scent of rain on dry ground, but for those who live here, the poorest of India’s poor, in huts of sacks and planking, the rain will soon bring other smells. The rain drips from trees and creepers in the grounds of Union Carbide’s derelict and deserted factory. Gusts of rain blow into abandoned godowns and make a slurry of the powders that lie caked on the floors. White rivulets laden with poisons flow out of the open doors and soak into the earth. Nine hundred yards to the east, Lilabai, her head covered against the rain, awaits her turn at the handpump, a tall cast-iron contraption painted a livid red. A notice warns that the water is toxic, not suitable for drinking, but there’s no alternative. Raising the pot onto her head for the long walk home, RamsiyaBai passes the well which for years she and the other neighbourhood women had used. As their vessels plunged into the water dark rainbows would dance on the surface and up would come a smell like tar and drains and rot and things for which the women had no names. The water burned when they drank, but although it tasted bad. Unfortunately, the handpump water is just as unhealthy. Ramsiya drank it all the while she was expecting her son, Suraj, and while she was nursing him. Ramsiya’s house is like many others, a hovel built of whatever materials came to hand. In it you may detect the debris of a sub-civilisation, its walls include jute sacking, palm fronds, planks, beaten-flat cans, rubber tyres, frayed plastic sheets. It has but two rooms, one for sleeping in, whose plank walls have been desperately stuffed with cloth, paper, mud – anything that will keep out the weather. In the other room, lit by a single tiny window, is a clay hearth. Before this is a clean swept area of clay floor on which Ramsiya has made some designs in coloured powder. Other than for a few pots and tins, and a rail on which Unto us a child is born a few clothes are hanging, the room is empty. She sets down the pot of water and looks for her son whom she’d left lying on a mat. A cry from outside finally leads her to Suraj, who is lying on his belly in the mud, clawing at a plant. Hearing his mother’s REPORT: FRANK CASTELLI exclamation he turns his head and rolls himself over Bhopal’s damaged children Sambhavna and Chingari Trust and over to her. He’s soiled himself again. BEYOND THE FACTORY SITE, the virtually everyone is ill. The pesticide Looking at Suraj’s enormous, delighted monsoon fills two large lakes in residues are everywhere. grin, the mother’s heart is filled with sadness. which buffalos wallow and kids At times, when the wind gets up, Her son is not a baby, or a toddler. He is ten splash. Here and there brittle pieces whirlwinds of chemical dust play in years old. Other children his age go to school, of black plastic stick out of the soil. the alleys alongside the children. play with their friends, but Suraj cannot stand They look like bits of dustbin bag Amir didn’t used to like playing, or walk on paralysed legs that twist like twigs but are all that remain of the liner because he hated being different. He beneath him. He was born with brain damage. meant to contain thousands of tons of would go around with a heavy frown to He cannot speak a word. All he can do is roll screamingly toxic chemical sludges make himself look fierce and would over and over and smile that brilliant smile. dumped by Union Carbide in its hold his hands up and stare through Solar Evaporation Ponds, for that is them like a magician, as if to work a IN DECEMBER 2006 the Chingari Trust, set what the lakes used to be. spell on anyone who dared tease him. up by Goldman Award winners Rashida Bee The liner, installed in 1973, was The Chingari Trust, which like the and Champa Devi Shukla brought a team of meant to be renewed every two years, Sambhavna clinic, is supported by the doctors from Delhi to assess the problems of but was never renewed. It failed in its Bhopal Medical Appeal, was set up children in the Bhopal bastis where water is first year, when heavy rains sent Suraj is ten years old. specifically to help children suffering poisoned by the factory. What they found poisoned water cascading through He is unable to walk or speak. from disabilities. It organised a simple amazed them: processions of parents bringing nearby fields and settlements. These operation and Amir’s fingers are now children with cerebral palsy, deafness, eye problems, What the people of Atul Ayub Nagar didn’t know, places too have paid a terrible price for their proximity separated and healing well. There could hardly be a tumours, cleft lips and palates. Many had withered or because no one had told them, was that the ground on to Carbide’s factory. happier small boy on the planet. malformed limbs. Some of the children could not the other side of the factory wall, yards from their houses, Amir wants to thank all of you whose donations to speak, but lay helplessly in their mother’s arms. was severely contaminated by toxins. A private Union AMIR, THE BOY WHOSE FINGERS were fused, lives in the Bhopal Medical Appeal helped fund his operation. The children’s parents had either been exposed to Carbide memo (above) never meant for publication, Blue Moon Colony, on swampy ground between the ‘I’ve grown so used to practising dark looks,’ he says. poison gas on the dreadful night of December 3, 1984, reports that samples of water taken inside the factory toxic ponds and the railway line. In this place, many ‘It’s a habit. but now I am so happy to have good hands, or else had drunk and washed in water poisoned by proved instantly fatal to fish. Fish died too, in water to children are born with physical and mental defects and I’ll have to learn to smile.” chemicals leaking from the factory. Some families had which dry soil samples had been added. The causes? been poisoned first by the gases then again by the water. Naphthol (abdominal pain, convulsions, diarrhoea and vomiting) and naphthalene (anaemia, cataracts, retinal BHAVESH, SAMBHAVNA’S DISPENSER, lives in Atal Ayub damage, liver and brain damage, possible cancer). Nagar, a slim strip of housing sandwiched between Carbide had known of the danger since 1989, the Carbide’s factory wall and the railway line. His family year Bhavesh’s family became its neighbours, but it moved there when he was six. There were no hand- issued no warnings. Its bosses in India and the US pumps and fetching water meant a trek to the well in watched silently as families already ruined by Carbide’s Shakti Nagar, half a mile to the south. gases drank, and bathed their kids in, poisoned water. To remedy this problem, Worried community workers the people of Atal Ayub Nagar ‘I have never before seen such asked questions, but Carbide clubbed together to install two a high proportion of children born denied there was a problem handpumps – a decision that and wrote to the authorities would soon return to haunt damaged as in this community.’ suggesting they take action to them. DOCTOR AT CHINGARI TRUST HEALTH CAMP quash these troublemakers. At first the water seemed okay. Then oily globules Rehana, 10, (left) lives near began appearing in it – if allowed to settle they’d form a Bhavesh in Atal Ayub Nagar. layer at the bottom of the glass. The water acquired a She was born without a left faint smell, which grew gradually worse. It tasted oilier thumb, her growth is retarded, too, but these changes happened very slowly. her mind is weak and she Bhavesh’s family were startled when his grand- hasn’t the strength to go to mother, on a visit from her village, pronounced the school. Rehana’s vision is not water undrinkable. ‘It stinks!’ she said. The locals, okay, she’s plagued by rashes who’d by now been drinking it for years, didn’t find it so and is constantly breathless. bad. They had bigger things to worry about, like the Her dad sadly asks, ‘Why growing number of damaged children being born to was fate so cruel to our poor Amir is healed and says he will now start practising smiles distraught mothers in their small community. child?’ Bhopal’s damaged children Fund for lifesaving operations

