tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22375465565254363962024-03-13T10:31:32.466+05:30BhopalBhopale blogBhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.comBlogger257125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-53141922478999014082014-12-10T16:39:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:46:20.460+05:30Bhopal : A Prayer for Rain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<u><b>Bhopal : A Prayer for Rain,</b></u> a film on the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, was declared tax-free in Madhya Pradesh by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. "Such tragedy should never take place in any city of the world and development should never take place at the cost of human being's existence," he said after watching its premiere at Ashima Mall, a local Cineplex on the occasion of 30th anniversary of the world's worst industrial disaster. Chouhan also praised the director and actors of the film for their "heart-rending" performance. However Mr. Babulal Gaur, Home Minister of the state, accompaning the Chief Minister claimed that the film was in favour of Warren Anderson. He said that the film praised Warren Anderson and blamed the local officers of the factory for the mishap. <a href="http://www.bhaskar.com/news/MP-BPL-bhopal-a-prayer-to-rain-movie-got-tax-free-4828404-NOR.html" target="_blank">He also said</a> that the film depicts Union Carbide adhering to the local laws in all other countries of operation, which is wrong.<br />
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Wary of litigation issues, the producers of 'Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain' have obtained an insurance coverage for the film that, according to sources, runs into US$100 million. Director Ravi Kumar, who was in Bhopal for the film's premiere, said they wouldn't have gone ahead with the release in the absence of an insurance cover. "We have insured it for millions of dollars. The producers are taking no chances as there is a palpable pressure from various quarters. The insurance is a safeguard against any legal suits against us. A part of the proceeds will go to Sambhavana Trust that works for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy," he says, without disclosing the exact amount. </div>
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Interestingly, in a report dated 20 April 2010 Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee of the Sambhavna Clinic, said "There is not a single Bhopali with upright moral standards in the script. Of course the people of the city are going to be angry. They are made to look comic, corrupt or passive victims" </div>
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The movie itself opens with the disclaimer: “Based on true events but certain cinematic liberties have been taken for dramatic effect.” However, the result is neither a work of gonzo journalism, nor is there the dramatic punch of “cinematic liberties”.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6NtU_7ep6eU/VIWGLs7hm8I/AAAAAAAABc0/7sH-ERb1pKY/s1600/bhopal-feature.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6NtU_7ep6eU/VIWGLs7hm8I/AAAAAAAABc0/7sH-ERb1pKY/s1600/bhopal-feature.png" height="356" width="640" /></a></div>
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Sheen plays Warren Anderson, the chief executive of Union Carbide, headquartered in Danbury, Connecticut. Barton plays Eva Gascon, a fictitious reporter from Paris-Match who learns of the problems at the plant from a local journalist, Motwani played by Kal Penn, but decides not to publish a story. Journalist Motwani in the film, senses there’s a terrible tragedy brewing at the Union Carbide factory, but given his florid dress sense and wild reporting style, no one takes him seriously. </div>
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Anybody aware of the Bhopal proceeding can relate the character with Rajkumar Keswani, a highly respected Senior Journalist of Bhopal, who continues to be a strong,logical and much respected voice on the Bhopal Gas Victims. Rajkumar Keswani, said reading the script had been "very painful". He said "My sincerity, integrity and commitment has been distorted and trivialised [and] other characters of Bhopal have not been treated fairly. Now [Anderson] basically blames everything on the Indians and walks away".</div>
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Tim Edwards, of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, said that despite serious flaws the film's script was "not all bad. "It depicts the cost-cutting regime imposed by the parent UCC on subsidiary UCIL pretty well. There is also substance to the depiction of local management culpability. Overall, [the film] does make [Union] Carbide look like white-man's-burden colonialists who put big dreams and profits before practical worker health and community safety," he said. However, Edwards said that the film "glossed over the degree of control and responsibility of US officials" and failed to portray strenuous efforts made by representatives of the workforce to get improvements on safety, particularly after a series of accidents and the death of at least one worker at the plant in the years before the accident.</div>
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Hazra Bee, a resident of Bhopal whose grandchildren suffer serious birth-defects said that enough films had been made on the events leading up to the tragedy. The most important thing now was to highlight the ongoing consequences of the disaster, she said.</div>
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The report mentioned above appeared in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/20/hollywood-bhopal-film-criticised" target="_blank">The Guardian dated 20th April 2010</a>. Presently the link says "This content has been removed as our copyright has expired". You can read the article <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2010/04/bhopal-prayer-for-rain.html" target="_blank">here</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-52142296386285841272014-12-03T06:30:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:50:51.124+05:30Bhopal The Carbide Timeline<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FFFnU-yErwU/VHw7nECAlLI/AAAAAAAABcY/CG_kxNnudtA/s1600/Pete%2BDunne.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FFFnU-yErwU/VHw7nECAlLI/AAAAAAAABcY/CG_kxNnudtA/s1600/Pete%2BDunne.jpeg" height="454" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.2877998352051px;">Artist Pete Dunne's Untitled. Dunne was living in a small town less than 100km from Bhopal at the time of the disaster</span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span class="txt-mute"><span class="txt-mute"><b><u>Tweeter session from 3rd December 2014</u></b> </span></span></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span class="txt-mute"><i><span class="txt-mute"><span class="txt-mute" style="color: blue;"><a class="url-ext" data-full-url="http://tinyurl.com/n8r49dz" href="http://t.co/0eDMe3YLcT" rel="url" target="_blank"><b>tinyurl.com/n8r49dz</b></a></span></span> </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">In 1917, a merger of four companies in USA creates the Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., makers of carbon rods for street lights, electrodes for furnaces and Eveready batteries.</span><br />
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1920 Expanding into chemicals, Union Carbide establishes the first commercial ethylene plant.<br />
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1947 The company acquires a facility in Institute, West Virginia. The Kanawha River Valley site will be dubbed “Chemical Valley” as chemical companies cluster there.<br />
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1960 Production of the trademarked insecticides Sevin (carbaryl) and, later, Temik (aldicarb) commences at the Institute plant. A key intermediate chemical is the highly reactive MIC, or methyl isocyanate.<br />
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1969 Union Carbide India Ltd. (UCIL) opens a facility in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, producing insecticides for the agricultural market in India. The formulations are made with imported chemicals.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>1972 - Construction of a full-scale chemical plant begins in Bhopal.<br />
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On February 4, 1975, a cable sent by Deputy Chief of Mission David T Schneider from the US Embassy in New Delhi shows that the Government of India allowed Union Carbide, USA to bypass the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and obtain loans from American Exim Bank instead of an Indian financing agency (as per <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/pressrelease/" target="_blank">Wikileaks "Kissinger Cables"</a>)<br />
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On September 11, 1975 a cable of from US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the US Embassy in India shows the support the US government gave to Union Carbide, USA in securing loans from the US Exim Bank for its Bhopal operations. <br />
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On April 20, 1976 the then US Ambassador in India William Saxbe in a cable expresses satisfaction at the dilution of FERA guidelines so that Union Carbide can continue to hold majority stakes in its Indian subsidiary.<br />
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1977 The Bhopal plant, with a capacity of more than 5,000 tonnes, starts making Sevin. While carbaryl is formulated on site, MIC is still imported from the plant in West Virginia. Zonal regulations in Bhopal are changed so that Carbide could set up a plant, manufacturing deadly pesticides in the heart of the city's most densely populated areas, called the Kali Parade Ground, just like the Lal Parade Ground in Jahangirabad area of Bhopal. <br />
Many of the relatives of the politicians and bureaucrats were employed by the Carbide. Union Carbide rented a beautiful guesthouse at the Shyamla Hills, which was being used by several people like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_Singh" target="_blank">Mr. Arjun Singh</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhavrao_Scindia" target="_blank">Mr Madhav Rao Scindia</a>. At one instance the Congress party held a convention in Bhopal and used it as a place of stay for several Ministers.<br />
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1980 - Production of MIC commences in Bhopal in February, negating the need for imports from the U.S. facility.<br />
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In December, 1981, a gas leak at the Union Carbide plant killed one worker. <br />
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In January 1982, another gas leak led to 25 workers being hospitalized. Workers protested that there was design defect in the plant that made it unsafe. Union Carbide sent its US experts for an audit in Bhopal. At 15 places in their report, they had written that safety measures are not proper and it could have a 'runaway' reaction.<br />
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In September 1982, UCIL de-linked the alarm from the siren warning system so that only their employees would be warned and not neighbouring residents. A year later, another leak from the plant in which 100 residents had to be hospitalized.<br />
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March 4, 1983, <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Carbide+had+lied+about+plant+safety+to+Bhopal+lawyer/1/73307.html" target="_blank">Bhopal lawyer Shahnawaz Khan</a> served a legal notice on UCIL alleging ignoring safety norms of Union Carbide. April 29, 1983, in a written reply, UCIL's Works Manager denied the allegations as baseless.<br />
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1983 - Severe drought contributes to rapidly declining Sevin sales in India. Production at the Bhopal plant falls to 1,600 tonnes.<br />
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October, 1984 - With the plant under performing, the MIC unit is shut down. Operators switch the unit from “operating mode” to “standby mode.” Two MIC storage tanks, 610 and 611, contain a combined 83 tonnes of toxic, highly volatile MIC.<br />
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August 27, 1984 UCC India works manager J Mukund (one of the accused convicted later), sent a message to US asking for advice about coating the pipes. The US-based parent company sent him a message saying that the best material for piping would be too expensive and too difficult to acquire.<br />
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Between 1983 & 1984, the safety manuals were re-written to permit among other things switching off the units that cooled the MIC gas and prevent chemical reactions.<br />
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December 3, 1984, gas leaks.<br />
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On December 4, 1984, Warren M. Anderson, the chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation boarded a plane at USA for Bombay, where he met with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keshub_Mahindra" target="_blank">Keshub Mahindra</a>, board chairman of Union Carbide India Ltd., and its managing director, V.P. Gokhale. The three decided to go to Bhopal, survey the situation, meet with Arjun Singh, the chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh, and offer interim relief and a permanent damage settlement. The three were arrested as they stepped off the plane in Bhopal. Mr. Anderson was detained for several hours and then flown back to New Delhi; the other two were put under a form of house arrest at Union Carbide's guest house in Bhopal for nine days. In New Delhi Mr. Anderson met with American and Indian officials, but little progress was made toward a settlement, so he flew back to USA.<br />
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In March 1985 Indian Government passed <a href="http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1510537/" target="_blank">a law</a> prohibiting Bhopal victims to pursue court case against Union Carbide, taking the power in it's own hand.<br />
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February 14-15, 1989 Government of India presented a mutual agreement proposal to Supreme Court, proposing that Union Carbide pays 470 Million dollars (Approx. 715 Crore Rupees) in place of 3.3 Billion Dollars (Approx. 4500 Crore Rupees) claimed in the court case. That settled the case of culpable homicide beside settling the compensation amount. The judgement on culpable homicide was challenged in the court by Bhopal activists and reversed, but the compensation amount remained the same.<br />
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Union Carbide informed its share holders in a note that the case has been settled at a very economic cost, of about 50 cents per share, that is about Rs 8/- (In 1989 dollar was Rs 16/-) When this compensation was distributed to the victims, 90 percent victims received a sum of Rs. 25,000/-. That too due to the fact that by the time of distribution of this compensation in 2002, dollar had appreciated to Rs 45-46.<br />
The Supreme Court <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghunandan_Swarup_Pathak" target="_blank">Chief Justice R.S. Pathak</a> who gave the nod of court to this settlement was appointed judge in the International Court at Holland. It is widely believed to be a reward of this settlement.<br />
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1994 - The company sells its 50.9 per cent interest in Union Carbide India Ltd.<br />
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In 1996, Supreme Court bench headed by then <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Mushabber_Ahmadi" target="_blank">Chief Justice of India, A H Ahmadi</a>, passed a judgment that converted section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian penal code to 304-A (causing death by negligence) to try the case. After retirement, Justice Ahmadi became the lifetime chairman of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust and Research Centre which has funds worth millions of rupees. Those millions, paid by Union Carbide for the poor victims, were under his control.<br />
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2001 - Union Carbide becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Co.<br />
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In October 2006, as per Wikileaks' "Kissinger Cables", during the CEO forum event Government of India officials including former <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Nath" target="_blank">Commerce Minister Kamal Nath</a> and former Planning Commission Deputy Chairman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montek_Singh_Ahluwalia" target="_blank">Montek Singh Ahluwalia</a> stated that they welcomed further Dow investment in India and did not believe that Dow was responsible for the disaster site clean-up.<br />
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In 2006 Congress spokesperson <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhishek_Singhvi" target="_blank">Ashishek Manu Singhvi</a>, a Senior Supreme Court lawyer and then Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and present Finance Minister of India <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arun_Jaitley" target="_blank">Arun Jaitley</a>, also a senior advocate, advised DOW that it had no liability in the Bhopal gas tragedy<br />
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On September 18, 2007 US Ambassador David Mulford urged the Government of India to “drop its claims against Dow” in a cable. In reply, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia assures the Ambassador that the Government of India does not hold Dow responsible for the cleanup but is unable to withdraw its claims against Dow because of “active and vocal” NGOs. According to the cable, Ahluwalia then advised the Ambassador to discuss the issue of Dow Chemical’s Bhopal liabilities with Finance Minister Chidambaram.<br />
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On 7 June 2010, Bhopal District Court Chief Justice Mohan Tiwari sentenced each of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8725140.stm" target="_blank">seven accused to two years of imprisonment</a>, that is 35 minutes for each of the 25 thousand dead in Bhopal. That does not account for the five lakh injured and disabled for life. The accused were released immediately after the judgement at a bail amount of Rs 25000/- each. That is Rs 1/- per victim.<br />
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On 29 Sept,2014 Warren Anderson, CEO Union Carbide at the time of Bhopal Gas disaster, died in a Florida nursing home. He was 92 and a free man inspite of repeated attempts of Bhopal NGOs to bring him back to justice at Bhopal. Although he appeared to be a prisoner of conscience<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/warren-anderson-villain-of-bhopal.html" target="_blank"> as per this report</a><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-7205619418503811312014-11-30T09:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:51:10.255+05:30The Ghosts Of Bhopal - Part Four<div style="text-align: justify;">
Part Four: Mass Tort</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">John P. Coale, lawyer, behind his desk at his 22nd Street office. Dudley Brooks/The Washington Post via Getty Images</span></td></tr>
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John Coale was in the back of a taxicab, riding down Washington, D.C.’s Massachusetts Avenue. The radio was on, the news announcer relating details of a catastrophic gas leak in India at a facility owned by Union Carbide, total casualties as yet unknown.</div>
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Coale didn’t need to know the final number. What was running through his head like an old stock ticker tape was this thought: “That’s a huge American legal case and I want to be a part of it.” This was before Big Tobacco, a colossus of a suit. Coale was a key member of the so-called Castano litigation, a class-action that went after the tobacco companies for fraud, deceit and negligent misrepresentation in not informing smokers of the addictive properties of cigarettes. That action, which Coale would deem “the mother of all lawsuits,” launched a decade after Bhopal.</div>
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In 1984, Coale was still considered young in the legal game at the age of 37. And maybe his relative youth played to his advantage, for what he assessed as the top priority was speed — to be the first American legal team on the ground in Bhopal, and specifically to beat Melvin Belli, the cinematic courtroom lawyer renowned for his unbridled speech, for the quantum of his court awards and for a roster of headline-grabbing clients that included Jack Ruby and Sirhan Sirhan.<br />
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So Coale swiftly cobbled together what he calls a “ragtag team,” though at his side was noted lawyer Arthur Lowy (ex CIA, ex state department intelligence) — hardly B league talent. Joining them were Ted Dickinson, the investigator with Coale’s legal practice, and Coale’s tailor, Sastri, who spoke Hindi.</div>
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Was there a mad scramble to amass documents and research in advance of leaving? “Oh no,” Coale says, seeming surprised by the suggestion that there might have been some degree of organization. “We just got on the plane. About all we knew was where (Bhopal) was and how to get there.”</div>
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The day was just dawning on massive civil actions on behalf of a host of plaintiffs joined in a single case against a corporation. Coale cites the MGM fire in 1980 as a watermark. Cases against commercial jetliners were just getting underway, to be followed by Big Tobacco and asbestos, to cite two of the most headline-grabbing</div>
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Determining responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy presented a distinct challenge. “Our first thought was that we had to establish that a lot of the decisions that in the end caused the disaster in India, a lot of the decisions were made in Connecticut, which would give jurisdiction in the United States,” Coale recalls.</div>
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Landing in Bhopal, the legal team was swarmed by media waiting for Melvin Belli. But Belli was still en route and had made a pit-stop in New Delhi. From the capital, Belli’s press performance was captured by the Times of London’s Trevor Fishlock, noting Belli’s alligator skin boots, his black suit with the red silk lining. “We’ll knock the stuffing out of them,” Belli said of Union Carbide, predicting that the case would be an easy one. “We’re going for $15 billion.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Marquee U.S. attorney Melvin Belli had a clear message for Union Carbide: “We’ll knock the stuffing out of them.” Peter Kemp/AP</span></div>
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Union Carbide had announced one of its first goodwill gestures, to set up an orphanage in Bhopal. “The people in India are nobodies,” Belli told Fishlock. “Some poor little bastard living in a railroad shack goes home to find his wife and child dead. Now Union Carbide have the effrontery to offer a f---ing orphanage and a million dollars. It’s a monumental goof.”</div>
