An Article by AID-Dallas Volunteer Sheetal Umesh Kumar

“Hey, am I still doing the press coverage and taking pictures for the Bhopal gas thing today?” I ask Vijai, the president of the Association of India's development – Dallas chapter, this afternoon. I was going to have a busy day; my agenda, apart from my weekly grooming routine, included shopping, moving to my new apartment and cooking for my friends. I was being constructive; any activity other than sleeping to me up until now, meant I was being productive. Alright. I think to myself. This is not bad. I'm pretty sure I can squeeze in some time to volunteer for an AID event, I am a volunteer, I do have to show up once in a while. So, I put on some make up, decide I need to smell nice and head out. It is a warm day, and I am happy.

On my way to the student mall at the University of Texas at Dallas, I bump into Nishank, one of the newer volunteers, and confirm where I need to show up. He was a part of a play that the AID Dallas chapter was performing to commemorate the Bhopal gas tragedy. Apparently today was an anniversary. Hmmm. I am still pretty disconnected with the whole event. It was a beautiful day, and this was just something to do for the afternoon. From inside the glass doors of the Student Union, I could see Vijai, Karthik, Chetana and Ramki all talking. So, I wave brightly and walk down the gallery. They were laying out posters, and I had to make myself useful, so I stand, arrange around and try to weigh the posters down so the wind wouldn't blow them away.

One poster catches my attention. A centered picture in it is what I can't seem to look away from. It is a dead child, buried in the ground except for an emerging head. Her eyes are open. They look like hailstones. She looked like she died in agony, died while gasping for breath. Below it, I read the caption “20,000 dead; Still counting.” I am not sure if this afternoon is going to be as light as I imagined it would be. I read on. “Torture me.” It shows a Bhopali woman, wearing her modesty, a stole over her head, attempting a smile. This is obviously important to her and in her control. What is not, is how she is affected by the tragedy. Her eyes look like hailstones too. She has a voice, she can speak. But there is no one to hear. She is an ambassador, for pain, for injustice, for living misery.

I am turning emotional at this point. But my attention is quickly directed towards Vijai, who wants to explain how his fancy SLR camera works. While amusing myself, I realize that the play is ready to start. We have an audience of almost thirty UTD students, and I want to take pictures of everybody. This camera was getting me excited, and I conveniently shove the Bhopal emotion out of my mind.

The first thing I learn is, that it is not just a “Bhopal gas thing.” It is the twenty third anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Twenty three not out - a shocking realization. It has been this long, and people are still suffering the consequences of an accident, something that happened in a fraction of a second.

The play begins. Three words keep repeating through the play – Methyl-Isocyanate, poisonous and Union Carbide. In a nut shell, Union Carbide compromised on safety standards by consciously opting to use Methyl-Isocyanate, the most poisonous chemical known, to manufacture Sevin, a pesticide. Ironical – a pesticide, a substance used to kill nuisance organisms, in order to protect crop. An accident happened, Methyl-Isocyanate leaked and a city died. Blame was tossed around, disclaimers have been forced upon the press and nobody has taken responsibility. For an estimated three and a half billion dollars worth of damage, a measly four and a half hundred million dollars of compensation was offered. The logic being Five hundred dollars converted to Indian rupees was enough to sustain an affected person for their lifetime. “Why not, the disaster was going to kill them early anyway! Mindless morons”, the Union Carbide must have reasoned. Protests happened, charges were filed, it has been 23 years, the victims are still waiting for justice.

Vijai's conclusion guilts me into an early PMS. 1984 December 2rd Bhopal borns bore the brunt of the tragedy. More than two decades later, when most of us that share the same year of birth, are figuring out complicated career paths, many of us working on convoluted engineering and medical problems, there is a group of people thinking, acting and living, as five and ten year olds. I think about myself. My biggest concern for the present, is when I am going to meet my prince charming. The thought that I might have to stay single and lonely indefinitely scares me to the point of praying. But the victims of the disaster have real problems. Death is easy to deal with – you don't, you die. Whats hard is living with and propagating bronchial pneumonia, lung edema, emphysema and hemorrhages, to mention much less than a few. Prayers are obviously not working. Law suits are not helping. Life is more of a curse to most of them, they wish they weren't even born.

I, like most people can handle only one emotion at a time. And anger is priority one. I am angry with Union Carbide, for not having been responsible enough to make safe decisions, angry with the Government of India for not having taken strong action against Union Carbide. Angry with the citizens of India for letting the issue be forgotten, angry at myself for being ignorant and powerless.

I felt small, I felt weak. I felt inconsequential. These are just one of the mega zillion problems developing India is facing. Are we even justified in calling our country “developing” India? In what sense are we developing? High tech malls and the IT sector are supposed to generate revenue, in turn bettering living conditions and facilities for all Indians uniformly. Education is secondary, citizens are being deprived of the basic needs – food, clothing and shelter. Problems are deeper than we can imagine, and I wonder if it is even possible at this juncture to change for the better. Have we reached the point of no return?

“Everything may not be fine,” Vijai tells me “but, we can make a difference.” That cheers me up, just the little I need it to. AID tries to do everything it can, to aid in the development of India, in every possible angle, be it providing classrooms for rural education, food for disaster struck areas, or medical facilities for the remote villages. I am inspired by the AID Dallas volunteers. They have jobs, they are busy and important people. They are people who have hobbies, one of them being Association of India's development. But when it comes to making a difference, they believe in compassion wherever there is suffering, conviction that the compassion is strong enough to eliminate the suffering, courage to make this conviction a reality. I am proud to be one of them.