WE THANK EVERYONE who gave Goodbye to a small boy so generously to provide a heart- Mohammed Idris: operation for Mohammed Idris. The sad news is that since the money came pouring in, Idris has not been who never had a chance well enough to have the op. thanks and update At first he was simply too weak son. For most of his life he had lived with his granny, his and we hoped that we could help him affected his rasavaha strotas and pay his rent if and when he moves to mother’s mother, whose house was nearby. gain enough strength to undergo praanavaha strota. His ayurvedic other accommodation. Meanwhile, Naani (as grannies are called in Hindi) did every- surgery. A major problem was his medicines include powders of abhra- the money you gave for his operation thing for him. She fed him, washed him, turned him over own depressed attitude towards his ka bhasma, pravaal bhasma and giloy is still awaiting the right moment. on his mattress and, most important of all, cuddled him illness. satwa, capsules of kaamdudhaa and and was always there when he woke and needed her. We had started to build up Idris’ sutasekhar rasa plus a decoction of RATHER THAN LETTING the fund For a long time Naani had been doing her best to get confidence when, last September, he amrutarishta. These are expected to lie idle, we would like to use it to medical help for Rupesh. During the Chingari Trust caught a cough and became severely boost his immunity and his ability to help others who need life-saving health camp of December 2006, Rupesh was examined breathless with episodes of acute cope with disease.’ (www.bhopal.org operations. We’ll soon be contacting by doctors who recommended that Rupesh receive respiratory distress. He was treated has a pictorial guide to the ayurvedic everyone who contributed for Idris treatment from an osteopath to investigate whether with bronchodilators delivered via a medicines used at Sambhavna.) to ask their permission to use their he could be helped by an operation. nebuliser. Idris says he feels much better, generous donations for this purpose. In the meanwhile, he needed a wheelchair In October Idris developed a but is still much too weak even to Someone who urgently needs an and proper full time nursing care to give poor high fever which was successfully think of surgery. operation is 21 year old Shabana, a Naani a break. His carers could wheel Rupesh treated with antibiotics, but a month highly intelligent girl from a poor around the basti, so that his senses could be later he was coughing again, with a IDRIS’ PROBLEMS ARE made worse family. stimulated by its sights, sounds and smells. fever and joint pains. In December by the dreadful conditions in which Born with a hole in the heart, she As Naani was preparing to take Rupesh to the he seemed much better. he and his family live. They have one complains of bursts of pain in the hospital, police came to her house and arrested In January this year Idris came room in a congested slum next to the left side of the chest and left arm. her and Rupesh’s grandfather. Despite her pleas to the clinic with a high fever and railway. People scavenge for coal Shabana gets giddy, and sometimes about leaving the child, they were taken away tested positive for malaria, which is beside the tracks and the air is full of blacks out – these frightening bouts and locked up in separate jails. rife in the poorer neighbourhoods of thick smoke which makes breathing can last up to an hour – the medical The problem was the marriage of Rupesh's the city. Anti-malarials helped but a nightmare. consensus is that she should have uncle (his mother's brother). He’d been married a then he developed a lung infection. Sambhavna staff have offered to surgery as soon as possible. year but the marriage had not worked out and his wife It responded at first to the had returned to her parents’ house. The day before the antibiotic gatifloxacin but arrests, Rupesh’s aunt had gone to the police to complain became resistant to every that her her in-laws were demanding a dowry. This is antibiotic we had, and we tried RUPESH WAS BORN on the ‘glorious 12th’ of August illegal in India and is taken very seriously with the thirteen of them. and would have been ten this year. police usually siding with the complainant and acting As if this were not bad His mother was gas-exposed. The family lived in promptly. Unfortunately the law is also misused. enough, in February 2007 a the run down Prem Nagar neighbourhood south of the We do not know the details of what had happened in chest x-ray that showed that company’s solar evaporation ponds. The water here is the family, or who had said what to whom and when, but old pulmonary TB lesions had severely contaminated and for several years Rupesh’s what is clear is that after the arrest of his grandparents, become reactivated. Since then family drank and bathed in dilute poison. the paralysed child was left in the house alone. poor Idris has been on anti-TB A decade ago, Rupesh was born badly handicapped His mother, hearing of what had happened, rushed drugs. with cerebral palsy. His disability left this beautiful to the place and found Rupesh distraught. The poor He has become too weak child utterly helpless. Frail, stiff and awkward, he was child refused to be comforted or to accept food from to shrug off infections, and as unable to walk – even when held upright he had no sense anybody else but his beloved Naani. he is resistant to antibiotics we of balance – and was in fact hardly able to move. He We in the UK learned in a terrible phone call from are using ayurveda to try to spent most of his short life lying on a mattress in his Bhopal that Rupesh had ‘burst his eyes’ looking for his boost his immune system. family’s dilapidated hut. granny. After three days of refusing to eat or even to As Sathyu at the clinic Mohammed As in the case of Sanno, whose story we told in the drink water, he gave up hope. explains: ‘Idris is receiving Idris has been last issue of this newsletter, Rupesh’s mother was too ill At ten o’clock on a bright spring morning, he closed treatment for vitiated vaata too ill to have from her own gas-exposure to to be able to look after her those wide, startled eyes, and died. and kapha doshas that have heart surgery. The poisons that flew to kill a city... The source of the poisons… 6 8 8 9

UNION CARBIDE / DOW SITE: SOURCES 1 2 OF POISON Mercury drops lie where they 3 fell almost a quarter of a century 1 Drums of waste The ruined MIC unit, home to 2 Warehouses with sacks ago beneath the Sevin plant the invading jungle, and ghosts. 3 Soapstone shed 5 7 4 Flare tower 10 Highly toxic tars oozing from 5 Sevin control room 6 11 the ‘rocks’ & running down into 6 Sevin plant 4 13 & spilled mercury 8 the earth and the subsoil water 7 Tank farm 1 2 11 8 Carbaryl ‘rockpile’ 9 1 3 oozing toxic tar 14 10 15 9 Ruined MIC unit 10 Vent gas scrubber 11 Fatal tank E-610 13 12 Tank with oily film 1 6 13 Waste pits 1 8 14 Derelict laboratory Buried waste, dead zone A rotted tank dumps its load 17 15 Storeroom with sacks of highly toxic carbaryl ‘rocks’ 16 Carbon monoxide unit 1 9 17 DDT godown onto the bare soil, if set alight 18 Buried waste areas they would cause another 19 Tanks with oily fluids catastrophe like ‘that night’. Locomotive sized tank E-610 The vent gas scrubber is still 14 which leaked the poison gas 23 14 1 2 3 4 charred from the hot gases of years ago, lies hidden in bushes ‘that night’. From its mouth the poisons flew to kill a city. 18

Once a bicycle shed, now full of Sacks of poisons lie stacked in Across the site, poison wastes lie The laboratory was abandoned full of chemicals. Some The lab looks as if it has been sacked rusting drums of perilous warehouses across the site, drifts in the open, in heaps, threadbare animals have found their way in. This gecko, born in a by vandals, bottles of poison lie on Sevin, open to wind & rain of pesticide dust on the floor gunny bags and rusting drums. pottery sink, appears not to be in very good health. their sides, their contents drained.