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Fishlock watched with some amazement as Belli handed a poor woman a 20 rupee note — a considerable sum in the day, worth about $2 — told her it was a Christmas present, and suggested she could buy cigars with it.</div>
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“He was an outrageous character,” Fishlock says today from his home in Cardiff. “But nevertheless people did take notice of him. I think the Indian authorities thought that he was the way forward because nobody really knew what to do. How would you sue a major international company?”</div>
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The issue of jurisdiction presented obvious challenges. “Tort law was hardly known and the Indian legal system was creaky at the best of times,” Fishlock notes. “India still has a reputation for cases that stretch out through the decades.”</div>
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At the Bhopal airport, Coale found himself unexpectedly ahead of the game, beating Belli and facing a throng of media. “I didn’t want to say that I was arriving to see what happened. I told them that I had been called there, which was a lie. That I had been called there and people wanted me to represent them. I was just making that up on the tarmac.”</div>
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Within the day, a relation of the mayor’s was printing thousands of personal injury retainers at Coale’s request. By the following day, thousands of Bhopalis were lined up around his hotel, waiting to sign on.</div>
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Coale remembers the arrival of Union Carbide chief executive officer Warren Anderson. Anderson’s stay in the city lasted fewer than 24 hours. Arrested upon arrival and charged with culpable homicide and negligence, the heavily bespectacled, reportedly mild-mannered executive was only very briefly at the Union Carbide secluded guest house in the Shyamla Hills before being released on bail. He was quickly spirited to New Delhi, and then to Connecticut.</div>
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Six days after the disaster, firmly planted on home turf, Anderson expressed confidence that the victims could be “fairly and equitably compensated.” His message was aimed at shareholders. Dealing with the Bhopal situation would not have a “material adverse effect” on Union Carbide’s bottom line.</div>
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On Dec. 14, Anderson appeared before a Congressional subcommittee on health and the environment, which set up a field hearing adjacent to the Union Carbide MIC plant at Institute, W.Va. Institute residents, naturally enough, sought reassurance that the horrors of Bhopal could not be replicated in their own backyard, not in “Chemical Valley.” On the Bhopal tragedy, Anderson said this: “We felt that plant was as safe as this one.” Safety procedures at Institute were constantly under review, the committee was notified with confidence.</div>
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Five weeks later, Representative Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, released a bombshell. In a confidential Union Carbide report written just weeks before the Bhopal leak, company inspectors warned of safety issues with the storage of MIC at Institute. “There is concern that a runaway reaction could occur in one of the MIC unit storage tanks and that response to such a situation would not be timely or effective enough to prevent catastrophic failure of the tank,” the report stated. Procedural changes were made at the Institute facility to ensure that water could not leak into the MIC tank. The committee was informed that the report — and the changes it prompted — were irrelevant to the Bhopal situation due to differences in design. The findings had not been shared with their Indian counterparts.</div>
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It would be some time yet before John Coale would feel the full thrust of defeat. First, he was bumped to supporting-role status after a power grab among lawyers that would be worthy of its own autopsy if the story had turned out differently. A little more than a year after the tragedy, U.S. District Court Judge John F. Keenan was assigned to conduct hearings on where the case should be tried. On May 12, 1986, Keenan ruled that India was the proper venue. To decide otherwise, he wrote, “would be yet another example of imperialism, another situation in which an established sovereign inflicted its rules, its standards and values on a developing nation.”</div>
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In September, the Indian government filed a $3.3-billion suit against Union Carbide. Fourteen months later, the government charged Anderson and a handful of executives with homicide, issuing a warrant for Anderson’s arrest in November 1988. In the first week of February 1989, in the court of the chief judicial magistrate for Bhopal, Anderson, by this point retired from Union Carbide, was deemed an “absconding offender.”</div>
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The CEO had long since retired, having told a reporter as he exited Union Carbide in December, 1986, that he was looking forward to some hobby time. “I’d like to try carving ducks, and I’m a bread baker,” he offered.</div>
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Anderson would never see the inside of an Indian courtroom, nor would the company ever have to subject its sabotage theory to legal examination. On Feb. 14, 1989, the Indian Supreme Court suddenly affirmed a $470-million (U.S.) out-of-court settlement between the company and the Indian government. Writing in the Washington Post, a young Malcolm Gladwell noted that the company’s insurance would cover about $200 million of the settlement, and that a further $200 million would be drawn from an existing corporate reserve fund. “As a result,” Gladwell wrote, “yesterday’s settlement means the Danbury, Connecticut-based Carbide, which had revenue of just over $8 billion last year, will spend at most $70 million more to close the books on one of the biggest disasters in industrial history.”</div>
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Gladwell quoted a dryly observant John Coale: “I would say (the Carbide lawyers) represented their clients very well.”</div>
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Union Carbide stock rose $2 a share on the news, lending credence to Anderson’s expressed view that dealing with the Bhopal problem wouldn’t have much effect on the bottom line. The stake in Union Carbide India Ltd. was sold in 1994. Four years later, the acquiring company terminated its lease on the property, which today is owned by the state government of Madhya Pradesh.</div>
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Any lasting hopes that Union Carbide could still be held to account for the accident in an Indian court appeared to collapse in 2001 when the once aggressively internationalist multinational became a wholly owned subsidiary of its one-time competitor Dow Chemical.</div>
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From the beginning, John Coale thought Bhopal had the potential to be a landmark case in holding to account the American company operating abroad. “I thought this would be a ... counter to the multinationals who seemed to do anything they wanted at the time,” he says. These days it is the tobacco wars that people ask him about — a huge victory. Bhopal is remembered only occasionally. On that catastrophe, Coale offers a one-line summation: “The people got screwed.”</div>
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Life had already changed for Union Carbide in Chemical Valley. The company sold its Institute, W.Va., plant to Rhone Poulenc in 1986. In 2002, the company that became Bayer CropScience acquired the facility and its processes for making Temik and Sevin.</div>
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At approximately 10:30 in the evening of August 28, 2008, plant employees Barry Withrow and Bill Oxley were sent to investigate abnormally high pressure readings at a residue treater that stored waste Methomyl, a highly toxic and reactive insecticide sold under the trade name Larvin. Within minutes, a runaway chemical reaction caused by excess Methomyl blew the waste tank and exploded into a fireball, killing Withrow. Oxley would die in hospital 41 days later.</div>
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An investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board cited multiple safety violations and equipment deficiencies, including malfunctioning or missing equipment, misaligned valves and bypassed critical safety devices.</div>
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Not 30 metres from the twisted rubble of the waste vessel stood a 17,000-kilogram capacity MIC storage tank. On the night of the accident, the tank contained approximately 6,350 kilograms of MIC, a key component in synthesizing Methomyl. A Congressional committee was struck to investigate. “The explosion at Bayer’s plant was particularly ominous and unnerving,” said the committee in summary, noting that the treater, weighing 2,300 kilograms, shot 15 metres through the plant, cutting a path of destruction. “Had this projectile struck the MIC tank, the consequences could have eclipsed the 1984 disaster in India.”</div>
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MIC, the committee said, “is considered ‘immediately dangerous to life and health’ at the extremely low concentration of three parts per million in air. At ordinary temperatures, MIC is a liquid but it evaporates very rapidly to form a heavier-than-air vapour cloud.”</div>
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Transcripts of telephone calls at the time of the explosion underscore the confusion of first responders, and offer an eerie echo to the Bhopal disaster. The fire department had no idea what it was dealing with, as evidenced by a call to the plant: “We have a cloud of some type that is dark, it’s moving toward (the nearby town of) Nitro, can you please try to get some information so you can tell us what it is?”</div>
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A cloud of smoke swiftly travelled westward. There were no further casualties, but residents had long been on high alert to potential dangers. In his testimony before the committee, John Bresland, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, noted that the other chemical companies had ceased storing large volumes of MIC, quoting a noted safety authority: “What you don’t have, can’t leak.”</div>
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There was no solace in any of this for the residents of Bhopal.</div>
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The risks associated with stockpiling MIC at Institute dovetailed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s risk assessment of aldicarb — the Temik that Nadir Kahn bottled at the Bhopal plant. In August 2010, citing aldicarb’s potential to cause such neurotoxic effects as blurred vision, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, the EPA banned the pesticide. Bayer agreed to cease production of the Temik brand as of December 2014. In January 2011, just prior to the release of the Chemical Safety Board’s report on the runaway Methomyl reaction, the company further announced that it would phase out production of MIC across an 18-month period.</div>
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In January 2012, the company announced it was selling its “crop protection assets” to Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc., including the Sevin trademark. Tessenderlo will only say that carbaryl, the active ingredient in Sevin, is produced in China. Any ingredient in that process including, potentially, MIC, is deemed proprietary and confidential information.</div>
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Raees Quereshi steps from his shanty into the bright light of day. He has a bar of soap in his grasp, the soap serving two purposes. The first is a quick morning scrub. After that, he will briskly rake his toothbrush across the hard cake and set to work cleaning his teeth as the neighbourhood goes about its usual morning clang and clatter.</div>
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Quereshi’s brother Sayeed has had a bad night, his phlegm-filled cough repeatedly lurching him awake, his lungs barking an angry wet rattle. Sayeed’s first task of the day is to hot-wire the neighbour’s water pump so that his wife, Apsari, can fill the urns that will be carried to the shanty for the household cooking and washing. The municipality turns the water on daily, which makes for an industrious 15 minutes in the neighbourhood. There is no point in even trying to ask a question in the middle of all this action. The women are the water bearers and they are made impatient by distraction. We have already learned this lesson from Parvati, who told us to return after the water had been drawn.</div>
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From the roadway, Quereshi’s home appears much as it did the night of Dec. 2, 1984. Dozens of spent bicycle tires are still dispersed across the rooftop in an attempt to settle the plastic sheeting meant to keep the rain away. Pieces of tin and the occasional slathering of cement have patched some of the holes between the wooden slats.</div>
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Inside, most of the walls have now been parged and painted.</div>
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Many of the homes in J.P. Nagar have been built up, sometimes by a storey or even two. But Quereshi’s shows no such signs of improved fortune. Sayeed is too ill to work, so his brother’s income must provide for their wives and the six children they have between them. There is a single steel-frame bed, which Sayeed rests upon. Everyone else sleeps on a hardpack mud floor under a bright light bulb that is never turned off and a television that blares late into the night. The family’s possessions are scant: some metal containers. A plastic rug and bed rolls.</div>
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Their brother Waheed was made a widower by the disaster, and he moved to Jabalpur soon after. Six, or possibly seven years after the tragedy, Apsari gave birth to a baby boy. They named him Nadeem. He quickly lost his eyesight, and six months later was dead. Three years after that Apsari miscarried. Their mute daughter Sakina was born in 1989, followed some years later by their son Salman, who, by all appearances, is strapping and healthy.</div>
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Many of the victims have stayed in place. Jebur Nisha and Vishnu Bai and Parvati and Azaad.</div>
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Nadir Khan moved away. After the disaster, he started selling onions and potatoes from a hand cart. Today he makes 200 rupees a month working as a sentry at Hamidia Hospital. His health is frail — he looks as though he’s barely able to stand for the work.</div>
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As he has done in a previous meeting, Khan retrieves the small pile of official papers that he keeps in a manila folder. His termination papers were signed by Mr. Krishnamoorthy, industrial relations manager at Union Carbide India Ltd. “During his association with us we have found Mr. Nadir Khan’s character and conduct good,” the letter states. “We wish Mr. Nadir Khan all the best in his future endeavours.”</div>
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Why would he continue to work at a place known to be unsafe?</div>
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Khan is missing many teeth, and his jaw does a sideways shimmy as he explains that the pay was good. What a foolish question.</div>
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We want to return to the scene of the tragedy for a third time. To do that, we must wait in the ramshackle office of the gas relief department, and explain ourselves, and be patient, and await the attention of the handsome bureaucrat who is the intermediary for the approval we seek. It is unclear what the process is, precisely. If there are efficiencies here, they are not apparent.</div>
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A group of men sit in near slumber around a table. A fan tries to whir. Our functionary unties the string holding a stack of official papers together. He is surrounded by piles of such paper, the processing of which is a mystery. Time passes, an anxiety in itself. Clearly it is a labour to be given the green light.</div>
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We return to the abandoned and ghostly place, walking the crisply dry grounds, toward the rusted carcass of the plant. The spires of steel have been all but stripped to their skeleton form, save for the insulation that weeps off some of the piping. The control room is hollow-eyed and tragically comical with its “Safety is Everybody’s Business” sign. Broken glass crunches underfoot as we enter the laboratory. Stout brown bottles, enshrouded in cobwebs, bear aged labels for diphenylamine and dichloromethane and other polysyllabic mysteries.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vz9Jsx28eXg/VHV39dcXvfI/AAAAAAAABbg/QrCumPtCS6s/s1600/1416520048388.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vz9Jsx28eXg/VHV39dcXvfI/AAAAAAAABbg/QrCumPtCS6s/s1600/1416520048388.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: slategrey; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 15px; text-align: start;">The control room of the Union Carbide plant</span></td></tr>
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Two of the MIC tanks remain in their concrete bunker. The infamous tank, 610, was yanked out of place and now lies 40 paces to the east. The grounds are eerily quiet, with only the occasional sound from the clamour of the neighbouring bustees penetrating the silence. In one of its reports, the medical research council noted that the adjacent hutment situated in the opposite direction of the wind on that fateful night largely escaped exposure to the toxic gas. In the distance, decorative red and orange flags have been brought to attention by an advancing wind.</div>
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Beyond the factory grounds, a raggedy black polyethylene scrim pokes from under a berm that rises above a solar evaporation pond. Union Carbide’s plant at Institute was built by a river, and thus had a natural outlet for its discharged waste. As no such river exists next to the Khali Parade grounds, three ponds were designed, ponds that proved inadequate to the task of accommodating the factory’s waste.</div>
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A Greenpeace report from 1999 was the first to document site and groundwater contamination based on extensive testing. From mercury around the Sevin site, which was still visible on our visit, to volatile organochlorine compounds in the groundwater, Greenpeace found “substantial and, in some locations, severe contamination of land and drinking water supplies with heavy metals and persistent organic contaminants.”</div>
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The process of migrating the residents in surrounding areas from local wells to clean and properly piped water has taken generations. The contamination remains, as do 350 tonnes of toxic waste on the plant grounds, locked in a storage building that we could not get access to. Years-long promises to ship out the toxic waste have come to naught.</div>
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Washington, D.C., lawyer Richard Lewis has for years been trying to drag the environment case before a New York jury. On behalf of a group of Bhopali residents, Lewis and co-counsel sued Union Carbide and Warren Anderson, and more recently Union Carbide and the state of Madhya Pradesh, alleging that the American company was negligent in its oversight of plant operations, and is thereby responsible for chemicals leaking into the groundwater, polluting the soil and drinking water of nearby residents.</div>
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In his most recent ruling, on July 30, 2014, Judge Keenan once again found that responsibility does not rest with Union Carbide. UCIL, he ruled, was responsible for the design of the waste treatment facility. An exasperated Lewis points the finger at Union Carbide U.S.A. “The design comes from Institute, and the expertise comes from Institute, and the risk of water contamination and the knowledge of how to treat it comes directly from Institute,” Lewis said in an interview.</div>
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Keenan would not allow for the deposition of John Couvaras, a one-time Union Carbide project manager. Through Couvaras, the plaintiffs allege that the American operation had final say over plant design, including the waste treatment system. Keenan found the opposite: that Couvaras became an employee of the Indian subsidiary when he took on the responsibilities of project manager. Lewis intends to commence an appeal of Judge Keenan’s latest ruling Nov. 22.</div>
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There is a bigger picture that needs to be underscored, Lewis continues. “The enormous implication is that there has to be a way to require multinational corporations to use their knowledge and expertise to control environmental pollution when they’re doing business in the developing world or in countries in Africa or South America or Asia that have less stringent regimes. I think that’s the core issue of this entire controversy.”</div>
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The entire environmental controversy, that is. But even that doesn’t get at the true heart of the matter.</div>
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In December 1984, after he returned from Bhopal to Union Carbide’s Connecticut headquarters, Warren Anderson predicted that the balance of his career would be spent “having to sort out this incident.”</div>
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Anderson was long retired when, in October 1991, India’s Supreme Court, while upholding the $470-million settlement of two years earlier, overturned an agreement that granted the corporation’s executives immunity from criminal prosecution.</div>
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In December 1991, Bhopal’s chief magistrate ordered Anderson to face trial on charges of “culpable homicide, not amounting to murder.” Four months later, the Indian government issued an extradition warrant for the “absconder” Anderson. Union Carbide called the extradition attempt “disgraceful ... Anderson’s only connection was after the tragedy when he attempted to bring aid and relief to the victims of Bhopal.”</div>
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In June 2010, more than 25 years after the accident, Keshub Mahindra, 85, and seven former executives of Union Carbide India Ltd. were convicted of a “negligent act” and sentenced to two years. Those convictions are under appeal. A petition by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation to have the sentences increased was rejected.</div>
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For years, a candlelight vigil has been held in Bhopal on the anniversary of the disaster. For years, the absconder Anderson was burned in effigy. It is Dow Chemical that is now lit aflame, personified by a briefcase-carrying devil that is pulled on a dolly through the streets before it is torched and beaten to cinders by boys with sticks. Dow accepts no responsibility. “Dow never owned or operated the Bhopal facility,” says a corporate communications representative via email. “Any efforts to directly involve Dow in legal proceedings in India concerning the 1984 Bhopal tragedy are inappropriate, misguided and without merit.”</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p5t6Lkqdk8Y/VHV4QVxHWfI/AAAAAAAABbo/ztNqJoC_9oM/s1600/bhopal-effigy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p5t6Lkqdk8Y/VHV4QVxHWfI/AAAAAAAABbo/ztNqJoC_9oM/s1600/bhopal-effigy.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: slategrey; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 15px; text-align: start;">A briefcase-carrying devil, representing Dow Chemical, is lit on fire in the streets of Bhopal.</span></td></tr>
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The district court in Bhopal has said repeatedly that is has issued a summons via the Central Bureau of Investigation to cause Dow to appear. Dow says no such summons has been received.</div>
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First-hand accounts of that cold, black night 30 years ago are disappearing.</div>
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Nadir Khan has had a paralysis attack and can no longer stand.</div>
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On Sept. 29, Warren Anderson died in a Florida nursing home. He was 92.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-one.html" target="_blank">Part One: Wedding Season</a> <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-two.html" target="_blank">Part Two: Building a New India</a> <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-three.html" target="_blank">Part Three: Post Mortem</a><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">Story by </span><a href="http://www.thestar.com/authors.wells_jennifer.html" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0072bc; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; outline: none; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jennifer Wells</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">. Photos by Spencer Wynn.</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-56639650151448459822014-11-29T09:30:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:51:31.223+05:30The Ghosts Of Bhopal - Part Three<div style="text-align: justify;">
Part Three: Post Mortem</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f1AHcEZ5Axo/VHVynGPRC4I/AAAAAAAABas/4vlSJgamij8/s1600/1416516814175.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f1AHcEZ5Axo/VHVynGPRC4I/AAAAAAAABas/4vlSJgamij8/s1600/1416516814175.jpg" height="412" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">Dr. Satpathy ordered that each unclaimed body be photographed and identified by number.</span></div>
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Dec. 3, 1984.</div>
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Stones tapping at the window.</div>
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What time is it?</div>
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Certainly past midnight.</div>
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The sound is loud enough and persistent enough to rouse Dr. D.K. Satpathy from his slumbers.</div>
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Fie. The man throwing these stones is a known drunkard. This is what the pathologist thinks to himself. The doctor cannot be bothered with such nonsense at this hour.</div>
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Dr. Satpathy was certainly not lazy. He would want the world to understand this. Though his workweeks were long, he prided himself on his readiness to conduct a post-mortem at a moment’s notice. Sundays. Holidays. Diwali. Such occasions mean nothing to a true professional. Suppose a mother has lost her son and it is Good Friday. (This is how he would phrase it.) If he were not to conduct a post-mortem in the instant, the body could not then be prepared for burial and the whole day will be a black day for her.</div>
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How long does an autopsy take? To incise a Y formation, from the clavicle, coming to a single rill down the torso to the pubis, an examination of viscera. One hour? Two at most. And then, the pathologist may resume his private affairs. His day remains to be enjoyed. (This is also how he would phrase it.)</div>
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Satpathy can make the task sound no more onerous, nor time-consuming, than reading the morning newspaper. He will conduct 70,000 necropsies in his career. This he will say proudly.</div>
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How much sleep follows the arrival of the disruptive drunkard?</div>
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Time flies past. Satpathy does not stir. One a.m. Two a.m. In the helter-skelter of J.P. Nagar, and the bus depot and the railway station and along Union Carbide Road and the bustee they call Kazi Camp, hordes of panicked Bhopalis are dropping in place. Blinded. Puking. Their bowels discharging. Ox carts and trucks begin picking up the ailing, placing the dead into piles. It is too soon yet for the cranes that will start lifting the cumbersome dead oxen.</div>
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Feroza, the wife of Afzal the painter, is placed upon a funeral pyre, from which she rises like a ghost.</div>
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Sunil Verma is a boy of 13. Running willy-nilly from his home, he stops to pee and passes out. Presumed dead he is piled into a vehicle to join the company of corpses. Later, he will wake up. Later, he will learn that three of his sisters have died. And two of his brothers. And both of his parents.</div>
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Dr. Heeresh Chandra, Satpathy’s supervisor, is now at the pathologist’s door, urgently rapping. Roused, Satpathy struggles to absorb Chandra’s earth-shattering message: “There has been a human toll beyond our imagination.”</div>
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Satpathy rushes to Hamidia Hospital, off the major artery of Berasia Road. The government hospital is crowded with bodies. The grounds that Satpathy had walked through the prior afternoon have turned into a morgue. White sheets cover human forms, as if the clouds themselves had collapsed onto the ground.</div>
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The wind chimes gently stir in Dr. Satpathy’s home on Kolar Road. To the west rise the Shyamla Hills, the lake-view enclave where Union Carbide kept its gated guest house. The pathologist’s home is on a busy thoroughfare, and thus doesn’t bar the insistent cacophony of evening life in Bhopal — the constant revving of motorcycles, the rattle of tuk-tuks; the bell-ringing of the vegetable sellers, their pushcarts laden with cauliflower and eggplant.</div>
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Satpathy pads through the French doors of his living room, offering a hygienic elbow tap by way of greeting. His snow-white sideburns, set against a surprisingly rich brown head of hair, are the most visible acknowledgement of the decades that have passed.</div>
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He is retired now — no longer the director of the Medicolegal Institute for the government of Madhya Pradesh. The institute was the first of its kind in India, established in the late ’70s to set a new standard in forensic analysis. At the time of the Bhopal disaster, the institute was still new, still groundbreaking.</div>
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Satpathy recalls the grisly sight he came upon the morning of Dec. 3. Hundreds of men, women and children had been laid out on the hospital grounds. Being at a loss for space, bodies had been stacked, one atop the other, in a washroom. “There was no space!” he exclaims. “None! The whole veranda, the whole campus, was packed with victims.”<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3dsE9vh_zXM/VHVypxjDcGI/AAAAAAAABa4/O-_1y4jOP1s/s1600/bhopal-dead-bodies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3dsE9vh_zXM/VHVypxjDcGI/AAAAAAAABa4/O-_1y4jOP1s/s1600/bhopal-dead-bodies.jpg" height="400" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Bodies lay in a makeshift morgue in Bhopal, India.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> Sondeep Shankar/AP</span></td></tr>
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The chaos was grimly matched by the chaotic messaging from Union Carbide. A co-worker of Satpathy’s spoke directly with Dr. L.S. Loya, the Union Carbide plant physician. In Satpathy’s account, Loya replied, “Believe me, doctor, I don’t know anything about this gas. I have never been told about the toxicity of this gas. Neither have I been told the antidote, the safety precaution about this gas. Nor has any worker been informed about that.”</div>
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Loya did have one piece of advice: “Just wash your face and all this and it will be washed away.”</div>
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Satpathy assesses the dearth of information this way: “While the company was installing this factory, suppose he would have disclosed: ‘Look, gentlemen, I am installing a factory where this MIC gas will be used and even if a single puff of it will be so toxic that death may precipitate.’ Then no worker would have employed at that factory.”</div>
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MIC was produced at the Bhopal plant by reacting phosgene, the poison gas that was used as a chemical agent in the First World War, with monomethylamine. The phosgene was made on site by reacting chlorine with carbon monoxide, both of which were trucked in to the Union Carbide site. The end product, the pesticide, was produced by reacting MIC with the organic compound 1-naphthol.</div>
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By the autumn of 1984, the Bhopal plant was a chronic money loser, the size of staff had been chopped in half and safety management systems, such as they were, had been badly compromised. The MIC production unit had been shut down. Between two tanks, 610 and 611, the MIC inventory stood at 83 tonnes, which were to be stored at a target temperature of zero degrees Celsius. The MIC in both tanks exceeded recommended capacity by roughly 30 per cent. Conversion of the MIC to carbaryl, or Sevin, was deemed the soundest approach to disposing of the remaining material.</div>
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MIC is colourless, has a sharp, detectable odour, and is highly reactive with water. According to employee accounts, on the evening of Dec. 2, Rahaman Khan, also known as Rehman Khan, commenced the process of washing four lines of piping in the unit. The composition of the unit included a relief valve vent header, designed to flip open under pressure and release excess gases as required to the vent gas scrubber, the apparatus that would neutralize the gas with a caustic soda solution. Clearing such discharge pipes when blocked was common practice. But a slip blind, which would have contained the water flow and prevented it from entering the tank and contaminating the MIC, was not in place.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-axPkacbGah0/VHVyn3h6BZI/AAAAAAAABak/qu1yULtWsDY/s1600/1416518405244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-axPkacbGah0/VHVyn3h6BZI/AAAAAAAABak/qu1yULtWsDY/s1600/1416518405244.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Tank 610, the tank that leaked methyl isocyanate (MIC) in the Union Carbide plant</span></td></tr>
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As the water invaded the tank it reacted with the MIC. The temperature in the tank rapidly rose, unleashing an acute exothermic reaction. Two Indian scientists would later conclude that a temporary pipe, installed between previously unconnected parts of the MIC equipment, was the conduit for the contamination. The scientists surmised that this “bypass system” had been devised to compensate for those parts of the facility that were undergoing repair.</div>
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Union Carbide’s own investigation rejected the water washing explanation. Months after the disaster the company would finger, though not name, a “disgruntled” worker “who had ample opportunity to deliberately inject the large amount of water into the storage stank which caused the massive gas release.”</div>
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The company did not state what the worker might have to gain. M.L. Verma, a UCIL employee, would later say that it was clear the American corporation was fingering him. Verma himself addressed the central issue — that such an act would be undertaken at the enormous risk of the saboteur becoming victim. “Everyone knows that a MIC and water reaction is very dangerous.”</div>
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In addition to the nonfunctioning flare tower (which would have burned off the released gas) and the non-operational refrigeration system, the temperature gauge was malfunctioning. The exothermic reaction of the MIC with the water caused the temperature to spike, though how high it rose is unknown. A later investigation by Union Carbide would surmise that the temperature in the tank exceeded 200 degrees Celsius. How far it may have exceeded that temperature the company did not postulate. Workers noted that the day following the disaster, the tank was “hot to the touch.”</div>
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Though the idled vent gas scrubber was restarted the night of the disaster it proved no match for the explosive release: the scrubber was built to handle a low-pressure flow of 85 kilograms per hour. Instead, the gas was emitted through the scrubber at 18,000 kilograms per hour.</div>
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The runaway chemical reaction was violent.</div>
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No evacuation plans had been established for the adjacent communities. No emergency preparedness information had been transmitted as to how to respond to exposures of any kind.</div>
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The laxity around safety was not known to Dr. Satpathy. Nor the rapidly deteriorating state of the facility. The urgent medical question was simply: What is this gas?</div>
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If the temperature of the MIC at release that night was unknown in the moment, how could its chemical components be accurately assessed? At extreme heat, could the MIC have been degraded? What contaminants may have sloughed off the corroded tank walls? Union Carbide would later determine that iron compounds contributed to the catalytic reaction.</div>
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It was Dr. Chandra, Satpathy’s superior, who first ordered sodium thiosulphate injections. “In the autopsies, we were having this conception that the gas, whatever it is, that a cyanide element was the much stronger element,” Satpathy says. “During the autopsies we observed that the blood was not cyanosed. It was very cherry red ... because the oxygen was not utilized.” The presumption was cyanide poisoning.</div>
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Lending further credence to this theory, the presence of sodium thiocyanate in the urine of gas-affected patients injected with thiosulphate confirmed that detoxification was taking place.</div>
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Yet within days of the catastrophe, Union Carbide’s medical director at its operations in West Virginia, who had flown to Bhopal, asserted at a press conference that there could be no cyanide poisoning. Early in 1985, New Scientist magazine quoted from a Union Carbide statement: “Methyl isocyanate is not a cyanide. In no way should it be confused as such.”</div>
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While sodium thiosulphate is virtually harmless in and of itself, the instructions around the injections were further confused by the director of health services for the state of Madhya Pradesh, who ordered that “under no circumstances should sodium thiosulphate be given unless it is correctly and conclusively proved in the laboratory that it is cyanide poisoning.”</div>
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In fact, if the temperature had risen high enough, the MIC could have degraded into hydrogen cyanide. No systematic study was undertaken to solve this piece of the riddle, a fact that grieves Satpathy greatly. The ultimate toxicant at Bhopal has never been determined.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pSaUk2Ze2Ps/VHVylpM7zjI/AAAAAAAABaY/t-MEtzcjnTY/s1600/1416433321976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pSaUk2Ze2Ps/VHVylpM7zjI/AAAAAAAABaY/t-MEtzcjnTY/s1600/1416433321976.jpg" height="400" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Union Carbide control room safety sign.</span></td></tr>
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Union Carbide control room safety sign.</div>
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Those who had acutely inhaled the gas, those who ran with the wind, those who did not place a wet cloth to their faces, those who were unfortunate and young enough to be fully exposed, perhaps those who ran fastest, presented a problem — there were simply too many to autopsy.</div>
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Practical decisions were taken. All bodies were photographed and numbered. A random sample of autopsies was conducted. External examinations were undertaken for the rest. “There were no visible injuries. There were no burns. There were no ...” Satpathy’s voice drifts off. A delicate froth, often pink in tone, can be viewed emerging from the noses and mouths of many of the deceased, a sign of pulmonary edema. In those that were autopsied, the fluid-filled lungs were found to be voluminous, as much as three times their normal weight.</div>
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Thirty years ago, photographs of the unclaimed dead were affixed to a large placard. Satpathy held it up to show the media. Residents were urged to identify the bodies with haste, else they would be disposed of. There were rumours that some victims had been dumped in the river.</div>
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And what of those left behind?</div>
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Satpathy is sharply critical of the Indian Council of Medical Research, which started, then aborted or closed, a series of projects on the disaster. “These studies should have been continued for years.... There is no study. There is no project going on,” he says, brushing the palms of his hands together to emphasize the dismissive stance that has been taken.</div>
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The ICMR did undertake a number of what the council deemed long-term studies. By example, the children of J.P. Nagar aged 5 in 1986 were monitored for four years. In 1990, 44 to 56 per cent of children were found to be still suffering the consequences of gas exposure, with such reported ailments as upper respiratory infections. Case closed.</div>
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The council did record some powerful statistics. Spontaneous abortion in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy was five times higher than in a control group. Neonatal deaths, from birth to seven days, were three times higher. Congenital malformations were twice as high.</div>
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Further findings suggested that MIC “and its breakdown products” — whatever they may be — had entered the bloodstream.</div>
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Satpathy says fetal post-mortems proved beyond a doubt that the toxic gas crossed the placental barrier. “In the future, it can also affect the genes. Say after 10 years, after 20 years, after 30 years. We don’t know!”</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eW94jP9JU_c/VHVymAdMQVI/AAAAAAAABa8/hl3QB-hdF9E/s1600/1416433567049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eW94jP9JU_c/VHVymAdMQVI/AAAAAAAABa8/hl3QB-hdF9E/s1600/1416433567049.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Holes are often punched in the wall of the factory grounds, just across the road from J. P. Nagar. Children often play at the contaminated site until police chase them off.</span></td></tr>
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Here’s a riddle: A corporation espouses a product as safe when safely used, but fails to enforce the standards required to ensure that safe use.</div>
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Satpathy offers a stern yet plaintive message to America. “There should be an international rule that whatever the substance might be, it may be a diamond, and if it is toxic, unless and until its treatment, its effect, its antidote is available, if it has not been told to all the persons, it should not be used in any country.”</div>
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An advantage was taken. “A developed country, they should not misuse the poorness of the undeveloped country. Why are they not installing the facility in their own country?” And no resolution has been reached. “It is a man-made disaster. It is not nature. The international community, they should come forward.”</div>
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Satpathy does not let his home country off the hook. “Where is the labour department? Where is the industry department? Where is the health department who have visited the factory and who have given the certificate, this factory is all right? They should be hanged.”</div>
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It is a sunny day and Nadra Bi is hanging her laundry along a line she has strung opposite her doorway. Her goat is tethered in the shade and the stone steps to her home are wet from the morning’s labours.</div>
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Nadra’s address is deemed to be on Road Number 1 in J.P. Nagar, though if you were to enter the community from its opposite end, you would be informed that that too is Road Number 1. This leads to some confusion. Nadra’s avenue is the closest to Union Carbide Road, closest to the corroded remnants of the factory. On the grounds of the factory, a small knot of boys play gilli-danda, a game that requires nothing more than two sticks and rambunctiousness. The police will chase them off, as it is forbidden to play there. As they scatter one of the boys offers a quote for the reporter’s notebook: “The gas has leaked from hell,” he says.</div>
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Around the corner, Jebur Nisha’s husband, Mohammed, is at work in his barber shop. Down the way is the mournful statue erected in tribute to the disaster. A featureless woman covers her face with one hand, carrying a limp, swaddled infant in the other.</div>