5 6 17 18

The MIC control room. It had old fashioned valves, In this plant casual day-labourers, The under-designed flare Where the company buried This huge warehouse is so tainted that to be inside for more than Tarry liquids fester under a unlike its computerised US counterpart. The pressure without safety clothing, used bare tower was of no use whatever toxic waste, nothing will grow, a couple of minutes causes dizziness and chest pains. Yet someone strong winter sun. Come the gauge for tank E-610 was stuck on overload hands to handle naptha and mercury. on the horrific night of terror these are the dead zones. has been in, and covered the walls with obscene graffiti. monsoon, they’ll overflow. ...now flow underground and go on killing

COMMUNITIES STILL BEING POISONED 2 2 BY UNION CARBIDE / DOW CHEMICAL

2 1 …and where they end up 1 8 2 0 9 9 1 0 1 1 1 9 1 5 1 7

Solar Evaporation ponds 4 DEAD DEAD 1 6 1 Atal Ayub Nagar 2 Shakti Nagar 3 Jaiprakash Nagar 5 4 New Arif Nagar Chingari 6 5 Annu Nagar Trust SURAJ, 10 yrs AKSHAY, 11 yrs VINEETA, 15 yrs RUPESH, 10 yrs 6 Blue Moon Colony Paralysed legs, can’t walk, Mentally retarded, & sickly, Mentally retarded, unable to Weak limbs, fits, paralysis, 7 Shri Ram Nagar 8 9 1 0 rolls about, can’t speak, grins cannot fold his deformed legs 1 8 Chandbadi speak or walk by herself can’t speak, no control of body 9 Gareeb Nagar 7 1 1 10 Timber Market 1 2 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 Union Carbide factory site 11 Prem Nagar 12 Navjeevan Colony 13 Kainchi Chhola 14 Risaaldar Colony 15 Nawaab Colony 2 1 3 16 Sunder Nagar 3 17 Shiv Shakti Nagar 18 Preet Nagar 19 Oriya Basti Sambhavna 20 Gupta Nagar Clinic 1 4 21 Kalyan Nagar YASHWANI, 8 yrs KARTIK, 8 yrs HRIDESH, 3 yrs SAMRIN, 8 yrs 22 Shiv Nagar Left hand malformed, eye Weakness of right leg, hand Born with a split lip, has fits Born with twisted feet, falls if problem & swellings on back & eye, walks with difficulty when extremities turn blue she tries to walk, can’t balance

1 2 3 4 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9

REHANA, 9 yrs SHANU SAMEER, 8 yrs HASSAN, 11 yrs SALMAN, 11 yrs MAMTA, 18 yrs SURESH, 13 yrs SHYAM BABU, 8 yrs Mentally & physically weak, Eyeball destroyed by horrific Face malformed, matter leaks Weak from birth, only learned Born blind, unable to do much Growth retarded, no menarche, Leg swells when he tries to Stunted growth, very weak, born without a left thumb growth, in constant pain from eye, cleft palate, pain to walk aged 9, can’t balance for himself, parents both ill doesn’t go out for fear of teasing walk, mentally undeveloped can’t walk properly

5 6 7 8 2 0 2 1 2 2 2 2

FAUJIA, 19 yrs SAZID 12 yrs DEEPIKA, 8 yrs SAPNA, 7 yrs SACHIN, 12 yrs DIPESH, 18 yrs VIKAS 8 yrs DEEPU 9 yrs Stunted growth, anaemia, in Born with twisted feet, unable Suffers from night-blindness Cleft palate, can’t talk well Twisted leg and foot, has only Retarded growth, took part in Severely retarded growth like Defect in bones of hands & pain, compulsively eats dirt to walk or play, incontinent and deafness, can’t go to school but insists on going to school attended a few days of school Sambhavna research study many others in his community legs, unable to walk properly The healing power of ayurveda... and the healing power of yoga

HOW I WISH WE STILL have been healed there.’ for three months and my feet lived in Mahamayi ka Baug So I came to Sambhavna. are getting so much better. SHAHRAZADE KHAN near the railway station. We They gave me a powder But now my little sister Two young yogis came to Blue Moon Colony made from herbs that had to Nikki is getting it. Her feet five years ago because my be mixed in honey and are becoming just like mine, parents found a cheap house licked. They gave the honey but she is already going to discover a cure for severe pain to buy. Like everyone else too! There was also a herbal Sambhavna. So she won’t we used the water from the ointment. I went regularly suffer as I have. She will SANDEEP SAHU & RAJESH SAHU reported that his pains were half Mr Ramchandra Sahu practice their community hand pump for soon get better like me. I came to the clinic with their parents. gone. yoga asanas on their terrace every drinking, bathing, cooking. now move freely, my sores The family live in Prem Nagar and Rajesh came to us for six days at day together. Rajesh and his father Two years after we came are going fast. It’s amazing for the last 15 years have drunk, the end of which he too reported the start their yoga practice at 7 am. By ‘Oh, here I started having awful to have my feet back. cooked with and washed in water same lessening of pain. the time Rajesh stirs it’s usually problems on my feet. On the poisoned by chemicals leaking from nearer 8, so he and his mum do their soles there were calluses and DR JAI WRITES: the Union Carbide/Dow Chemical THE BROTHERS WERE taught the yoga together. painful cracks. My mother We gave Megha triphala factory. Ironically they were paying following yoga aasanas or postures. it’s put turmeric paste on them powder and harad in equal 100 rupees a month for this foul Pavanamukt-aasana BOTH BOYS REPORT a complete but that made no difference. proportions weightwise. water to a neighbour who had dug a Ardha paschimott-aasana recovery from headache and body Over a month the soles Megha’s sister had the same problem This was boiled in water bore well. It was only after the sit-in Bajr-aasan aches. They say they have a feeling so of my feet became blacker and her soles were washed and fast by survivors and their Manduk-aasana of wellness and energy all day long. and blacker and the cracks with the decoction when it friends in March this year that water Vakr-aasana When they were first referred started bleeding. I was in was lukewarm. 1 part of tankers started delivering clean Sarvaang-aasana to yoga by the paediatrician at the pain and my parents were triphala was boiled in 8 parts water to their community. Hal-aasana clinic they did not have any notion good Bhujang-asana very worried. They took me of water and brought down of how this could cure diseases, but to a private doctor in the to half in volume to prepare SANDEEP (14) IS ALMOST 5feet and the breathing techniques of saw so many people doing yoga that neighbourhood and he gave the decoction. tall but weighs just 5.5 stone. He Anulom-vilom and Bhraamaree. they went home convinced that to me injections and ointment. Megha's mother used to came to us with problems with Details of all the aasanas and there must be some thing to it. This went on two months make it twice a day. After vision, a constant headache in one practices taught at Sambhavna can The Sahu family recommends but my feet just got worse. washing with this decoction side of his skull and chronic body be found on www.bhopal.org. yoga as a treatment because it is be Next my parents took and drying, a medicinal oil aches. Our medical team assessed totally drug free and costs nothing. me to a skin specialist, an jaatyaadi tailam (ingredients : the level of pain in his head as so SANDEEP & RAJESH and their expensive doctor – his clinic neem bark, chameli leaves, severe that a person can’t function mother and father Mrs Rekha and The boys learn yoga from Dr Keswani back is behind Hamidia hospital. patol patra, beeswax, karanj normally, and his body ache He’d prescribe medicines – . . . and is now getting better mulethi, daruharidra, kutki, as severe enough to interfere ointments, three lots of pills manjistha, haldi, padmakaasth, with work or school. and capsules – that cost 100 lodhra, kusth, haritaki, neelka- Rajesh (12) also had on rupees a day. For one year I mal, saarivaa, seeds of karanj, body pains and constant took his treatment but had neela thothaa) was to be headache and had lost his no relief. By the end I could- applied. She was also given a appetite. He weighed barely my no longer walk. Stepping on giloy (tinnea cordifolea) five stone. Both brothers the foot was too painful. extract prepared by grinding said that their problems had People in my family had to giloy vines. The powder was grown worse gradually over feet’ lift me and take me to the Megha’s feet almost healed taken with honey on an a long period and had just bathroom or wherever else I empty stomach twice daily, recently become acute. needed to go. morning and evening. The team advised seven Everyone knew I had a The results, you can see days of yoga practice for MEGHA S ’ problem with my feet. In our in the pictures on the left. An each boy. STORY neighbourhood there is a index of medicinal plants Sandeep knew nothing man called Mithilesh. He used in ayurveda will soon of yoga. He had not even said, ‘Go to Sambhavna. be available complete with seen it on TV. He came to us There you’ll get treated with pictures on www.bhopal.org, for yoga lessons then contin- ayurvedic herbs and roots. which also has other stories ued to practise his exercises Many with skin problems Megha’s feet completely healed of healing. at home. On the fifth day he The medicinal garden Water water everywhere the poisoned flood

THE COLOSSAL DOWNPOUR began at 8.30 pm on the A poisonous tide poured through Union Carbide’s night of Sunday 13th August, 2006. Rain fell in sheets factory, contaminating houses and belongings. for 12 hours. By morning more than a foot of water had People could not afford to lose their meagre stores fallen on Bhopal and much of the city was underwater. of food, so despite our warnings poisoned grain was At least 13 people died, many others, including our spread out to dry. We sent medical teams into the bastis neighbours were marooned and were taken off in boats, and organised free meals for those who were homeless. often at great risk to the rescuers as the streets turned For the full story of what happened and how we into rushing torrents. Sambhavna staff rescued two helped, see http://www.bhopal.net/cwc/ (for the earliest children who were in danger of being swept away. stories please scroll down to the foot of the page). Main picture, left:

A view of the flooded garden with the main clinic main buildings in the background, in the foreground the pond has disappeared. Luckily water from the factory did not come in this direction so we just had to clear up sludge and litter.

Clockwise from top:

Heavy rains batter the clinic, but our cisterns were filled.

Driving rain did not let up for twelve hours by which time much of Bhopal was flooded

The clinic garden wall collapsed under the rush of water. It has now been completely rebuilt to withstand any future flooding

Our neighbours and their goats are rescued in perilously overloaded boats.

Grain stores soaked in toxically contaminated water are put out to dry in a desperate effort to save them. One man told our medical team, ‘Poisons kill us slowly, hunger kills faster.’ The medicinal herb garden

TERRY ALLAN Healing the healing garden

THIS TIME LAST SUMMER a once- gardeners and farmers, hunters and in-a-hundred-year flood inundated gatherers, we began our collection the Sambhavna clinic herb garden of living medicines. All washed and left surrounding communities away in one day. underwater. Much of the garden But deep in my heart I knew infrastructure and many perennial that it wasn’t all lost. I knew some of plantings were damaged or lost. But the plants would survive. And I thanks to the spirit of gardeners knew that Mukesh, Manmohan and Ratna, Mukesh and Manmohan – Ratna were there to see it through. and your generous response to our While the wall was being rebuilt emergency funding appeal – the they planted things that cows and garden has been rebuilt better than goats wouldn’t eat so they didn’t before and is looking forward to a lose a whole production season. productive season. They rebuilt the little tea house in Anyone who has been a long the corner of the garden using clay term gardener or farmer knows that roof tiles left over from the clinic you have to have to work with and flooring slates for benches. nature to be successful. There are They began replanting herbs round good years and bad years, times you the clinic buildings, especially by can finesse the weather, and times the cantina where the cooks can now when you’re given demonstrations pick fresh herbs for healthy seasonal of the awesome power of nature’s foods and herbal teas. They built a forces. We gardeners do not need wonderful protected shade house to empirical research to convince us propagate the plants that were lost that global warming is real, we see and to expand the collection. There first hand the subtle changes in the was enough left over to buy a small plants and not-so-subtle impacts of ‘walk-behind’ rotovator to help extreme weather and climate change. with the heavier work around the I was back home in the United garden. I am so proud of them. States when I heard about the flood, And so, like gardeners every- and my heart sank when I saw the where, they till the soil again, and photographs. It had taken three plant their seeds, and hope. Thanks years to build the garden to the to their hard work and dedication, point where we had more than 100 and all of the wonderful, supportive species of medicinal plants growing staff at the Sambhavna Clinic, the for use in the clinic. It wasn’t easy garden grows again to give hope to accumulating so many different the people of Bhopal. plants. A few common species are available from local plant nurseries, Lots of love, but many of the medicinal plants are not. Some are considered weeds. We were working on a very limited budget, so we collected seeds when Terry returned to the United States last we went out walking in the forest, summer after 3 years of volunteering at and people we met gave us seeds Sambhavna in Bhopal. She now works and cuttings. Thus slowly, in the part time for an organic seed company traditional way of sharing between and is looking for a place to grow herbs. MELANIE HADIDA ‘They turned the clinic into a magical playground’

OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS I have spent drawn pictures of plants and animals and cut my mornings playing with Bhopali children them out and pasted them onto the map! and loving every minute. We've made crowns (which they adorably I am from Montreal, Canada, and am wore around the clinic for the next few completing a BA at McGill University in days!), we've made puppets and some of the International Development Studies, with a older kids organised some short comical minor in Women's Studies and a focus on dramatic skits which they peformed for the South Asian Studies. I was introduced to other children. Sambhavna through Dr. Shree Mulay, a prof With the help of a local 17 year old girl at my uni whose research over the last few whose father is a Sambhavna patient, I was years has been on Bhopal. It was her idea that able to have a Hindi translator working with I should come and work with the children me regularly. We played many fun circle here. I found the idea extremely exciting as it games. One day in a bazaar I found some combined my academic work with practical cheap portable speakers which I attached to work experience and my love for children. my ipod and played Western music for them as well as Indian music. We made a lot of MY LITTLE GROUP INCLUDED children of games with the music! The kids are learning Sambhavna patients, of staff members and of more English from me than I am Hindi from our neighbours from Qazi Camp, directly them! across from the clinic. After a while I noticed that many of the I spent my first day here getting to know children’s mothers, patients of Sambhavna, the kids. We did sticker art which they chose to wait sitting under the gazebo with loved. This was Saturday. By Monday many me and the kids as opposed to the clinic hall- many more children were showing up under ways where they normally wait. Some took the beautiful gazebo which I was using as my the books I brought out and read with their workspace. From the moment I woke many children. A few of the mums even got down kids were already waiting under the gazebo on the floor with me and the kids and for me and the moment I emerged from my coloured with us! room they were all down there yelling "Didi! In the afternoons when there were fewer Baith jao!" Sister, come and sit! children around the clinic I was able to do The enthusiasm of the children turned more complicated crafts. I taught some of the the clinic into a magical playground. As kids how to make their own dolls from fabric many as thirty kids would come at a time scraps, newspapers and rubber bands. We which meant unfortunately that my activities used markers to draw a ‘chehra’ or face on the with them were often limited to colouring dolls and old string for hair! The children and drawing. I asked the children to draw loved making their own toys from recycled pictures of their families, which they proudly materials. Such playthings cost nothing but displayed to me afterwards pointing out are far more precious than any that can be their loved ones. Some of these kids are bought. extemely bright and wonderfully talented The kids are so vibrant, they made my artists. I tried to encourage their talents as time in Bhopal very enjoyable. I have grown much as possible. extremely close to many of them, especially I put up a giant map of the world in the the children from Qazi Camp who have not gazebo and was able to do a few geography missed one day here with me. I had eight lessons with them, asking them to point out wonderful weeks playing with the children India and Canada on the map as well as locate and was so sad when this enchanted time all other major geographical regions. We have too quickly passed. I’ll be back. Children’s art exhibition

R ACHNA D HINGRA A class of their own

WHEN PAINTER JEFF STRIDE visited Bhopal two years ago (a second exhibition of his work is due to be held in Provence early in 2008), he found himself mobbed by children wherever he went. They would surround him, stand in front of his easel to watch and, often, demand to be included in the pictures. They were fascinated by his pastels and would pick them up and look longingly at them. Some these children had never seen paints before, and were transfixed by the way a blank space would suddenly take on form and colour and become something they could recognise. At Sambhavna, we have a long tradition of encouraging children to paint. It’s a way to keep them busy while their parents are waiting to be seen, or undergoing treatment. It’s also good for them to have the chance to express themselves. Here’s a strange thing. Elsewere in the pages of this newsletter you can see and read about the awful suffering that many of Bhopal’s children have to endure. Their lives are full of hunger and sickness, yet when these children pick up crayons or poster paints and show us what is inside them, the most beautiful and hopeful things emerge. These paintings were done by children of our neighbours opposite the clinic. It’s a very poor community, yet in these paintings there is no poverty, and all the riches of the imagination. From Hotam’s magical depiction of houses (left) to Sayma’s painting of Bhopal’s Taj ul Masjid (below right) the pictures simply glow. (The horse-drawn carriage is one of those fine gharries used in the city for weddings.) Pooja gives us a gaily striped crocodile, or perhaps it’s a friendly dog just emerged from a puddle of mud. In her inner world, crocs have bright blue feet, and behind properly jagged mountains the sun is rising. Subhama’s vibrant rainbow (top right) jumps off the page, full of the joy that is in every child, until injustice and poverty drive it out.

We are planning soon to host an exhibition of Bhopali children’s paintings at www.bhopal.org. The pictures will be for sale, with the proceeds going to the Bhopal Medical Appeal to fund our work with sick children. Sunil Kumar 1973 - 2006 Friend and inspiration