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Nadra will allow a few moments to talk. Her fuchsia scarf has drifted back from her brow, revealing a receding hennaed stain that no longer disguises her grey hair. She appears to be in her late 50s. She places one hand on her hip, and speaks directly.</div>
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In the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, she ran from her home. In this her story bears no distinction. But in taking the decision to flee Nadra also took the decision to leave behind her 7-year-old son, Manna. Manna could not walk. He would drag himself to get about, and Nadra had no means by which to get him out of her little hovel on Road Number 1 in J.P. Nagar. And so she fled. Manna died two months later.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hp1I1FSiH-M/VHVymIBmwGI/AAAAAAAABac/NH3COhky48k/s1600/1416433688849.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hp1I1FSiH-M/VHVymIBmwGI/AAAAAAAABac/NH3COhky48k/s1600/1416433688849.jpg" height="400" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Nadra Bi. Jennifer Wells/Toronto Star</span></td></tr>
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The first baby Nadra gave birth to after the disaster was stillborn. He was blue, she tells us, quite matter-of-factly, before returning to her chores.</div>
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Entering the Medicolegal Institute today, visitors are met right off with a large mural along one wall in the entranceway. “Bhopal — City of Death” is the painted banner, as if this were the city’s trademark. An artist has rendered a simple representation of the Union Carbide factory process: the MIC tanks, the release of gas to the atmosphere, the toxic inhalation by a lone male figure, crudely rendered, and a mortuary with bodies lined up like dominoes.</div>
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Adjacent are shelves of large specimen jars, including a display of fetuses autopsied after the disaster. Satpathy says they used to be identified as such. They are no longer.</div>
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Dr. D.S. Badkur is the current director of the institute and he appears to harbour no small resentment toward his predecessor, dismissively referring to Satpathy as a “media-loving person.”</div>
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Badkur then launches into an hour-long, stomach-churning PowerPoint of the suicides and murders that have challenged his forensics crew. He pauses for a detailed explanation of the young woman who could not have hanged herself from a tree with her dupatta, as the ligature marks in the images make clear. He alights upon the case of the auto-eroticism gone wrong. As he delves into the dismemberment of a little girl in a yellow dress, Badkur appears to be testing us: will we turn away?</div>
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Primary research on the gas tragedy is what we’re after. He waves his fingers in the air. “That gives the wrong message to society,” he says, flipping a hand in the air. “This is a teaching institution. The people who worked on the gas are all retired.”</div>
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There are no records here.</div>
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And justice?</div>
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“It is a great social issue. It is a great judicial issue. It is an issue related to multinational companies. I don’t find myself fit to say anything.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-one.html" target="_blank">Part One: Wedding Season</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-two.html" target="_blank">Part Two: Building a New India </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-four.html" target="_blank">Part Four: Mass Tort</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">Story by </span><a href="http://www.thestar.com/authors.wells_jennifer.html" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0072bc; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; outline: none; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jennifer Wells</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">. Photos by Spencer Wynn.</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-51959973610532997682014-11-28T09:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:51:42.571+05:30The Ghosts of Bhopal - Part Two<div style="text-align: justify;">
Part Two: Building a New India</div>
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Daulat Singh Rajput, a local farmer</div>
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The village square in Dhamarra, 30 kilometres north of Bhopal, is centred by a vibrantly painted Hindu temple (hibiscus pinks and sea blues), a russet-coloured made-in-India Massey Ferguson 1035 DI tractor, and two cows.</div>
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In a moment, the tractor will taka-taka-taka out to the fields, the two cows will amble behind and farmer Daulat Singh Rajput will wade into his soybean and chick pea acreage to recount the story of a rural revolution.</div>
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The acrid heart of the world’s worst industrial disaster lies within the corrosive skeleton of the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal.</div>
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But in a way, its soul lies here, in rural India.<br />
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Union Carbide was an early and aggressive example of the expansive American corporation, rising quickly from a five-way merger in 1917, thence securing its place in the American psyche in the post-Second World War economic boom. Eveready flashlights and batteries, Prestone antifreeze, Prest-O-Lite acetylene torches — the range of ever-present Union Carbide products included the Bakelite trademark, ensuring the company’s growing presence in the American home via that ubiquitous, milky-toned synthetic plastic used in the manufacture of a broad range of goods, from jewelry to face powder compacts to butter dishes.</div>
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The company’s industrial reputation grew on the back of the first American ethylene plant, established in West Virginia in 1920. From its initial production of ethylene glycol, the poisonous sweet-tasting chemical found in antifreeze, Union Carbide quickly advanced — by the outbreak of the Second World War it was marketing more than 150 chemicals.</div>
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Wartime rapidly propelled the research and development of synthetic chemicals. It was through a government-owned facility, put up for sale after the war, that Union Carbide established its presence in Institute, W.Va. Located in the Kanawha Valley, the area quickly earned a reputation for having the highest concentration of chemical manufacturers in the United States. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. The Monsanto Chemical Co. Union Carbide was just one of a group of powerhouse pioneers at work in what would one day earn the pejorative label “Chemical Valley,” a moniker still in common currency.</div>
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The role played by the Union Carbide facility in Institute, and the methyl isocyanate processed and stored there, would extend beyond the Bhopal disaster. But that came later. In 1980, Union Carbide could rightly claim to be the third-largest chemical company in the United States, with a transnational reach and annual revenues nudging $10 billion (U.S.).</div>
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Entrance to the Union Carbide India Ltd. plant, in Bhopal, India, in December 1984. (AP Photo/Peter Kemp)</div>
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In India, Union Carbide initially built its presence through Eveready. The batteries and “torches” became ubiquitous after manufacturing plants were established first in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1939 and later Madras (Chennai). From the outset, the Indian operations were run through a local subsidiary, Union Carbide India Ltd., which traded on the Calcutta Stock Exchange and had 14 plants under administration.</div>
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To pull India out from under the yoke of colonization after independence was won in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru conceived of a series of five-year economic plans to set the country on a path of planned development. Industrialization was the stated long-term goal. Food security was a necessary underpinning: the Bengal famine of 1943, which claimed at least 1.5 million lives — likely far more — was a freshly seared memory when Nehru proclaimed, “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture.”</div>
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It was Nehru’s daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who pushed for the modernization of the sector through a so-called “Green Revolution,” to be advanced through the adoption of high-yield seeds and contemporary irrigation methods, aided by fertilizers and pesticides. The immediate objective was to set India and its half-billion people on what Gandhi called a “race toward self-sufficiency,” with the hope that a growing export market would follow. “Agriculture constitutes the very foundation of the economy,” Gandhi said in 1966. “We cannot falter or fail here.”</div>
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Under her leadership, the fourth of the five-year plans (1969-74) forecast a doubling of the country’s agriculture output — priming the pump for pesticide use and, for Union Carbide, opportunity.</div>
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In 1960, after years of research and development, Union Carbide started making the pesticide Sevin at its plant in Institute, W.Va. An early ’60s magazine advertisement champions Sevin’s effectiveness against weevils, thrips, beetles, “the thousands of insects that chew up millions of dollars of farm crops each year.” The company later started to manufacture, and store, methyl isocyanate on site. In 1970, it registered the trade name Temik, an acutely toxic pesticide. One of the chemical components was MIC.</div>
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India and its Green Revolution was a natural growth market for the new products. UCIL, 60-per- cent owned by the parent company, established an agricultural products division in 1966 and, three years later, opened a pesticide plant on the Kali Parade grounds off Berasia Road in Bhopal. The formulations were to be made with imported chemicals, including MIC, which would be expensively and cumbersomely shipped from West Virginia.</div>
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The story might have ended there.</div>
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Instead, prodded by an Indian government desirous of domestic industrial growth, the Bhopal facility was reimagined as a full-scale production facility. MIC would no longer be imported. New facilities would be constructed in Bhopal.</div>
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Enormously ambitious, the new plant was designed for an annual production capacity of 5,000 tonnes. And it presented a technological and management challenge. India, so eager to industrialize, sought the transfer of technology via foreign direct investment — within limits. In 1973, the country adopted the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, which restricted foreign investors to 40 per cent equity. Existing multinationals holding in excess of that would be forced to reduce their position. Additionally, the company’s executive ranks were to be comprised of Indian nationals.</div>
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Advertisement for Union Carbide that appeared in National Geographic magazine in 1962.</div>
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Advertisement for Union Carbide that appeared in National Geographic magazine in 1962.</div>
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Union Carbide did reduce its position in Union Carbide India Ltd. Yet the company, in recognition of the advanced technology involved, was granted special dispensation to retain a majority position of 50.9 per cent. It was notable that Keshub Mahindra would become chairman of the Indian company. Mahindra & Mahindra may have started its corporate life assembling jeeps from an American template, but by 1970 it was on its way to being a diversified conglomerate. Today, it is a $17-billion (revenues) multinational with interests in aerospace, real estate and what it calls Rural Finance — loans to farmers.</div>
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Daulat Singh Rajput hops from his white Mahindra-made Bolero sport ute, having led the way to a sage-green field of chick peas that spreads as far as the eye can see.</div>
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As a student in the 1970s, he would travel daily to and from the family farm in Dhamarra to a college in Bhopal. To cover his education expenses, and also to help out at home, he would take milk from the cows and buffalo by bus to the Union Carbide factory. Forty litres of milk. Two rupees a litre.</div>
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A century ago, the primary business of the village was livestock breeding. Rajput estimates that farming took up about 40 per cent of the land. This “Indian farming,” as he calls it, meant the growing of pulses (tuar, or pigeon peas; gram, or chick peas), a single crop a year on a timetable ruled by the June monsoons that are supposed to bring four months of rain but often now just bring two.</div>
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“Then slowly the revolution came and people started having all of their land fertile,” he says.</div>
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Wells were dug. Irrigation systems put in place. Soybeans were introduced — the primary crop of Madhya Pradesh today — as well as high-yield varieties of wheat that required chemical fertilizers and pesticides. (“Nowadays, pests are very furious,” he says. The illi, or caterpillar, love his soybeans.) Double cropping became common practice.</div>
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In the far distance, sprinklers are spraying in an arced chik-chik-chik rotation under a soft blue sky. Rajput crouches to pluck a chick pea pod from the prettily feathered pinnate leaves. The tiniest of pink blooms are nestled here and there. He slits open the pod with his fingers. The pod is fuzzed like a peach; the peas are glistening and slick. “We used to have a yield of about eight to 10 quintals (roughly 400 kilograms) per hectare,” he says. “Slowly, with time, through advanced techniques, we have been able to take it to 20 to 25 quintals per hectare.” There have been bountiful years that have even exceeded that.</div>
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The drought in ’72 was dreadful. And the drought in ’80. And those were the big ones. “We have to face this kind of frightful tragedy every four or five years,” he says. “We can’t make up for the cost we have spent in the farming.”</div>
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The years of drought, debt and impoverishment are inextricably entwined with the Bhopal gas disaster. The domestic market never fuelled enough demand to see the plant come even close to its 5,000-tonne capacity. In 1981, the plant operated at half capacity. In 1983, the facility produced not much more than 1,600 tonnes. Farmers consistently turned to less expensive pesticides. In 1984, the plant was headed toward a million-dollar loss.</div>
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Union Carbide was among the top five foreign investors in India in 1980, but the Bhopal facility had little to do with that. Headquartered in Danbury, Conn., the company had already decided to unload the money-losing plant. Yet there were no buyers. A corporate albatross, the decision was taken to use up existing chemical stores, but otherwise idle the factory, and, ultimately, dismantle it.</div>
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The Bhopal plant had proved to be more than an economic headache. A safety inspection had been conducted by the parent company in the wake of the death of Ashraf Khan, the worker who had succumbed to gas poisoning in the winter of ’81. That report, dated May 1982, cited numerous safety deficiencies, including the inadequacy of a valve to potentially relieve a “runaway reaction.” It fell to the Indian subsidiary to put an action plan in place to remedy those defaults.</div>
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The same year an opposition motion was made in the legislative assembly of Madhya Pradesh to have the factory moved. The labour minister with the ruling Congress party would have none of it. “The factory is not a small stone which can be shifted elsewhere,” argued Tara Singh Viyogi. “There is no danger to Bhopal, nor will there ever be.”</div>
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Rajput had many friends working at Union Carbide. “There were not any safety measures. If a casualty takes place, then what should be done? There was not even any warning.... They did not have it even for their employees, so there is no way talking about normal citizens.”</div>
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In December 1984, Rajput was the sarpanch, or mayor, of the village of Dhamarra. On the 2nd, he was to start a tour of the neighbouring state of Gujarat with the forest officer of Madhya Pradesh. Departure was delayed until the morning of the 3rd for reasons that have been lost to the advances of time.</div>
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Morning dawned, and the village soon found itself enveloped in chaos. “It was around 8 or 9 in the morning.... People were running from there (Bhopal) right from the morning,” Rajput remembers. “We then got specified news that some bomb had exploded, or some gas had leaked or some casualty had taken place.”</div>
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The people who had fled to the village had no relations in Dhamarra. “They had come to seek safe shelter. Two (hundred) to 300 people had come here.” Rajput calls them “refugees.”</div>
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There was no radio in the village. No telephone. News was disseminated by word-of-mouth. By the bus load the Bhopalis came bearing stories of the man-made plague that had been visited upon them.</div>
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It is December. The mango trees brace against soil erosion in the winter months. Their leaves hang pendulous and brown before tumbling to the dusty earth.</div>
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The chick pea harvest is two months away. If the field is well irrigated, Rajput informs us, the plants could grow to 60 centimetres. An invocation will be offered in February, at harvest time, just as it was offered in November, at the time of sowing. Homage is dutifully paid to the land. The trees give fruit for the welfare of the people; the rivers give water for the welfare of others.</div>
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It is said — and this is beautiful — that when the monsoon rains cascade through the leaves of the mango trees, it is like a prayer.<br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-one.html" target="_blank">Part One: Wedding Season</a><br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-three.html" target="_blank">Part Three: Post Mortem</a><br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-four.html" target="_blank">Part Four: Mass Tort</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">Story by </span><a href="http://www.thestar.com/authors.wells_jennifer.html" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0072bc; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; outline: none; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jennifer Wells</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">. Photos by Spencer Wynn.</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-27169735966265913812014-11-27T09:30:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:51:54.413+05:30The Ghosts of Bhopal - Part One<div style="text-align: justify;">
Part One: Wedding Season </div>
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The night was black as batwings and the winds were growing colder as Nadir Khan clocked out of his job at the Union Carbide factory, strode past the security guard station, then through the front gate and headed for home.</div>
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Sunday, Dec. 2, 1984. The date carried no significance when Khan commenced his shift at 3 p.m. It was a Sunday like any other. Eight hours later, as he returned to his rough shanty in the bustee of Jaiprakash Nagar, there was little to remark upon. Or at least little that was known to Khan.</div>
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It was wedding season in Bhopal, the lake city of Madhya Pradesh, the state that lies in the very heart of India. If a bejeweled white stallion had cantered along Berasia Road that December night and disappeared like an apparition into the wind, no one would have batted an eye, least of all Nadir Khan. Baraats, or wedding processions, reach their peak in the winter months and Khan had come to know this as a seasonal commonplace.</div>
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To see Khan that night would be to observe a 35-year-old, slight of build, medium height, with a full head of dark hair and a pencil moustache that arced dashingly above his plush upper lip. He walked south on Berasia, then east along what had come to be known as Union Carbide Road. He was not the type to hurry his walk.</div>
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While he had received no schooling, Khan had been a dutiful provider to his wife, Nafisa, and their three children and was well respected in the community. Since the mid-’70s he had been an hourly rated worker at Union Carbide, first on month-to-month contracts, and later as permanent paid staff. Khan’s wage initially bobbed around a single rupee per hour — less than 10 cents in 1977. By the summer of 1984, according to a pay stub he kept from that July, he was compensated at a rate of six rupees per hour.</div>
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Any job was a marked improvement over making beedi — the rolling of tobacco in tendu leaves, the tying of impossibly scanty string, was meant for nimbler hands. Sometimes he had humped sacks of wheat to Mangalwara Market as a miserably paid day labourer. Union Carbide offered relative salvation, providing more or less steady work for close to a decade. Even as Khan grew worried that the plant was unsafe, that escaping gases were dangerous, and even fatal, he was comforted by the simple fact that the pay was good.</div>