A TRIBUTE BY INDRA SINHA Life and death of a mad Bhopali child

SUNIL, FOR MUCH of your short life, the Indian government's case against Union Carbide. health problems as a consequence of the gas. People you believed that people were coming to You’ve never flown before and don't like the food. The with mental problems get neither compensation nor murder you. government lawyers tell you, ‘be brave and honest, just treatment, instead they are ridiculed and dismissed. ‘Nonsense,' we, your friends, would tell your story’. But they don’t consult you or the other Today, in all Bhopal's hospitals, there is only one part- try to reassure you. ‘The sky's blue. We are survivors before they do a deal with Union Carbide that time psychiatric consultant. all here. You have done no harm to a soul, makes its share price jump for joy. Sunil, when still a child, you told a journalist that why should anyone want to harm you?' You are outraged. Off you go on another world those responsible for the carnage in Bhopal should be ‘I guess I'm mad,' you would say, who tour, another month of telling your story to whoever hanged. They have never even been brought to trial and could see nightmares in sunlight and hear will listen in Ireland, Holland and the UK, which you in the end the person who was hanged was you. We voices bellowing in his head. tour with Bianca Jagger. You're mixing with famous found you in your flat, dangling from the ceiling fan. Mad? Maybe you were. If so was it people, but you, poor mad bugger, just want to be home You left a note saying that you were fully in your senses surprising? in Bhopal. Instead you find yourself at the Union when you decided to take your life. You, who rarely When you are 13 years old, safely Carbide AGM in Houston. In the hotel lobby you’re wore t-shirts, chose one specially for this final farewell. asleep in your house with your parents and handing out copies of an environmental report when It said NO MORE BHOPALS. five brothers and sisters, you don't expect you're arrested. Union Carbide, whose gases entered Ah, Sunil brother, you thought you were mad, but a to be woken by screams. You don't expect your house and killed your family, charges you with world without justice is madder. At least you are now your eyes and lungs to be on fire, nor to criminal trespass. You're thrown in jail. It takes hundreds safe. We scattered your ashes in the flooded Narmada discover that the screaming is coming from of phone calls to the mayor of Houston before you’re river, and for your your mum, or that your dad's yelling released without charge. At last you can go home. funeral feast followed ‘Quick, everyone, we must get out! Union The voices in your head grow louder. They taunt your precise instruc- Carbide's factory has exploded!' and torment. You know your mind is playing tricks. You tions: quarter bottle of Nothing in your life has prepared you can’t sleep, and talk of taking your life. Your friends try Goa brand whisky, for what you now experience. Your family to joke you out of it, but privately we’re worried. mutton curry from bundles out into darkness thickened by Then, mad Sunil, you find another way to escape Dulare's hotel near the something that blinds and burns. All this cruel world. You run off into the jungle to live bus stand, betel nut, around, frightened people are running. A like an animal. ‘I lay on my belly and drank from a tobacco and all. Were woman lies convulsing where yesterday ditch like a dog,' you say when we finally find you. You you there with us? If you played marbles. In the panic to escape can’t get work, but when we open the free Sambhavna not, who was it that in you are wrenched from your parents and Clinic in Bhopal you instantly volunteer. You're penni- the darkness chuckled, swept away to fall into blackness. You wake less, but refuse to be paid. You have a phenomenal mem- ‘I am no longer afraid on a truck piled with corpses, bundling ory. Every day you scan the papers for gas disaster sto- of being killed – I am you off to a funeral pyre because the people who found family going and somehow get yourself to school often ries and later recall the smallest details. You work in the already dead and fearless.' you thought you were dead. enough to pass the 10th standard. clinic garden, for a time your voices abate. One day you When you learn of the awful, unbelievable thing Mad, are you? For the sake of your little brother piss in a cobra's hole calling, ‘Come out, cobra maharaj!' EVERYONE IN THE BHOPAL survivors’ movement knew that has happened, you return to Bhopal to find your and sister you refuse to be defeated. You’re kind to other The enraged reptile erupts from its defiled home, head and loved Sunil. Indra Sinha’s Man Booker nominated novel family. Alone, too numb to cry, you wander the streets. children. Your house becomes a refuge for kids whose raised and hood spread. You sprint 400 yards to the Animal’s People was dedicated to him but Sunil never lived to Posters show the faces of bodies as yet unidentified. On parents beat them. You ask, ‘Is it better to have parents tamarind tree and never piss in a snake's hole again. see it finished. His death made headlines around the world. each brow is a numbered scrap of paper. This is how you who beat you, or no parents at all?' The cool and beauty of the herb garden were not Trees were planted in his memory in four continents. learn that your mum and dad and three of your brothers You learn all you can, dear crazy friend, about the enough to quell the demons. Again you tried to take We, his friends, although we run a successful clinic that has and sisters are dead. What of the others? disaster that took away your family. You join with other your life. You drank rat poison and after we'd had your given free medical care to more nearly 30,000 people, could do You keep searching, and by a miracle find them, survivors. You are young but you take the lead. When stomach pumped you rang the bastard who through his little for Sunil, but we are determined that no one else will ever your baby brother of eighteen months and your sister of neither Union Carbide nor the authorities give medical tears is writing this and said, ‘Guess what, it tasted sweet!' again have as little help as he had. nine, alive. You bring them to the only home you have, help, it's you who lays the foundation stone at the pole- Dear Sunil, we did our best to get help for you, but Although we had no budget for it, we have retained mental the house across the road from Union Carbide’s factory. and-thatch health centre the survivors themselves erect, there was little help to be had. Although some 60,000 health professionals and opened a free mental health department So at 13, mad Sunil, you are the man of the family, which will soon be ripped down by the police. Bhopal survivors suffer from depression, anxiety, loss at the Sambhavna clinic. It’s the only place in Bhopal where the breadwinner. You find work as a day labourer and at You march each anniversary. Your voice is heard. of memory, panic attacks, insomnia and a host of other poor people with mental problems can go for free care. Please night wash glasses at a tea stall. You keep your little Then, dear madman, you are sent to the US to testify in afflictions, the government refuses to accept mental help us to fund this long overdue, much-needed resource. Countering corporate propaganda Help spread the word Aglimpsebehind themasks of

PAUL Dow’sHumanElement ads PHARE

TELLING A LIE BEAUTIFULLY does not make it true. factory of his subsidiary Union Carbide, Liveris Dow Chemical’s Human Element advertising is a series of replied, ‘We don’t think it’s our responsibility’. beautiful masks, designed to hide a world of sickness, In a further effort to win positive publicity Dow has pain and horror. sponsored the Blue Planet Run. The launch of the event Dow’s ads and PR are full of extravagant statements in San Francisco was marked by huge protests from it does not believe itself. The front page of its website crowds shouting, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide.’ speaks of ‘a spirit of fearless accountability’. Dow spent more than $30 million on the Human On July 26th 2006, Dow’s CEO Andrew Liveris Element advertising campaign. It spends hundreds of made a speech at the United Nations and promised to millions each year on lawyers, PR men and lobbyists. It deliver clean water to every human being on earth. funds politicians who then vote the way it wants. It pays He declared, ‘Water is the single biggest cause of writers, photographers and filmmakers a fortune to disease in the world. More than 4,500 children die every make beautiful lies. It buys its way into our minds. We day because of it… We are determined to win a victory call this advertising, we call it lobbying, but it is bribery, over the problem of access to clean water for every corruption and brainwashing – this company that has person on earth… we need to bring to the fight the kind poisoned millions of people around the world is now of things companies like Dow do best. trying to poison our minds. But when asked to provide clean water to people in Bhopal whose drinking water is being poisoned by the Printable versions at http://www.bhopal.net/masks.html Working with incredible people The experience of a lifetime