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It came as no surprise that the promise of regular employment with the mighty American corporation had lured hundreds and then thousands of hopeful job seekers. The government lands surrounding the factory were transformed into instant colonies, a daisy chain of hope suddenly sprung up in close adjacency. None was closer than the hutment of Jaiprakash Nagar. The community quickly became known as J.P. Nagar, a collision of kacha houses, made not of mud but thin wooden slats, the rudimentary construction of which allowed the sun to slant through, the dust to invade, the dry winter winds to stir.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6XzDCVgYb14/VHVpbAKF5rI/AAAAAAAABZE/omD4imL5Tqo/s1600/Bhopale%2B-%2BRaees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6XzDCVgYb14/VHVpbAKF5rI/AAAAAAAABZE/omD4imL5Tqo/s1600/Bhopale%2B-%2BRaees.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: slategrey; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 15px; text-align: start;">The home of Raees Quereshi and his family. The house is made of wood slats which offer no protection to airborne gas.</span></td></tr>
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The rooftops of the shanties were slung low, topped by torn pieces of tin held in tentative place by stones or cast-off bicycle tires. Sometimes a roof was nothing more than empty jute sacks or rough thatch. The lanes were mud, though dry in the winter season, and the intimate domesticity of such tight quarters was constantly on display: the scrubbing of babies, the brushing of teeth, the hanging of laundry on every possible surface, the defecation of toddlers along the slumways. The squatters prayed that one day the Indian government would formalize their status and grant them patta, or land ownership.</div>
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To the south of J.P. Nagar, the Hindu cemetery commanded a vast grounds ruled by a banyan tree heavy with tendrils. The women of the neighbourhood avoided this land when seeking privacy for their pre-dawn ablutions, for it was deemed too ghostly.</div>
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Looking to the north, the factory sat in bas-relief against the horizon, risen on the old Kali Parade grounds. The Union Carbide name was boldly displayed on its trademark hexagonal blue background, the corporate marque instantly recognizable in the industrialized world. The outline of the taller structures could be sharply seen, including the plant’s flare tower, which was designed to burn off excess gases accumulated during the production of chemicals. The chemicals themselves were formulated into the insecticides aldicarb and carbaryl, marketed under the Union Carbide trade names Temik and Sevin. A so-called vent gas scrubber was another safety measure, a tower designed to neutralize leaked gas with a caustic soda solution.</div>
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What could not be seen from J.P. Nagar were three 57,000-litre stainless steel tanks, each 12 metres in length, positioned on their sides like lowered oxen. Partially buried, the topsides of the tanks were encased in a cowl of concrete to protect against external disruptions and to help insulate the vast amounts of MIC, or methyl isocyanate, that were stored inside. Highly volatile, highly toxic and highly reactive to water, the chemical was a key agent in the making of both Temik and Sevin, which were themselves the key, or so local farmers had been told, to transforming insect-ravaged crops into India’s bounty.</div>
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Nadir Khan had held a number of jobs at the factory. For a time, he worked as a pesticide bottler — “Like how you take out beer,” he would offer by way of explanation, tugging on an imaginary draft pull and describing the granules of Temik that would fill the bottles. At other times, he packed the bottles into boxes. Occasionally he worked with powders, the names of which he did not know.</div>
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As Khan made his way through the warren of shanties in J.P. Nagar that Dec. 2, the wind was blowing strongly to the south. He would not have known that at approximately the same hour a plant field operator on the factory grounds reported a leak of MIC near the vent gas scrubber. Worries about the lack of safety measures at the plant had grown among the workers — a local journalist had written articles forewarning that the factory was unsafe, and a leak of phosgene, a deadly gas used in the synthesis of MIC, had killed one worker on Christmas Eve, 1981. Two years later, a leak had sent three workers to hospital.</div>
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As the hour advanced to midnight, Khan settled to bed. J.P. Nagar slumbered, or attempted to.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g3ebh1oPnQ/VHVpw9q9HZI/AAAAAAAABZM/bY4KU2MotcI/s1600/bhopale-jebur-nisha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g3ebh1oPnQ/VHVpw9q9HZI/AAAAAAAABZM/bY4KU2MotcI/s1600/bhopale-jebur-nisha.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Jebur Nisha</span></td></tr>
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Neighbour Jebur Nisha was restive, her pregnancy weighing heavily upon her. Earlier in the day, her husband, Mohammed, had boarded an express train for Gwalior to check on an ailing relative, leaving Jebur to care for the couple’s two children. The early evening had unsettled her, for a beggar dressed in priestly black had swept through her door, insistent. “Give me money and give me wheat flour,” he implored. “In the name of God, something bad is going to happen, but if you do this, you will survive.” Jebur, a handsome woman with worried eyes and a lustrous plait of well-oiled black hair, paid a precious rupee.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-of63fZ9qQNQ/VHVpxDWggzI/AAAAAAAABZQ/21Yij6aNYr0/s1600/bhopale-vishnu-panthi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-of63fZ9qQNQ/VHVpxDWggzI/AAAAAAAABZQ/21Yij6aNYr0/s1600/bhopale-vishnu-panthi.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Vishnu Bai</span></td></tr>
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The chill had caused Vishnu Bai to swaddle her 3-month-old son, Anuj, drawing him close to her lean frame for warmth as they settled on a sleeping mat. Vishnu’s sister, Savitri, was mother to three boys far too old to be cocooned in this way, and so they lined up on the floor in soldier formation, side by each. There were no windows to close; no proper door to shutter.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5pTveYx1Nwk/VHVqiM5pLAI/AAAAAAAABZk/xyBe9BMHvCY/s1600/bhopal-parvati.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5pTveYx1Nwk/VHVqiM5pLAI/AAAAAAAABZk/xyBe9BMHvCY/s1600/bhopal-parvati.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Parvati</td></tr>
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One street over, Parvati had urged her son, Mukesh, to sleep. A bright and able student, Mukesh was already in the fifth form though he was barely 9 years of age. Just the day prior, he had posed with his family for a first-ever photograph, proud as a peacock wearing the red sweater of his school uniform, his hair slicked into place. Parvati called her dutiful son Babloo, a common endearment. He would often make his mother a cup of chai — she liked it sweet and scalding — and was attentive to his younger brother, Suresh, who was just 10 months old.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h0l3FQNjp_4/VHVqeDkLZoI/AAAAAAAABZc/TUo3DfyPL-I/s1600/bhopal-raees-qureshi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h0l3FQNjp_4/VHVqeDkLZoI/AAAAAAAABZc/TUo3DfyPL-I/s1600/bhopal-raees-qureshi.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Raees Quereshi</span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Raees Quereshi, then a handsome young teenager with flashing eyes, had finished his day’s labours selling chai. Late nights often meant hanging out with pals, but on this night he arrived home before his neighbour Nadir Khan, who lived two houses over. Raees would often listen to Khan when his elder, like an uncle, held court on an adjacent piece of barren land where no one had yet built a home but where, instead, a flag of India had been planted. This small plot had become a gathering place for the community, and Raees would have passed it as he walked toward his hut. Home, he ate a small meal before finding his place on the floor alongside his three brothers, the wives of the elder two and his widowed mother.</span><br />
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Across Union Carbide Road, the workers at the factory were an hour into the night shift when a control room operator noted rising pressure in one of the MIC tanks, number 610. The control room was perhaps 12 metres by eight metres, with the instrumentation panel running along the longer wall. From here, an operator could monitor the pressure indicators, the temperature indicators, the flow of steam to the Sevin facility.</div>
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Earlier in the day, tank 610 was at two pounds per square inch (about 14 kPa), a reading that corresponded with that noted on Dec. 1 and which was on the lower end of the tank’s average pressure. The night shift operator, however, observed a markedly different situation: the psi in tank 610 had quintupled. A reading of 10 psi was not cause for extreme alarm in and of itself, but the speed of acceleration was. Quickly, the pressure then tripled, before popping to the top of the scale at 55 psi (380 kPa). The tank contained 41 tonnes of MIC.</div>
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A Union Carbide report would later record that the psi reading spurred the operator to run from the control room toward the tank. As he did so, he heard a rumbling, a screeching and the sudden sensation of heat radiating. Turning, he retreated to the control room. As he sprinted across the winter grounds his footfall was accompanied by the sound of concrete cracking.</div>
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Jebur Nisha stirred. Was someone cooking chilies in the chula at this hour?</div>
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Nadir Khan too was awakened by a burning sensation in the eyes. The air was smoke filled. Barefoot, he hurried from his home, looked skyward, and uttered a cry. “Run,” he yelled. “The gas has leaked. Run.” He hurried to the makeshift town square and shouted as loudly as he could. “Run! Run!”</div>
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A white cloud, vaporous and heavy, swooped across the factory grounds, lowering as it travelled southward, ferried by the winds that blew the noxious and ghostly haze through the porous kacha houses of J.P. Nagar.</div>
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Nafisa ran with her husband, vomiting green bile as she held her youngest son to her breast.</div>
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Raees Quereshi heard Khan’s cry and ran, his eyes stinging as if washed in acid, his throat constricting.</div>
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In a swirl of saris, Vishnu and Savitri joined with their younger sister, Rajkuman. Together the three sisters ran, bangled bare feet on hard pack mud. Baby Anuj was carried in his swaddling. His older cousins ran to the south, enveloped by the cloud.</div>
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When you light a fire, or draw on a beedi, the smoke swirls in a clear direction. This is the thought that careered through Azaad Miyan’s mind. The Union Carbide employee put a wet cloth to his face — this he learned at work — and frantically ran not with the wind, but against it, calling to his neighbour Bano to accompany him. Bano’s husband, Inayat Khan, reached for the couple’s two children and sped the other way.</div>
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Mere minutes passed, the neighbourhood explosively atomizing.</div>
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Parvati swaddled the infant Suresh. Like the big boy he was, Mukesh ran at her side. Insidiously, the toxic cloud, which spared the factory itself, had drifted above the Kali Parade grounds before lowering to the height of a child as it insinuated its way through dwellings and along pathways.</div>
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Nadir Khan’s father, all but blind, quickly became lost in the melee. Raees’s mother, Kaneeza, had also become separated from her family. As children were falling on the roadway, as men, women and oxen collapsed, Kaneeza was seized by a terror: she was wearing a sari. Should she die, would she be mistaken for a Hindu and burned on a pyre? Jumman Khan was wearing a kurta pyjama, and with his long beard even those who did not know him would identify him as Muslim. So Kaneeza tied her sari to Jumman’s kurta, consoling herself that should she fall dead, she would at least be seen to be a dead Muslim. Together they ran, as if a married couple.</div>
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A Hindu bride and groom swooshed by Nadir Khan. The bride’s ghunghat was like a gossamer veil pulled back from her face. Khan registered the white gopi dots decorating the bride’s brow on what was meant to be the most beautiful of nights.</div>
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<b>Thirty years pass.</b></div>
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On a blue sky morning, Vishnu Bai’s turquoise bracelets dance on her wrists as she smacks balls of roti dough between her floured hands. She rolls the dough into expert rounds and places them on the chula. A squawking parakeet keeps interrupting as the events of that night are recounted. At the ghostly graveyard with the banyan tree, her three nephews collapsed, coughing, vomiting, their bowels evacuating. They “poohed in their pants and died.” This Vishnu remembers.</div>
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On Dec. 3, Vishnu and her two sisters took a seat in a van that was to ferry them to Hamidia Hospital. Sorrow was laid at their feet. Three dead schoolboys. Vinod, aged 15. Sunil, 12. Sanjay just 10. The details of those lost lives are so slender. Vishnu struggles to bring the boys to life. “Vinod loved us the most,” she offers. “Sunil was good at games.” His head wasn’t much into his studies, she adds. Of Sanjay she says nothing.</div>
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Baby Anuj, whose face was covered, survived.</div>
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Azaad Miyan reads the morning paper, seated outside on a plastic chair amid the bustle of a J.P. Nagar morning. His eyes are rheumy and yellow behind his glasses. He searched for Inayat Khan’s body after the disaster. It was days before he found his neighbour, and when he did, his body was so hard, he says. “Like wood.”</div>
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Jebur Nisha smoothes oil across her face. Her hair is heavy and wet and she brushes it as she speaks. She gave birth to a baby girl the day after the disaster, though Jebur was unable to open her gas-stained eyes to witness the moment. The baby was named Shaheen.</div>
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Shaheen stands in the doorway of her parents’ home in J.P. Nagar. She is still as air, dressed in a pink and yellow sari that ruffles in the breeze of a fan. The month after the birth, Jebur says there was something black coming from her daughter’s mouth. As a young girl, Shaheen was unable to advance in school. Her eyes are weak. She says nothing. Jebur studies her daughter, as if mystified. “She is lost in her own world.”</div>
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A short distance away, Parvati offers hot, sweet tea. The morning of Dec. 4, Mukesh was in grave distress, coughing and seized with diarrhea. Yet he managed to make the chai before he was taken to hospital. He died the same day.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kd_Zgwg1NNw/VHVrttCA0BI/AAAAAAAABZw/x9AaFIdBe9E/s1600/1416431932774.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kd_Zgwg1NNw/VHVrttCA0BI/AAAAAAAABZw/x9AaFIdBe9E/s1600/1416431932774.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Mukesh's first-ever photograph.</span></td></tr>
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Parvati, graceful and soft-spoken, dries her eyes with the turquoise hem of her sari. She had forgotten until days after the tragedy that a photograph had been taken. It hangs on the living room wall, now plastered and painted. A red tilak running down Mukesh’s forehead has been applied to the glass. Parvati clasps her hands in front of her, reverentially. “Time has gone,” she says. “And time should not show that time again to anyone.”</div>
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The Indian Council for Medical Research placed the number of dead within 72 hours at 2,000. The count of immediate deaths would rise to 3,800, though the precise number remains unknown. What is uncontested is that the world’s worst industrial disaster unfolded during those midnight hours 30 years ago.</div>
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Hundreds of thousands were gas affected. Out of a population of 830,000, 60 per cent of Bhopalis were found to have suffered some degree of inhalation toxicity. More than 30,000 of those cases were deemed acute, suffering lung inflammation, fibrosis, lesions constricting the airways.</div>
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Drip by drip, certain details would emerge: that the vent gas scrubber had been on standby mode; that the flare tower had not been operating; that the refrigeration system had been shut down; that a safety inspection in 1982 had raised concerns about a possible runaway chemical reaction. Those are some of the facts. Still being sought is a conclusion, a proper ending.<br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-two.html" target="_blank">Part Two: Building a New India</a><br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-three.html" target="_blank">Part Three: Post Mortem</a><br />
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<a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-ghosts-of-bhopal-part-four.html" target="_blank">Part Four: Mass Tort</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">Story by </span><a href="http://www.thestar.com/authors.wells_jennifer.html" style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0072bc; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; outline: none; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jennifer Wells</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #69606b; font-family: Raleway, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: start;">. Photos by Spencer Wynn.</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-15908974224983580952014-11-26T11:03:00.001+05:302015-04-22T10:52:09.951+05:30Bhopal - Thirty Years Later<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thirty years are enough to heal wounds and rebuild lives. But for the people of Bhopal, their past haunts them and clouds their future. From the photographs of long lost loved ones on their walls, to the constant trips to hospitals, every day comes with a reminder of 3rd December, 1984.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5HLEuNih7U/VHVlfUQ4pqI/AAAAAAAABYw/4g6bgEyuLY8/s1600/DSCN2925_JPG_2219313g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5HLEuNih7U/VHVlfUQ4pqI/AAAAAAAABYw/4g6bgEyuLY8/s1600/DSCN2925_JPG_2219313g.jpg" height="200" width="129" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; text-align: left;">“I lost my son and husband...people continue to die.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; text-align: left;"> There is poison in our bodies.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; text-align: left;"> - Shamshad Begum Survivor and activist</span></td></tr>
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That day, poisonous methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the plant of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and killed up to 10,000 people. Hundreds of thousands more were left with permanent disabilities. The effects have now trickled down to the second generation.<br />
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BusinessLine travelled to Bhopal on the 30th anniversary of the industrial disaster and found a city that was helpless about its past but was clinging on to a slim hope of a better future.<br />
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<b>A night with no end</b><br />
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As one walks down Gali Number 3 (street number 3) in JP Nagar, it is hard not to imagine the scenes here on that fateful night thirty years ago.</div>
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It was past midnight. Most were already asleep in this cluster of thatched houses that ran along the boundary of the UCC plant. A few were sitting along the narrow lanes; chatting after watching a late-night movie on Doordarshan, the state channel.</div>
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It was about 1am, when they first got the smell. “What is it? Is someone burning chillies in this hour?” Their eyes had started burning. But it got worse. The smell grew stronger, foul and revolting. Those awake soon started complaining of breathlessness, many started vomiting. Their shouts and the spreading stench awakened the rest from their slumber. Soon the lanes and the unpaved roads were teeming with people, confused, scared and angry. Mothers were running with babies on their shoulders and some were dragging their half-awake children.</div>
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“It is the plant, gas is leaking from the plant,” someone finally shouted. But in the chaos, none knew where to run. Within minutes people started falling on the ground, frothing at the mouth; others couldn’t open their eyes. By the time the warning siren from the plant went off at 2.30am bodies had started piling on the streets of ‘old’ Bhopal.</div>
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The moments were captured in black and white photos. The photos were stark - bodies dumped in trucks, some of the piles being burnt, dead cattle strewn across the streets. One photo showed a toddler lying next to his mother, both dead and their mouths frothing.</div>
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Death walked Gali Number 3.</div>
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<b>A broken family</b></div>
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The cluster has now become a shanty town. Many of the thatched houses have become multi-storeyed. In one of the houses lives Shamshad Begum. The door to the ground floor is locked but a narrow flight of steps leads to the second floor. The floor consists of two small rooms and a kitchen. A bed occupied the first room; someone is sleeping, under a blanket. In the second room a mat is laid beside a fridge. Nearby a cooler is on, but its fan is barely turning.</div>
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A teenaged-girl comes out of the kitchen and without asking anything says, “Please sit, I will call ammi (mother).” Surely, the family is used to visitors.</div>
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Begum soon comes down from the third floor. Dressed in a spotless salwar-kameez with a necklace of pearls around her neck, Begum is polite but informal, instantly making a stranger comfortable. She smiles, nods her head and starts off in what looks like an effortless, practised way.</div>
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“We were staying in this same house. Then it was just the ground floor. We were sleeping - me, my husband, mother-in-law, two daughters and a son. We woke up due to the smell of the gas,” Begum recounts. Like others in the neighbourhood, the family also decided to flee. “But my mother-in-law was unwell and couldn’t run. My son wanted to stay back with her,” When they got back early next morning, her mother-in-law and son could barely breathe. Both were rushed to the hospital but it was too late. Begum’s mother-in-law died at 9am and her son Raja passed away two hours later. Begum was all of 22 then.</div>
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“The gas leak destroyed my family. My husband developed lung problem and he died in 2007. I have five daughters. “Mera ab vansh nahin hain (with no son, the family tree is broken),” Begum laments. The 52 year-old shows files of neatly organised photos of her son Raja and paper clippings, many of which have her pictures. “I have been an activist since then. The government has failed us,” she adds. On the terrace Begum points out the Union Carbide plant not very far away. Like an activist shouting slogans on the road, she says: “The company has blood on its hands. Many families in this colony were wiped off.”</div>
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Despite her loss, many among the affected say Begum is one of the luckier ones. She got ₹8 lakh each as compensation for the death of her son and mother-in-law. The government also allotted her a house in the nearby “Housing Board Colony” meant for gas victims. She sold it a few years ago to marry off one of her daughters. “I have used the money for my daughters’ weddings. I still have ₹4 lakh left in the bank and live off the interest from it. It is against my religion (to earn from interest), but I have no choice,” says the mother. She has also rented out the ground floor for ₹700 a month.</div>
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Begum is now fighting to get compensation for her youngest daughter Noor Jahan, the teenager in the kitchen. The soon-to-be-married 19 year-old is wrecked by stomach aches. Though tests haven’t shown any abnormality, Noor Jahan constantly complaints of the ache. “It is because of the gas. But the government is not providing her compensation. I have shown all the papers as proof,” says Begum.</div>
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She is not alone. Her fellow victim-turned-activist Sobha Sohini lives nearby. Her husband died in 2012 after suffering from a chest problem after he was exposed to the gas leak. The 62 year-old now lives alone in a rented house in old Bhopal. “Till now I have got compensation of just ₹10,000. But as per government notification, I should get a total of ₹8 lakh,” says Sohini referring to the 2010 Union Cabinet notification that had hiked compensation.</div>
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<b>A city in pain</b></div>
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Begum and Sohini live in Old Bhopal, the historical part of the Madhya Pradesh capital. Some historians trace origins of the city to King Bhoja of the 11{+t}{+h} century. The modern city was formed by an Afghan soldier Dost Mohammed Khan in the 17{+t}{+h} century. This part of the city retains remnants of its history in its architecture, language and cuisine. But some of this old-world charm is now lost in the unruly traffic on the narrow roads and the crowded, dusty neighbourhoods.</div>
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The newer half looks the better off. Broad roads, clubs, planned colonies and shopping streets with outlets of latest brands make it one of the upcoming urban markets in the country.</div>
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The difference might not have been this stark 30 years ago. But the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984 reinforced it.</div>
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When 40 tonnes of MIC leaked out of one of the tanks in the Union Carbide plant, located in old Bhopal the most vulnerable were the one lakh people such as Begum and her family who were living within one km radius. According to government figures, the gas spread to 36 of the 56 wards under the Bhopal Municipal Corporation. While there is a wide disparity between the official and unofficial estimates of those killed in the tragedy, government says in total 5,59,835 people were affected. Those unaffected (rest of the 8.94 lakh population in 1984) belonged to new Bhopal.</div>
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“You will not find one family here that is not affected by the gas,” says Naresh Kumar Rajput, an auto driver. Rajput suffers from a kidney ailment and has till now received ₹50,000 from the government as compensation. “Sir, do you know when we will get the rest of the amount?” he asks. His peer Aleem Khan, who has been driving an auto for the past 32 years in Bhopal, lifts his shirt to reveal a scar running along the right lower back. “I don’t have one kidney,” he says. He too is waiting for the compensation.</div>
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Studies by the government-run Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) have documented significant impact on the health of the locals. Over the years, an increasing number of ailments related to lung, kidney and heart have been reported. “We have several patients with menstrual irregularity and polycystic ovary syndrome that can lead to infertility,” says gynaecologist Tapasya Prasad, who sits at a clinic run by Sambhavana Trust. The Trust was founded by Satinath Sarangi, a social activist in the city. Equally serious impact might have been made in the minds of the locals. “There are many cases of digestive complaints, anaemia, insomnia, headache and stomach ache. A few of these cases are unexplained… It is now imprinted in the mind of the people here that they are not normal because of the gas tragedy,” says Roopa Baddi, the Ayurvedic specialist at the Sambhavana clinic. This might explain the stomach ache of Begum’s daughter Noor Jahan.</div>
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Another consequence has been the impact on the next generation of gas victims. At the rehabilitation clinic run by Chingari Trust – founded by two gas victims turned social activists Rasheeda Bee and Champa Devi - 700 children are registered with health problems that range from cerebral palsy to hemiplegia (weakness of the left or right side of the body). “The clinic is for children affected by the gas tragedy. About 200 children come everyday for different kinds of therapy,” says Syed Tabish Ali of the Trust.</div>
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Farida comes here daily with her two sons - Usman, 29, and Azhar, 15. Both suffer from muscle dystrophy. “Üsman was fine till his 19{+t}{+h} year. But suddenly his muscles started weakening. Now he can’t even brush his teeth without help,” says Farida. She now brings her sons to the clinic for physiotherapy sessions.</div>
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“It hasn’t made much change. But without the sessions, it is worse,” says the mother. None in her family has ever suffered from this disease. Does she think it is because of the gas leak? “I don’t know. People say it is,” says Farida.</div>
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Ambiguity in the causes of diseases is increasing in Bhopal because of lack of credible medical research and records. Clinics of Sambhavana and Chingari are among the few sources of reliable data on patients, diseases and long-term impact of the gas leak. While Chingari has the data base on 700 children, the clinic run by Sambhavana has records on over 30,000 patients. But that is not even 10 per cent of the affected population.</div>
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<b>Lack of records</b></div>
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“…over the years, there was little attempt by the ICMR and the State Government to systematically identify all the gas-victims, provide them proper medical-care, and monitor their health-status,” write ND Jayaprakash and C Sathyamala in a special edition bulletin by Medico Friend Circle. Jayaprakash is convenor of Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahyog Samiti and Sathyamala, a member of the advisory committee on Bhopal set up by the Supreme Court in 2004. Medico Friend Circle is an NGO.</div>
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After repeated directives from the Supreme Court and a Union Cabinet resolution of June 2010, ICMR set up the National Institute for Research in Environmental Health in 2011. “There are plans to conduct studies on the health condition of the survivors, genetic changes and congenital defects in children,” says Manoj Pandey, Director, Bhopal Memorial Hospital Research Centre.</div>
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The Memorial Hospital, which was one of the seven that were set up for the gas victims, has faced criticism for having outdated equipment.</div>
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“The medication given is not proper,” says Abdul Jabbar, founder of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan. Pandey admits that there has been a delay in buying new machines and many positions for doctors are lying vacant. “That is changing. Many of the equipment are coming in. For quicker recruitment of doctors, we have tweaked the system in a way that we can conduct two rounds of hiring at a time,” he says.</div>
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<b>Ground zero</b></div>
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The main gate into the UCC plant is open. About 100 metres ahead is another gate. Weeds and bushes seem to have taken over the 92-acre campus. A stray dog passes by. A policeman emerges from a one of the dilapidated buildings. “You can’t go inside,” he says. Up ahead there are more abandoned buildings and the plant with labyrinthine pipe system. “Does anyone come here?” The policeman shakes his head. “We are the only ones here. We work in shifts,” says the policeman as one of his colleagues comes in on a bike.</div>
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JP Nagar abuts the long boundary wall of the plant. But close to Gali Number 3, it has a huge hole. Two men on the bike stop by, enter the plant premises and relieve themselves. Inside, buffaloes are grazing. Up head, children are playing cricket. Not far from them, a group of men is sitting playing cards under a tree. A few empty bottles lying beside them.</div>
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While there are murmurs in the local administration about plans to make a memorial on the site, activists like Jabbar complain about the lack of government action to dispose the toxic waste that is still lying in the plant premises.</div>
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“The toxic waste has been lying there since 1984. According to a report prepared by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the National Geophysical Research Institute the quantity of contaminated soil in and around the plant is over,11,00,000 tonnes,” says Jabbar. The activist, who lost his parents and a brother in the aftermath of the gas leak and suffers from lungs ailments, adds that the toxic has seeped into the groundwater.</div>
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“We have started the trial run for treating the toxic waste inside the plant,” says RA Khandelwal, Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department. “We also have plans to treat about 1,000 tonnes of soil contaminated due to a landfill within the plant premises,” he adds.</div>
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Khandelwal brushes aside complaints that the State Government is not spending enough for the victims. “The government spends ₹100 crore every year through the hospitals itself,” he adds. He also refutes allegations that the Government is intentionally not providing additional compensation to people, as mandated by the 2010 decision of the Union Cabinet.</div>
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“We need to check if the applications are valid. As we found out, most were fakes,” he says. “Few know that the government has spent ₹3,000 crore till now in compensation and providing medical care to the victims. That is much higher than the $470 million (then equal to about ₹750 crore) that came after the settlement with Union Carbide in 1989,”adds the officer.</div>
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<b>Hope Floats</b></div>
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While activists like Jabbar admit that protests and demonstrations no longer attract the kind of crowd that used to come out earlier, the likes of Sobha Sohini can’t afford to lose hope; this despite the issue of compensation taking political and communal overtones during the recent general elections. “A few BJP leaders had suggested that most of the people getting compensation were Muslims,” says an activist who didn’t want to be named. One of the leaders had also promised voters in 20 wards in New Bhopal of compensation.</div>
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“But the gas did not spread to New Bhopal,” says the activist. Adds Begum: “The government can’t treat us like insects. We should get compensation.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/bhopal-30-years-later/article6630456.ece" target="_blank">PRINCE MATHEWS THOMAS</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-36681152149043819282014-11-10T11:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:52:23.462+05:30Matchbox Museum Bhopal<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pR1AM1Pb0nQ/VEOZ3mB1esI/AAAAAAAABVI/LXVS_Ho_a80/s1600/Bhopale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pR1AM1Pb0nQ/VEOZ3mB1esI/AAAAAAAABVI/LXVS_Ho_a80/s1600/Bhopale.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Something drew him to the colour, vibrancy and intricate pictorials on small wooden boxes which held safety matches. Lure of a phosphorus burst, smell of sulphur with every strike of a match and a fire was lit, the flame tamed and the box crushed or tossed into the waste bin, but it sparked off a passion in Sunil Bhatt. He picked up the pieces while smoke encircled the doused matchstick. Bhatt turned matchboxes into his museum of fame. He became a phillumenist without being aware of it. Bhopal's first matchbox, the Hamidia brand, vintage World War II matches used by soldiers in trenches, is part of his rare collectibles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">Call him BHEL's matchbox man, 42-year-old Sunil Bhatt has a collection of 15,000 rare matchboxes which he meticulously stockpiled for 15 years. This includes more than 100 pieces imported from Spain, Denmark, America, France, Sweden, Norway, Britain — 93 countries to be precise. It's a motley crowd on display. They are rectangular, round, hexagonal, octagonal with sizes ranging from a few millimetres to even 11 inches. He isn't shy about picking up a castaway matchbox on a street or walk up to a vegetable vendor smoking a beedi and ask for his matchbox.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Bhatt, a resident of Awadhpuri, has a worldwide network of foreign friends with whom he exchanges Indian matchboxes for foreign ones by connecting through Facebook. Every matchbox carries a message, from saving the girl child, creating awareness on blood donation, rainwater harvesting to wildlife protection. His trophies are just not made of wood, but also of plastic, metal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Sitting in his bedroom with his mammoth collection of designer matchboxes, Bhatt says "I began collecting matchboxes when I was barely into my teens. What started with collecting my father's matchboxes and pasting then on my study copies became the love of my life."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">The boxes are neatly stacked in numerous medium-sized plastic boxes shielding them from damage and every box is steeped in history. Name any style, be it before independence, any brand, advertisement, celebrity, political symbol, ethnicity, animal — the list is endless, Sunil Bhatt has it all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">"Hardly anybody knows the history of the sheep and camel brand matchboxes. These are most famous symbols as these were the two main animal carriers through which matchboxes were traded. You pick any box, and it opens up with history," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">And he has an interesting anecdote to tell. Labelling of Indian matchboxes was done in Sweden. The famous Kali Mata matchbox label was made in Sweden and manufactured in Kolkata. "That's how India got her matchboxes before independence," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Which collection is most difficult? Bhatt says, "ITC comes out with set of five matchboxes every month. These are beautiful and their demand is big. And within minutes, these are gone. They are either traded by collectors to foreign countries or bureaucrats. But I still manage to bag one of the pieces."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">"Earlier, people would mock at my hobby, calling me a rubbish collector. But what every small piece of cardboard match is precious for me," he says.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">Many ask why he risks stockpiling hazardous matchsticks and turns his bedroom into a tinderbox. Bhatt is unmoved. He's innovative with matchsticks, transforming them into Amitabh Bachchan's portrait or a variety designs. In fact, such is his love for Big B, that he has thousands of matchboxes with the celebrity's face, his movies and dialogues.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Bhatt has never puffed at a cigarette, but his majority clients and contacts are smokers as they are the repository of matchboxes. "Once we went to a fair. Police were grappling with the security situation. Everybody had to empty their pockets at checkpoint. And to my surprise, every second person was junking matchboxes into the bin. The next thing I remember doing was rushing to the security guard and requesting him to let me collect those matchboxes. At first, they thought I was eccentric and refused. After much persuasion, they allowed me to collect the matchboxes, but without the sticks. I did not enter the fair premises, but I was the happiest man that night," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">"His collections have gone up after marriage. Earlier, I was indifferent to his hobby, but now whenever I go shopping and see a matchbox lying on the road, I pick it up. His face lights up as if it's the best gift he can get," said wife, Tripti Bhatt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">"My two daughters support me and also help me increase my collection. But my mother was my biggest motivation. In those times, seeing a matchbox in the hands of a boy was nothing less than sin. But my mother understood my hobby and encouraged me," says Bhatt.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">He grew up in a small town in Neemuch district. "I remember, there was an elephant man in our village. Tall, haggard and deformed. Children would be excited to see him. But my eyes were stuck on a matchbox, he held. I went up to him and asked for it, but he shooed me away, saying don't demand big things from big men. Disheartened, I ran to my mother and asked for help. Without a blink of an eye, she went to the man and bargained for the matchbox. At that time, my mother paid Rs 5, just to make me happy. From that day, I have never looked back on what people say. This is my passion and I will continue to be called the matchbox man," he said.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Matchbox-mans-miracle-museum-in-Bhopal/articleshow/44871439.cms" target="_blank"><span style="color: #024d99; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">Shilpa Baburaj</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">,TNN</span></a></span></div>
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</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-34361620814988171352014-11-03T01:10:00.002+05:302015-04-22T10:53:52.923+05:30Warren Anderson - The Villain Of Bhopal<div style="text-align: justify;">
WARREN M. ANDERSON, the chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, has not taken his wife Lillian out to dinner much in the past five months. "I kind of felt that if somebody caught me laughing over in the corner over something," he said, "they might not think it was appropriate." </div>
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Warren M. Anderson (November 29, 1921 – September 29, 2014) Chairman and CEO, Union Carbide Corporation at the time of the Bhopal disaster in 1984</td></tr>
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To be sure, since Dec. 3, 1984 when a chemical accident at a Union Carbide plant killed more than 2,000 people and injured thousands more in Bhopal, India, the 63-year-old Mr. Anderson has not felt much like laughing anyway. "It must be like when someone loses a son or a daughter," he said. "You wake up in the morning thinking, can it possibly have occurred? And then you know it has and you know it's something you're going to have to struggle with for a long time." The public ordeal of the Union Carbide Corporation since the Bhopal tragedy has been well-chronicled. The huge chemical concern has seen its stock plummet, its financial health challenged by multibillion-dollar lawsuits and the pace of its strategic acquisitions slow due to problems in raising cash.
But obscured amid the corporate concerns has been the personal trauma of the one man who bears ultimate responsibility for his corporation's actions. He would willingly avoid the aftermaths of that reponsibility, but cannot. </div>
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In fact, he offered to resign in return for "a golden handshake" - a lucrative severance package - but was turned down. He recalls one board member saying, "You got us into this, you've got to hang around and get us out." A picture of the toll that the trauma is taking emerged during an unusually candid 6 1/2-hour conversation spread over two days in Mr. Anderson's simply furnished office at Union Carbide's headquarters in Danbury, Conn. And it was reinforced by a two-hour talk with Lillian Anderson, a soft-spoken former schoolteacher who had never been previously interviewed by a reporter, in the living room of their Greenwich, Conn., home, overlooking a small garden of geraniums, azaleas and other flowers that she had planted.
The discussions provided a glimpse of how an unprecedented corporate crisis looks from the inside and of how a huge company coped with a disaster in the first days after it hit. They revealed a formerly low-profile chief executive who suddenly must balance the conflicting demands of stockholders, company attorneys, reporters, employees, Congressmen, foreign government officials and other constituencies, all in the glare of the public eye.</div>
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The talks showed a chairman who has turned the running of his company over to others so that he can deal exclusively with Bhopal. And they portrayed an attentive husband of 38 years, born in Brooklyn of working-class immigrant parents, who inched his way up the corporate ranks in his own American dream, only to have his career identified most with history's worst industrial tragedy.