Tour the clinic, talk to patients and staff, enjoy the herb-scented garden and join us for a friendly lunch in I wanted to help David against Goliath SUSAN READMAN the organic canteen. You’ll be able to see for yourself how successfully we combine modern medicine with WHAT MADE ME DECIDE TO VOLUNTEER? I enjoyed teaching. My class was a group of clinic learn a lot in return. Isn't this one of the pleasures of ayurvedic herbal treatments, panchakarma and yoga. Well, why not? I was in India, it was a good cause, a staff. Not as many as I’d have hoped, but people may teaching? the chance to ask questions, personal, social, Take a soothing oil massage, perhaps, and be sure to very good cause: David’s righteous slingshot against a have felt that the one month I could offer wouldn’t be political, in the name of practising the language? learn a few asanas, to help you relax after your long ride. chemical Goliath backed by the US government (‘the long enough to achieve much. However it was useful for Sambhavna looked after its volunteers pretty well. business of America is business') and a craven Indian people who wanted to refresh their English and practise Our rooms were cleaned, a meal – a very good meal – You may meet amazing people government which has little loyalty or compassion for reading, listening and, above all, speaking. was prepared for us and some of the staff on six evenings like these. A group the people of Bhopal. But despite an ongoing and at Like their counterparts in the Middle East, Indian a week and for a small sum you could have the canteen of our friends times seemingly hopeless struggle, Sambhavna has not students are preoccupied with grammar. It is hard to lunch, which was wholesome organic veggie cooking. walked 500 miles to Delhi last year failed to make a difference to the lives of the victims of convince them that, say, the passive in some of its more The clinic is in the heart of the area worst-affected by to ask the Prime the gas disaster and their families. The clinic’s work of labyrinthine constructions is just not that important. the gas disaster. It’s a poor neighbourhood of rubbish Minister to obey the Supreme treating its patients with a range of therapies: ayurveda, The classes were fun, we got along well, and at the drifting along streets and piling up in corners, potholes, Court and pipe panchkarma, allopathy, yoga, and counselling, seemed end many gallantly insisted that their English had sewage, goats, cows, water buffaloes, lots and lots of safe water to well worth supporting in any way I could. improved. I hope we can put together a syllabus and traffic, noise and people. A rat-tat-tat of hi's greeted communities with poisoned wells. How long could I spare? A month maybe, especially timetable for future EFL classes at the clinic covering a you every time you left the clinic, followed by an if it meant sharing a dormitory. I’m a lot older than most period of at least eight months. It would be excellent if enfilade of yelps, whoops, cries, sniggers, giggles, hi This unforgettable eleven-day adventure costs £229 volunteers and find the prospect of no private space a several qualified teachers would consider volunteering mams as you shopped on Berasia Road for mangoes and non-refundable deposit and minimum sponsorship of daunting one. Fortunately volunteering during the heat in an overlapping relay. My students were a pleasure to water melon. Sometimes I found it necessary to seek the £2,680. The money you raise will pay a doctor’s salary of the Indian summer guaranteed a room to myself. work with and all were people from whom one could discreet air-conditioned shelter of a 5 star hotel. This for more than a year, or could provide the clinic with all Reading through the volunteer website I was did seem really very wicked. But on cloud-free, moonlit the medicine it needs for six weeks. slightly unnerved by what seemed a laid-back nights, with the light reflecting off the pewter hides of Few holidays could either be so enjoyable or so attitude to what volunteers might do – I could water buffalos and poolets of sewage, lights burning in worthwhile in terms of helping other people. come up with a project of my own! I didn't have houses, and fires burning, even the waste ground took You will need to be physically fit, prepared to raise time to put together a project, but I could teach on a vaguely end-of-days apocalyptic beauty. the sponsorship required, and up for a challenge. English – I taught EFL in the Middle-East and For more information email [email protected], UK – plus garden and do anything else needed. or visit www.cyclebhopal.org.uk. If you’d rather just talk to I started at the clinic on May 1st after six someone, please call 020 7065 0909 and ask for Kate. weeks of travel in India and Bangladesh. The Cycle Bhopal, two volunteers already in place were helpful and welcoming. They had each been there eight months, making my four weeks, of which I was a ride for life self-righteously proud, seem rather pathetic. I booked myself in to teach English each day 1 - 11 November 2008 when the clinic closed at 3pm. I also helped in the library and watered the nursery plants in the JOIN US ON A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME journey by early evening or early morning – these are times bicycle on back roads through stunning, little-known of day when India's light is at its loveliest and parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to raise money most benign, and it was a pleasure to be in the for the Sambhavna Clinic. garden; the smell of water running through soil, You will sleep in hotels and tented camps, take tea the calls and cries of koels, parrots, bulbuls, by the lakes of Bundi, spot leopards and antelopes in the doves and extraordinary chirruping of squirrels wildlife sanctuaries of Narsingarh and Darrah, and see managed to dim the invasive sounds of kids, little-visited forts and temples. Along the way, you’ll auto-rickshaws, filmi music and yapping dogs also have plenty of opportunity to meet ordinary peo- that form the usual Sambhavna senssurround. I ple, swap stories and do things most foreign visitors enjoyed amateur(ish) bird watching, camera in never get a chance to experience. one hand, hosepipe in the other. Sunsets over The ride ends in Bhopal at the clinic, where you’ll be half-built homes and wasteground perhaps lack Susan has a wicked sense of humour. Asked to send a picture, she visited a warmly welcomed and invited to learn how the money poetry, but evening skies were often rather fine. Delhi photo salon and gleefully posed clutching a bunch of plastic flowers you’ve so enjoyably earned will be spent. There is no justice in the world but there are good people – that alone keeps us alive - Bhopal survivor

Church Council of St Andrews, we were greeted even more warmly North Weald; Society of the than usual by people who had been Huge thanks to all our friends Precious Blood, Burnham Abbey, through and were no doubt still Taplow; Churches Together in suffering from the horrors of the Chislehurst; Clarice and Terry past and injustices of the present”. THANK YOU TO EVERY one of our the Modern Multinational. Wightman, and friends from St To Fiona Case at Glastonbury donors, with special mentions to: Our thanks to the following Joseph’s Catholic Church, Newton Festival Network Recycling and to Reed's School in Cobham, who Trusts for supporting our work: Abbott who raised funds guessing all the volunteers who braved the are sponsoring the salary of Dr Avenal Charitable Trust; Balsams the number of baubles on their traditional seas of mud and rubbish Mali, our ayurvedic physician, Charities; Jane Durell Charitable Christmas Tree; St Peter's Church, to be part of this year’s Bhopal through non-uniform days and a Trust; The Brillig Charitable Trust; Chailey. Litterpicking Team – the funds worldcup sweepstake (apologies The Calpe Trust; The Kenneth Simon Duffin of Westminster raised will provide much-needed for misprinting your name last John Lee Trust; The Lewis Family Explained; Shipton Mill (organic further equipment for the medicine time); Haberdashers' Monmouth Charity Settlement; The Paget millers); Vittoria Healthcare; Basic production unit. A massive thank School for Girls who raised £100 at Trust, The ED Charitable Trust; Wholefood, Camberwell; Ayrshire you to Layla Hazeldon, Jane Sarre, a non-uniform day; Linacre College The Portobello Fund; The Tolkien International Concern Group; Julia Phil Stubbs, Paige Powell, Harriet Common Room who donated the Trust; The Rossmore Trust. Brotherton & Croudace Homes; John Adams (above) finished and Matthew Kopinski, Rosie proceeds from their 2006 charity To the Religious Society of Adastra Software; Manex UK Ltd; the Snowdonia Marathon in 4 hours Scourti, Camilla West, Yvan calendar. Judith & Barry Hyman (above) Friends (Quakers) for their valued Robert Leacroft Systems. 43 minutes, 4 seconds, raising £348 Costes, Dominique Abramson, Gilly Wyatt-Smith who runs who asked for donations not gifts at support and donations: Bewdley, Michael Sherrard and all at for the Appeal; Denise Fletcher Helen Coram, Darren Hart, Rachid the beautiful Yew Tree Gallery in their 40th wedding anniversary and Milford Haven; Hereford; Calder F.C. United of Manchester for their who supports us every Christmas, Boumnijel, Shamila Adam, Colin Morvah, Cornwall and donated her joint-birthday party and raised a Bridge; Ealing; Tunbridge Wells; support and fundraising, including raised £250 in this year’s Christmas Pearce, Myles Joynt, Becky commission from The Land Around significant sum – we were touched Welwyn Garden City (who raised our thanks to the fans’ magazine Pudding 10 kilometer run and from Richings, Kiran Balendra, Lee Us exhibition to the Appeal, plus that they should think of the £150 at a concert); Wincanton and Under the Boardwalk for a generous giving reflexology treatments. Jones, Ursula Brown, Sarah visitors and clients of the gallery Appeal on such an occasion. Colchester. contribution. A special thank you to Speakman, Bruce McClure and and Uprising exhibition. Big thanks to all who asked for Church groups and religious Hannah Roselle (9) who ran the Rachel Pearce. donations to the Appeal instead of orders who as ever have been so Chorlton Fun Run and raised £38. Finally, big thank yous to Rico birthday presents: P. G. Brunton generous to us: Community of the In memoriam. We would like Coelho who volunteered in our (another FCUM supporter); Mrs Transfiguration in Roslin and to remember the following people London office, and to our stalwart Sidney Haigh; Davida Higgin of Loanhead; St Peters Church, who supported the Appeal, and to helper Judy Daniel for all your Shotesham, Paul Sweeney and Mr Warnsworth, Doncaster; The friends and family who kindly gave help. To anyone we have omitted to P. Bode (celebrating his 84th). Church Council of the Parish of further gifts: Samuel Doctors; mention, heartfelt thanks – without Those who held special events: Bargoed with Deri and Birthdir; Arthur Midgley Clay; Patience your support and donations the John Hargraves and everyone at the Sisters of Charity of our Lady O’Leary; Clare Brennan-Myers. day-to-day running of the Clinic Day of Yoga in Pembrokeshire who Mother of Mercy, Preston; Saint Everyone who so generously Raj Soni (above) who ran, swam would not be possible. raised £160 for the Appeal; Emma Pancras Parish Church; St Mary’s donated to provide Mohammed and cycled the Iron Man Half The Land Around Us exhibition: Laughton & St Andrew's Colyton Church, Falmouth, Cornwall; Pilton Idris with a heart operation and to Triathlon last year raising £522 for KAT E BOOTLE ‘The paintings brought home to us the Green Issues Group who gave £200 Methodist Church who raised £100 start a fund to help others needing the Appeal. This year he did it beauty and fruitfulness of Cornwall from a coffee morning (right) last at their sale of harvest goods; life-saving surgery. A huge thank again, completing the Full Iron in contrast to the contaminated soil of summer; Fiona and Mike Case and Elland Team Parish; Parochial you to Josephine Bhore, and to N Man Triathlon in temperatures of Bhopal, with the humble realisation friends in Pilton whose Martin and Helena at the St Andrews coffee morning Jordan, H. & M. Mulgray, Ann 30 degrees and upwards! of how fortunate we are to live in jumble sale raised funds to Levick, John Allaway, John Davies, Thank you also to Halo such a place.’ rebuild the herb garden Linda Wilkinson, Denise Brennan, Meditation Group from Bradford; (which was damaged by B. Sharma, J. Sheppard, Mr and The Wildfire Women’s Choir who Artist Edward Lewis, who so floods), and Usha Shah Mrs Dennis Ottaway, M. Pretty, raised £130 during a singing generously gave the takings from a who came to our rescue yet and to Fiona Sanders and her son. evening; Dr Ouvry and Dr Clark retrospective exhibition of his again. Erika Myall & Denise Brennan who collected donations at a private paintings and drawings spanning 50 Nick Robins who is who asked for donations to go to concert; to Mike and Polly Mansell years; Artist Fran Crowe, who used donating royalties from his Laccho after the story in our last who support the Appeal and visited The Corporation that her work at Ely Market and St book issue – this money is providing her Bhopal this January. “It turned out A mud-spattered Myles, Becky & Kiran Albans’ Margaret Harvey Gallery Changed the World: How the with cooked meals while her hus- to be one of the most memorable at theGlastonbury Festival to raise funds. East India Company Shaped band is away finding work. places we experienced. Everywhere Books