"You try real hard to build yourself up by saying, we're going to learn something from this, we'll be a better company or a better industry or a better country as a result," Mr. Anderson said. "You're going to do those things. But you know it doesn't make that much difference. That is, the disaster still happened and you can't get away from it."
Indeed, the specter of Bhopal stalks the Andersons' every action. It greets Mr. Anderson when he walks into his office at 7 A.M. It spends the evening with the couple as, most nights, they read newspaper clippings about the tragedy. And it crops up in virtually all encounters with friends and strangers alike. "We can't get away from Bhopal," Mrs. Anderson said. "Whoever we talk to, the conversation always seems to come back to it."
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhopal gas tragedy survivors share sweets after Warren Anderson’s death, in Bhopal on Friday. (HT photo)</td></tr>
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Even before the accident, the Andersons were a shy couple, living modestly despite his nearly $1 million annual compensation. Their attached three-bedroom townhouse is simply furnished, the neighborhood not particularly exclusive. The couple, who have no children, spend a lot of time together, working in their garden, fishing and doing their own renovation of a small house in eastern Long Island. He reads mysteries; she fixes dinner.
"We've never been into keeping up with the Joneses," Mrs. Anderson said. "We'd rather have a small garden that we did ourselves than a large garden done by hired landscapers."
But these days, that quiet life style verges on reclusiveness. Tired of continual questions and comments, they stay home even more than before. They take long walks in the evenings to unwind and talk. She has been, and still is, his only real confidante, "the only one who tells me things the way they really are," he said. And often, said Mrs. Anderson, a stylish woman with straight gray hair and soft gray eyes, they retire at night "with lumps in our chests." <br />
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Mr. Anderson "always slept like a baby" before Bhopal, she said. Since then, they both have had trouble sleeping. Mr. Anderson has a lot to think about during those troubled nights. "I feel like I'm taking tests all the time," the white-haired executive said. "You know there is going to be a grade on everything you do and everything you say." </div>
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Although he still insists that the Indian Government is partly to blame for allowing people to live so close to the Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, he has since March publicly admitted that the plant itself had violated company operating standards and used procedures that would not be tolerated in the United States. He says that Carbide must shoulder much of the responsibility for the accident, and that doing so requires more than public displays of sorrow. "Flying a flag at half mast may make you feel a little better, but it doesn't get rid of the problem," he said.
Thus, Mr. Anderson is firm about the need to pay a substantial settlement to the survivors of those killed in Bhopal, as well as to an estimated 200,000 injured. Whether his definition of "substantial" meshes with his critics' definition of "adequate" is unknown for now, however. The Indian Government reportedly has rejected a $200 million Carbide offer as a permanent settlement. Carbide also has offered $7 million in "interim relief," of which the Indian Government has accepted $1 million. And the company sent medical supplies to Bhopal in the days following the accident.
Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson's pre-Bhopal plans for Carbide, the nation's third-largest chemical producer behind Du Pont and Dow, have slowed measurably. </div>
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The company's stock, which was $74 a share in 1982 and about $50 before the accident, is now at $38. That depressed stock price, combined with the need to conserve cash due to legal claims against the company, has prevented Mr. Anderson from aggressively pursuing the acquisition policy he had adopted. "Those kinds of things are almost impossible to do as long as you have Bhopal hanging over your head," he said.
There were disappointments of a more common sort well before Bhopal. Company officials in 1979, when Mr. Anderson was president, predicted that 1983 sales would reach $13 billion. In fact, sales reached only $9 billion and earnings dropped more than 90 percent, from a peak of $13.36 a share in 1980 to $1.13 a share in 1983. Earnings recovered to $4.59 a share in 1984, but some analysts are unimpressed.
"From an investment and earnings viewpoint, Union Carbide has been a disappointment coming out of the recession," said James M. Arenson, vice president of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which removed Carbide from its recommended list last September. "They were slower in cutting back costs and late in taking some write-offs."
In fact, Mr. Arenson and several other observers contend that investors, unlike the general public, will remember Mr. Anderson more for the company's rather mediocre performance than for his handling of the Bhopal tragedy. "What he did on Bhopal won't have any material effect on his ability to achieve better financial performance," said Richard Kossoff, president of R.M. Kossoff & Associates, Inc., chemical industry consultants.
At the time of the accident Union Carbide was struggling to change its focus. It had - ironically, in light of Bhopal - finally shaken off the reputation as a polluter that had dogged it in the early 1970's, and was getting high marks from ecologists. </div>
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The company was ready to devote full attention to the business of business.
Specifically, Mr. Anderson, who became chairman in 1982, wanted to reduce the company's reliance on commodity chemicals and increase its emphasis on areas such as consumer products, thus supplementing its mainstays of Glad bags, Prestone antifreeze and Eveready batteries.
Carbide had been making progress toward some of its goals. It has greatly increased efficiency, for example. Between 1979 and 1984, the number of employees dropped to 98,366 from 117,031, even though sales rose to $9.5 billion from $9.2 billion. Revenue per employee rose 22.9 percent, to $96,578 from $78,611.
The company has also made a few acquisitions since Bhopal, despite its financing problems. It acquired STP oil, expanded its industrial gas business and become involved in enhanced oil recovery. Earnings per share are still inching up; William R. Young of Dean Witter Reynolds expects them to rise 20 percent this year, to $5.50, even with Bhopal hanging over the company. In fact, some fairly savvy outsiders have demonstrated renewed faith in Carbide's future. An investor group led by the Bass Brothers of Texas has bought about 5 percent of Carbide's stock since the accident.
Within the industry and the company, Mr. Anderson has been trying mightily to maintain at least a semblance of business normalcy. He has for years breakfasted every morning in the company cafeteria, chatting with workers over a roll and coffee. These days, he uses those breakfast chats to sense whether employees are reacting badly to Bhopal. "He has great sensitivity to what's pulling on people, the stresses that other people feel," said Ronald S. Wishart, Carbide's vice president of government relations and a colleague of Mr. Anderson's for 25 years. And, Mr. Wishart said, Mr. Anderson takes personal responsibility for alleviating their distress. W ARREN MARTIN ANDERSON learned about responsibility early. The son of a carpenter who emigrated from Sweden, he used to help his father install floors and later delivered newspapers in his Bay Ridge neighborhood for the defunct Brooklyn Eagle. He is the middle of three children.</div>
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At 6-foot 2 and 210 pounds, and with a perfect score on math exams, he won both football and academic scholarships to Colgate. At first he wanted to be a physician but "my parents didn't have any money" to put him through more years of schooling. So he majored in chemistry.
After graduation in 1942 he enlisted in the Navy and trained to be a fighter pilot, but never saw combat. He was discharged when the war ended in 1945. In the Navy he played end on a football team that had the legendary Bear Bryant as a coach and as quarterback had Otto Graham, who went on to be one of the best professional players in the history of the game. "I still keep in touch with him," Mr. Anderson said.
After the Navy, Mr. Anderson made the rounds of chemical companies in New York and took the first job offered him - by Union Carbide. In the next few years he added two more skills that were to serve him well. During a stint as a salesman, he learned the importance of marketing, and of keeping attuned to customer needs. And at night, he went for a law degree at Indiana University.
That law degree is helping a lot in dealing with company lawyers now. "They know I'm a lawyer," he said. "They can't get away with the answer, 'No, you can't do that.' They have to say what the problem is. I can talk their language." </div>
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He rose steadily at Carbide, averaging two to three years per position, through general sales manager in New York, vice president of the international division, president of the chemicals and plastics group and president and chief operating officer in 1977. He now presides over a company with 700 plants in more than three dozen countries.
Until recently, Mr. Anderson had managed to keep a fairly low profile. His office sports a paperweight inscribed with his favorite Chinese proverb: "Leader is best when people barely know he exists."
So it was, in his words, "quite a shock" to be suddenly thrust into world prominence by an unanticipated and enormous tragedy. M R. and Mrs. Anderson remember the hours surrounding Bhopal vividly. </div>
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The night before the accident, they and some friends attended an awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Mr. Anderson had a bad cold and was about to fly home to bed on Monday morning, Dec. 3, when the phone rang at about 8 A.M. Alec Flamm, Union Carbide's president, said there had been an accident at the Bhopal plant and that there were deaths, but no more details were available.
A few hours later, Mr. Anderson was back in Greenwich and Mr. Flamm was calling him again. By then 18 hours had passed since a cloud of toxic methyl isocyanate, a pesticide ingredient, had drifted over Bhopal, and hundreds of people had fallen dead on Bhopal's streets. But because of the difficulty of getting information from India to the United States -overbooked planes, overloaded telex lines, far too few telephone connections - Mr. Flamm's most recent information from India was that 60 people had died.
It is with bitter irony that Mr. Anderson recalls his reaction to that number of deaths. "I couldn't comprehend it," he said. "We thought it couldn't be that bad, that when the next call comes through it will be better, not worse."
Mr. Anderson fielded calls from his bed all day Monday; his wife listened to the news on the radio in the living room. "We had this frustrating problem of being able to see on television what was going on in Bhopal and unable to get a line through to find anything directly ourselves," he said.
A management team, made up of Mr. Flamm and the six executive vice presidents of the company's divisions, assembled in Danbury to direct communications and to marshall the company's resources to deal with the crisis. </div>
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Mr. Anderson, meanwhile, decided immediately that he, as well as a technical and medical team, would go to India. "I sort of felt that if I were over there I could make judgments and decisions on the spot," he said.
Mrs. Anderson remembers her husband's trip to India as among the most fearful times of her life. "I was afraid for him stepping off the plane in Bhopal," she said. "It was all so public."
Indeed, in some ways Mrs. Anderson's burden was heavier than Mr. Anderson's in those early days after Bhopal. Rather than share with others her fear that he might come to harm in India, Mrs. Anderson kept her own counsel. "I wanted to prepare myself for the worst, where I might be alone," she said.
Even after he returned, her fears for Mr. Anderson's health were a constant companion. She put a doctor secretly on call in case he suddenly collapsed from the stress. Yet through it all, while serving as a sounding board for Mr. Anderson's worries and frustrations, she has kept quiet about her own. "I didn't want him to worry about the fact that I was worried," she said. On Tuesday, Dec. 4, Mr. Anderson boarded a plane for Bombay, where he met with Keshub Mahindra, board chairman of Union Carbide India Ltd., and its managing director, V.P. Gokhale. The three decided to go to Bhopal, survey the situation, meet with Arjun Singh, the chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh, and offer interim relief and a permanent damage settlement. "We were talking about generous numbers, by anybody's standards," Mr. Anderson said. </div>
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The three were arrested as they stepped off the plane in Bhopal. Mr. Anderson was detained for several hours and then flown back to New Delhi; the other two were put under a form of house arrest at Union Carbide's guest house in Bhopal for nine days. In New Delhi he met with American and Indian officials, but little progress was made toward a settlement.
As it turned out, Mrs. Anderson's worries were unfounded. Mr. Anderson said that no one threatened him during the five days he was in India - although the fear was sometimes there. "When trucks go over bumps and big noises occur outside in the middle of the night, you sort of jump a couple of feet and you sort of settle back down again," he said.
It was when he got back to Connecticut that the true harassment started. Although there was no hate mail - a silence that Mr. Anderson found "amazing" - there was constant hounding by reporters, advice givers, attorneys, stockholders and consultants offering their services. He hid out with his wife for a week in a Stamford hotel, taking along her 84-year-old mother from Brooklyn for company. They had all their meals sent up. This was the low point, he said, "a grown man hiding in a hotel room." Things have calmed down since then. The two spent this weekend in their Bridgehampton, L.I., house, the first time since the accident. "I've learned to make every day count," Mrs. Anderson said.
Things are calmer on the business front, too. Executives of other chemical companies have rallied around Carbide and Mr. Anderson, giving him at least a semblance of a support structure. </div>
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"At hearings and at meetings that I've been to, there have been other members of the chemical industry there too, stating their piece or giving their testimony," he said. "It has been helpful that other people have taken on some burdens."
But Mr. Anderson is still struggling with how to balance the demands of differing constituencies. ''If you listen to your lawyers you would lock yourself up in a room someplace,'' he said. ''If you listen to the public relations people they would have you answer everything. I would be on every TV program.'' There are demands from shareholders, retirees, insurance companies, government officials. He says he constantly risks satisfying one group while upsetting another.
Perhaps the group he worries about most is Union Carbide's own employees. ''There are a lot of Carbide people who bear the stigma of Bhopal even though they have no relationship with it whatsoever,'' he said.
This past winter, Mr. Anderson made a series of morale-boosting videotapes to be distributed to corporate locations around the world. ''We have a lot to prove and the world is watching,'' he said on one of the tapes. But he quickly added, ''What I have seen so far gives me enormous confidence that Carbiders will meet the test.''
He is constantly looking for at least some identifiable good to be derived from the tragedy of Bhopal. </div>
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He notes, in fact, that employees have pulled together. ''It is very much like a family where when there is a problem you close ranks,'' he said. And he notes that there is an opportunity to learn a wide variety of lessons from the accident, for Carbide specifically and for all multinational companies in general. One is that overseas plants must be inspected more frequently. Another is that overseas managers, both natives of the foreign country as well as expatriate Americans, should be more familiar with the operations they head - a particularly important consideration for Carbide, which is organized on a geographical basis, not a product line basis. Executives both here and overseas are not always expert in technologies they manage. The head of Union Carbide India Ltd., Mr. Gokhale, came from Carbide's battery division in India, and admittedly was not particularly familiar with the Bhopal pesticide plant's processes. Some former company officials contend that the unfamiliarity enabled problems to fester.
Another lesson, Mr. Anderson said, is that extra thought must be given to locating hazardous chemical processes in some areas of third world countries, and to negotiating better control of those facilities with the host governments. ''I think everybody is going to seriously question the degree of control that you have,'' he said. American companies, he believes, will demand more control than they have now, including the right to do safety audits at any time. The alternative, he said, should be that ''you just will not make that investment.'' </div>
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Mr. Anderson will turn 65 on Nov. 29, 1986, so he has about 18 months to put the lessons he has learned into effect before he retires. But if litigation drags on, he warns, the constructive aspects of Bhopal will take a back seat to the rancor.
''Maybe I wish to be remembered for resolving an issue like Bhopal,'' he said. ''Not many people have the chance to be in the middle of a mess like this one and come out of it. So, if you can come out in a positive way, look back on it and say, yes, I know it was a terrible tragedy, but some benefits accrued, and here's what they are - that's not bad.''
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW
Eminent psychologists say that, perhaps more than anything else, Warren M. Anderson's ability to talk about Bhopal and to accept the magnitude of the tragedy indicates an unusually healthy and constructive manner of dealing with his own reactions.
¶ ''To be able to talk about it is healthy; to be able to talk about it with one's wife is healthier still; to talk about it with one's wife while walking to discharge tensions is very, very healthy,'' said Harry Levinson, a professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School and an expert on executive stress.
"If you pretend everything is normal, you have a poor grieving process, and you will not get back into the realities of everyday life very quickly," added John R. Sauer, an industrial psychologist for consultants Rohrer, Hibler & Replogle Inc. </div>
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Too much defensiveness, he warns, results in "guilt, anxiety and embarrassment."
Mr. Anderson's occasional sleeplessness is not much to worry over, psychologists say. But they expect that executives at other companies who have denied that serious problems existed or blamed others for them will have longer bouts of unease than will Mr. Anderson.
Mr. Levinson notes that Ford Motor Company was initially reluctant to admit how bad the problems with the Pinto's exploding gasoline tanks were, while the General Motors Corporation responded to consumer advocate Ralph Nader's discovery of safety problems with the Corvair by initiating a personal attack against Mr. Nader. Mr. Levinson's guess is that top executives at both companies probably suffered a good deal of psychological trauma by not dealing fully with disasters. He says that feelings of guilt or blame may fester and hamper performance for years.
By contrast, he predicts that all parties at Johnson & Johnson will remain psychologically unscathed, even though tainted Tylenol capsules killed seven people in Chicago. The company reacted quickly, removing Tylenol from store shelves and almost immediately initiating packaging changes that would make undetected tampering almost impossible. </div>
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The disaster that Mr. Anderson must deal with, however, differs from these examples in several respects. Victims numbered in the thousands, making the basis for guilt much greater. And dealing in a foreign culture and with a foreign government added greatly to the frustration. ''Senior managers like to be in control,'' Mr. Sauer said. Because in many ways Mr. Anderson felt helpless, the crisis ''was especially complex and difficult'' to deal with, Mr. Sauer said.