REVIEWS: Animals’ People BRIDGET HANNA, SATHYU SARANGI An unmissable, unforgettable journey A book with the power to change things

INDRA SINHA'S DELIRIOUS NEW novel Animal's People MANY OF YOU HAVE READ Indra's pieces on bhopal.net, is set in Khaufpur, a city decimated twenty years ago by the 777 newsletters and scores of campaign material he the gases of a foreign company. ‘Most people round here has produced in the last fourteen years. Imagine all that don't know their age,’ says Animal. ‘I do, because I was anger, sadness, laughter, bawdiness, absurdity, flights born a few days before that night, which no one in of power defying imagination in one book – thats Khaufpur wants to remember, but nobody can forget.’ Animal's People. Its intimately gripping story is told by In this lively and fascinating book, Animal, a gas ‘Animal' – a young survivor of the apokalis in the city of orphan, narrates his own remarkable life and the story Khaufpur. Everybody calls him Animal because he of a community irrevocably lopes on his feet and hands altered by chemicals, into a due to a bent spine – damage tape recorder left behind by a caused by the gases of the foreign journalist. His tale is SHORT-LISTED FOR apokalis. Animal lies, cheats, a raucous, biting, hilarious THE 2007 MAN BOOKER PRIZE peeps at bathing women, mix of languages, obscenities thinks unprintable thoughts, and real revelations delivered dreams wet dreams, and at a cheerful pace. verges on betraying the cause Animal's world is tough, for justice but throughout unforgiving & unforgettable remains starkly real and and his perspective is nothing immensely lovable. if not different. Bent in half The people around by an infection at a young age, Animal are fellow survivors, Animal walks on all fours and activists, do-gooders, street grapples as he cranes upward chaff, musicians, government to participate with questions officials, lumpens and lust large and small of humanity, objects: it is the story of the cruelty, love and adolescence. have-nothings fighting the Author’s original cover idea for Animal’s People Journalists, activists, govern- have-alls and winning. ment-wallli doctors, small time con artists, and regular Khaufpur is as close or far from Bhopal as you want it to people who have lost their voice or their livelihood, be but I’m sure you will all recognise the intricacies of come alive in Animal's tale. In a complex and flawed wickedness and resistance in a gassed city. This novel, world, marred by poison and poverty, Animal tries to which at the time of writing is long-listed for the 2007 understand his own humanity. Animal's name in Hindi Man Booker Prize, has the power to make a new set of is Jaanvar, or ‘one who lives.’ What does it mean to be people curious and potentially alive, intelligent, aroused and deeply curious, despite sympathetic to the ongoing having no family, money, or manifest hope? struggle of Bhopal. Animal’s What the relationship is between Sinha's Khaufpur People is published in England and Bhopal, marred by a similar disaster in a similar and is available on Amazon location at a similar time, is not clear. Probably, Bhopal UK. Please spread the word is at most an inspiration, but clearly a deeply textured and encourage friends to buy one. But Sinha helps us to know Khaufpur, its troubles, this brilliant book. textures and triumphs, more intimately and more ––– S ATHYU SARANGI humanely than we could ever hope to know those in Bhopal. Through Sinha's fiction, then, we may yet get a Paperback 352 pages • Simon & Schuster • ISBN 074322034X • £11.57 • More details glimpse into the difficult but always dynamic lives of and excerpts at www.indrasinha.com • If those who do live in Bhopal. His tale is an unmissable ordered from Amazon UK via links on Indra’s own website, www.indrasinha.com, and unforgettable journey. ––– B RIDGET HANNA each copy sold earns 60p, equal to €1 or $1.20, for the Bhopal Medical Appeal.