But the distance factor had a plus side for Mr. Anderson: He did not personally view the worst of carnage. And that, says Norman R. Bernstein, a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago and an authority on stress consulted often by attorneys in legal actions involving the subject, probably helped Mr. Anderson cope with the enormity of Bhopal. Dr. Bernstein said studies show that soldiers who drop bombs from miles in the air suffer far less post-battle stress than those who see people die close-up. ''If you don't see dead bodies, your ability to detach yourself from the tragedy is greater,'' he said. </div>
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- By STUART DIAMOND Published: May 19, 1985 in New York Times</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-90119361374783875622014-10-30T06:30:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:54:03.712+05:30Act Four Take One<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Arre Sahu miyan, I was looking for you", startled by the call, Dinesh Sahu looked back to find Azim Bhai waving frantically for him. Catching up Azim narrated the matter "You remember Ezaz, son of Jamila Bia ? He has become arrangement assistant for the film studio, and was asking for a person in early fifties, short with a balding head. I immediately recalled you and suggested your name to him. There is a bit role in the shooting going on at old jail, and they will pay you for it". </div>
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Now this was god sent for Dinesh Sahu. God knows, he was in desperate need for money. Once a prosporous video shop owner, his fortunes had dwindled with the lost business of videos. He tried to revive his fortunes by shifting into CDs but the advancement of Internet killed even that market. Since the last five years he spent much more than he brought home, merely to exist. </div>
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Very few people knew that Dinesh was a promising actor in some other avatar. In the BSSS college acts and meets, he participated actively even outside the city; he was declared the best actor at Mood Purple at IIT Mumbai. Sitting in his video shop he would often dream of making it to the hallowed avenues of Bharat Bhawan. That was about eighteen years back. Now after so many years opportunity has knocked at his door again, and he will not let it go at any cost. </div>
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Dinesh turned up at the Jail hill promptly at eleven. Cutting across the vast crowd of onlookers and hangers on, he asked around for Ezaz, and finally finding him out at the biryani stall across the masjid. "Oh it is you", said Ezaz "please come with me". He took him to Mohan the scene director and said "Mohan bhai, this is the person for that collision scene". "Okay" said Mohan to Dinesh, "have you understood the scene ?". "No" said Dinesh "no body told me anything about that". "Okay. See, the hero is rushing out from his car and entering the jail, when he collides with you. He does not look back to you and runs inside the jail" said Mohan, "this will show the hurry and anxiety of the hero". Disappointed Dinesh said "That is all, is it ?" Mohan said convincingly "What are you cribbing about ? This is a talking role, bhai, you are very lucky. Hundreds of actor are their just to stand as part of crowd, without any dialogues." Dinesh was not fully convinced but he went along. Standing across the street he watched with interest the proceedings of the shooting. After some time he approached Mohan again and asked for his dialogues. Mohan took out a small peice of paper from his pocket, wrote some thing on it and handed it over to Dinesh. Dinesh opened and saw the paper containing just one word "Uff". </div>
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Just one word ? For star actor Dinesh Sahu ? Dinesh was not really amused. Soon it was time for the take. Dinesh was called forward. A small butterfly mustache was fixed below his nose, a copy of rolled up Dainik Bhaskar given in his hand and it was time for action. As he walked past the jail gate, a car stopped next to him and a man rushed out, knocking Dinesh out of his feet. Dinesh cried "Uff"', threw out his Dianik Bhaskar and was blanked out by the impact. "Cut. Take okay" was shouted out. Ezaz came running towards him, and said "Good shot bhaijaan. You look to be a good actor. Please wait while I get your payment for you". Dinesh radiated his smile to the world and walked away, while the director nodded his appreciation towards him. "Oh the glory and the satisfaction of a good performance, what is some money against this pleasure ?" Dinesh wondered.</div>
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Ezaz came back looking for Dinesh after fifteen minutes, but the man was nowhere to be found. "Kaisa bhulakkar aadmi hai" muttered Ezaz loudly, putting the money back in pocket.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-27405129112993478552014-10-28T07:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:54:15.792+05:30Shakeela Bano Bhopali<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g2iezZ0XdH4/VD-aTdUpIRI/AAAAAAAABUs/0xG023axgyI/s1600/Bhopali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g2iezZ0XdH4/VD-aTdUpIRI/AAAAAAAABUs/0xG023axgyI/s1600/Bhopali.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a>“<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlbgA08P-_o" target="_blank">Duniya ko laat maro</a>… (to hell with the world),” sang nine-year-old Shakeela Bano Bhopali at the <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2007/12/nawab-hamidullah-khan-ii-end-of-bhopal_24.html" target="_blank">last Nawab of Bhopal</a>’s palace innocently kicking in the Nawab’s direction, with her father nervously gesturing her to stop. But Shakeela continued to sing, never sparing the high or the mighty. </div>
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Shakeela was a rage in Bhopal from very young age. Her mother Jameela Bano was opposed to the idea and, according to Shakeela’s younger brother Anees, tied her hands and feet to scare her. But Shakeela did not relent. She joined the Variety Theatre and played lead roles. Later, when she became a big name in Bhopal, her mother learnt to play the harmonium for her.<br />
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Her entry to the world of professional singing was accidental. One night, while B R Chopra was filming NAYA DAUR near Bhopal with Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanti Mala and Johny Walker, the shoot had to be cancelled due to rains. Someone suggested Bhopali's name to Chopra who invited her to perform a qawwali mehfil. Bhopali, then barely in her teens, mesmerized the audience, and the event that was supposed to be of an hour lasted whole night. Dilip Kumar said to her:"Aap Bhopal ki cheez nahin hain. Bombay aa jaaiye (You are not Bhopal material. Come to Bombay." </div>
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Shakeela Bano did move to Mumbai, with her parents sister and three brothers, where she rendered famous numbers like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI9xJiqjHIo" target="_blank">Milte hi nazar tumse hum ho gaye deewane</a> (Ustaadon ke Ustaad), Peene waale meri ankhon se piya karte hain (Gunda), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBDF52WNrY" target="_blank">Sainyan doli leke aaye tere dwar</a> (Shraddhanjali), Ab yeh chod diya hai tujhpe (Humrahi). "There was a time when producers would add a qawwali number by Shakila to their flop films and re-release them. One qawwali could carry a failed film," remembers Babubhai, who was Bhopali's assistant for 25 years. </div>
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A poet in her own right, Bhopali has a collection of poetry Ek Ghazal Aur to her credit while Akmal Hyderabadi has written a seminal book Qawwali Amir Khusru Se Shakila Bano Tak.</div>
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It is difficult for old timers to forget Shakeela. “She had both the looks and the voice. Everyone from the Nawab to the tongawallah went back happy after her performance. While the couplets were for the upper class, the jokes were for the rest,” recalls 75-year-old K. Khan, an avid fan of Shakeela from Bhopal. Shakeela had a great memory. She could effortlessly recite Ghalib’s and Mir’s couplets. To her, the couplets were always more important than her voice. Through her gestures (ada aamozi) she ensured that the couplets sank into the hearts of the listeners. Noted broadcaster Ameen Sayani, who has known Bhopali for several years, says: "Shakila had a magnificent voice and a great sense of repartee". There are several tales about her. In the 1980s, at the peak of her career, Bhopali performed at a concert in Kuwait. A sheikh was so impressed with her that he gifted her his car. When she refused, he offered to buy her house in Dubai. But she refused that too, saying,"I love India, and I cannot think of making any other country my home". Her admirers remember the Mallika-e-Qawwali (queen of qawwali) walking into mehfils in heavily embellished sharara-dupatta with attendants carrying her paandaan, pankha, ugaaldaan and fresh couplets she wrote.</div>
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The queen of qawwali lived life her way, never succumbing to pressure from music companies to record her qawwalis. She defended her decision not to record qawwalis by saying “My talent lies in ada aamozi and not in my voice.” Her command over Urdu and her penchant for enacting the lines of the songs as well as her swaying dancing style made her one of the most sought-after qawaal singers of her time."She always sang solo and held her ground alone, which was remarkable for a woman in those days," saya a family source. Her most important contribution was in transforming qawwali from simple form of local entertainment to a lavish affair with a grand backdrop, musical orchestra and a lot of action and dance.<br />
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By the year 1984 the film offers started drying up, but she started giving lot of live performances. She was in Bhopal in December 1984 to attend a relative's wedding. It was very late at night and some family members had already turned in. Suddenly there was a lot of noise outside. 'Bhago, bhago (run) there is poison in the air' people were shouting. Hordes of people were running on the streets covering their faces, shouting, pushing and falling over each other. The family got ready to escape from the house. Shakila galvanized most of the family members. She would never think of fleeing on her own, saying, 'We all live together, we all will die together'. Zarina, Shakila's younger sister, recounts how Shakila, who was 42 years old at the time, and 14 others fled the house on foot, joining the surging mass of people below. "People did not even know what they were running from, there was so much hysteria. Some people said Bhopal was on fire. We did not know then that it would have been better to shut the windows and stay in the house with a blanket covering our faces. People who were inside their homes did not suffer as much." The group walked for hours at night, finally stopping when they thought they were far away.<br />
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(From top left) Jabeen Jalil, Sunita Prasad, Azra, Nishi, Shakila, Nimmi, Yasmin, and (sitting below from left) Begum Para, Shyama and Sitara Devi, during the birthday party of Shyama, in Mumbai.</h3>
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Zarina recounts, "We returned to a ghost town in the morning. Shakila suffered acute respiratory problems only after that. In fact, she became asthmatic. She also had a lot of eye problems after the leak, which got aggravated after she developed diabetes. I remember her being unable to go through a full programme in Mumbai some months after the gas leak." Her respiratory problems put a stop to her live performances. Says Bhopal-based Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee of Sambhavna Trust Clinic, which provides medical care to the survivors of the disaster, "Singers in Bhopal who were exposed to the gas were directly affected by the leak. Why just singers? Most people who depended on their voice for a living were affected. Even many muezzins (Muslim priests who call the faithful to prayer) lost their jobs." Shakeela had once said in an interview that she is like a factory with 20 people's livelyhood depending on her singing. With the factory sick, the accompaning musicians started getting paid sporadically. </div>
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A bitter and ill Shakeela Bano complained about the blind eye that the country had turned during her hard days. Bed-ridden with a tape recorder, a paanbatti (betel container) and a small box full of vials and tablets for company in her small cubicle at St George Hospital, she gazed at the ceiling blankly. Summoning all her strength, she sits up, clears her throat and says:" The Doctor asks me aur kya problem hai? I am tired of telling people what ails me." Bhopali, who once gave singers like Noorjahan and Runa Laila a run for their money when it came to live performances spent months in different hospitals - Shastri Hospital, Mahavir Nursing Home, Holy Family Hospital and finally St George Hospital."We have spent over Rs 2.5 lakh on her treatment. We sold our jewellery, television set and refrigerator. We are broke now." said Zarina saman, Bhopali's sister. Help came few and far between. Despite repeated appeals for help, the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and the Prime Minister's Office have not issue any help the senior artiste. "Once we personally handed over a letter to MP chief minister Digvijay Singh, who immediately asked his PA to inquire about ammi's health. Nothing happened. A few individuals in the film industry have given money, but that's too small an amount to meet the cost of medicine," rues Yunus Mohammed Khan, Bhopali's adopted son. "I performed to raise funds for the army's welfare, cancer patients, war widows and destitute children. What have I got in return for all the services I did for my country ? " Shakeela said, adding "God gave me a lot of shohrat (fame), izzat (respect) and daulat (money). I am happy that I lived the way I wanted to. My only regret is I have to sit idle now. I have many offers from serials and films, but I can't work. I just want to get well and resume my work”. She summed up her fate with a couplet from her ghazal</div>
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"Jo shakhs mudaton mere shaidaaion mein tha/ </div>
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Aafat ke waqt woh bhi tamashaiyon mein tha"</div>
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(One, who, for years, was among my admirers/</div>
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He has became a spectator during my turbulence).</div>
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Shakeela Bano Bhopali never recovered from the effects of the gas. The legendary singer, who transformed the face of qawaali with her flamboyant and uninhibited singing style, died on 16th December 2002 at the St George Hospital after a massive cardiac attack at the age of 60</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-5035309511855016992014-10-21T07:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:54:48.066+05:30Intermarriage is not Jihad, It is India<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pI0AlHuY5U4/VD5ORxa2boI/AAAAAAAABUc/WFrG6rVUfEI/s1600/saifkareena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pI0AlHuY5U4/VD5ORxa2boI/AAAAAAAABUc/WFrG6rVUfEI/s1600/saifkareena.jpg" height="220" width="400" /></a></div>
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I am the son of a sportsman, I grew up in England, Bhopal, Pataudi, Delhi and Mumbai, and I am more Indian than any Hindu or Muslim I know because I am both. I wrote this piece not to comment on the masses or the problems of communalism in India and its villages, but because this is an issue that concerns my friends and their families.</div>
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It wasn’t peacefully accepted by anyone, initially, when my parents wanted to marry. The royals had their issues; the Brahmins theirs. And, of course, extremists on both religious sides issued death threats. But the marriage still happened — the fact that my grandmother also had to fight to marry the not-as-wealthy and therefore not-so-suitable nawab of Pataudi might have helped things along. We grew up on real-life romantic stories about our elders marrying for love and not worrying too much about tradition. And we were brought up to believe that god is one, with many names.<br />
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When Kareena and I married, there were similar death threats, with people on the Net saying ridiculous things about “love jihad”. We follow whatever religion or spiritual practice we believe in. We talk about them and respect each other’s views. I hope our children will do the same.</div>
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I have prayed in church and attended mass with Kareena, while she has bowed her head at dargahs and prayed in mosques. When we purified our new home, we had a havan and a Quran reading and a priest sprinkling holy water — no chances taken!</div>
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What is religion? What is faith? Does a perfect definition exist? I don’t know. But I know doubt. I’m intrigued by the politics of doubt. Doubt gives us faith. Doubt keeps us questioning what keeps us alive. If we become sure of something, then there is a danger of becoming fanatical.</div>
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Religion needs to be separated from a lot of things. Our religions are based on fear. The Old Testament spoke of a Promised Land for a people, but there were people already living there. The problem is still burning today. There have been too many atrocities committed in the name of god.</div>
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I know good people are scared of marrying their daughters to Muslims. They fear conversion, quick divorces, multiple marriages — basically, it suits the boys a bit more than the girls. All this is undoubtedly outdated. A lot of Islam needs to modernise and renew itself in order to be relevant. We also need a loud moderate voice to separate the good from the evil. Islam today is more unpopular than it has ever been. This is a great shame to me, as I have always thought of Islam as the moon, the desert, calligraphy and flying carpets, the thousand and one nights. I have always thought about it as a religion of peace and submission. As I grew older, I saw religion twisted and used so badly by men that I distanced myself from all man-made religion. I choose to be as spiritual as I can be.</div>
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Anyway, I digress. The good news is that no one needs to convert from their religion to get married. The Special Marriage Act, when applicable, is the paramount law of the land. If you marry under this, it is upheld over any religious law. It is truly secular.
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The fabric of India is woven from many threads — English, Muslim, Hindu and many others. A major concern in today’s India is that we keep deleting our past. To say Muslims don’t have a role in India is denying their importance and contribution. It is like saying women don’t have a part to play in India. Why do we need to deny Islam? It’s what we are. We come with our mix. To deny this is to cheat us of our inheritance. I don’t know what “love jihad” is. It is a complication created in India. I know intermarriages because I am a child of one and my children are born out of it. Intermarriage is not jihad. Intermarriage is India. India is a mix. Ambedkar said the only way to annihilate caste is intermarriage. It is only through intermarriage that the real Indians of tomorrow can be truly equipped to take our nation forward with the right perspective. I am the product of such a mixed marriage and my life has been full of Eid and Holi and Diwali. We were taught to do adaab and namaste with equal reverence.</div>
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It is sad that too much importance is given to religion, and not enough to humanity and love. My children were born Muslim but they live like Hindus (with a pooja ghar at home), and if they wanted to be Buddhist, they would have my blessing. That’s how we were brought up.</div>
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We are a blend, this great country of ours. It is our differences that make us who we are. We need to get beyond mere tolerance. We need to accept and respect and love each other.</div>
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We are most certainly not a secular country. The intention was to become one and our Constitution has provided every framework to make that possible. But, more than six decades on, we have still not separated religion from the law. To make matters worse, different laws apply to different people, making it impossible for us to think as one. There are different laws for Hindus and different laws for Muslims. This is bound to create trouble.</div>
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I think we should have one law for all Indians, a uniform civil code, and we should all think of ourselves as one nation. All our religions must come later and be by the way. Teach our children about god and his thousand names, but first we must teach them respect and love of their fellow man. That is more important.</div>
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I stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy first, then Santa Claus, and finally, I really don’t know what I feel about a personal god. But I believe in love and in trying to be good and helping the world. I don’t always succeed and then I feel bad. My conscience is my god, I think, and it tells me that that one tree in Pataudi near which my father is buried is closer to god than any temple, church or mosque.</div>
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- Saif Ali Khan, Actor, Producer and great grandson of <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2007/12/nawab-hamidullah-khan-bhopal-i.html" target="_blank">Hamidullah Khan</a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/intermarriage-is-not-jihad-it-is-india/99/" target="_blank">In Indian Express</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-40697174503532180782014-10-14T11:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:54:25.984+05:30Blood in Koh-E-Fiza Bhopal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkk8KT-65QY/VDuLUupao3I/AAAAAAAABT0/ZV-dEOSl3Zs/s1600/shehla%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkk8KT-65QY/VDuLUupao3I/AAAAAAAABT0/ZV-dEOSl3Zs/s1600/shehla%2B2.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Shehla Masood, an upwardly mobile educated Muslim girl from Bhopal who graduated from an event manager to a RTI activist/animal rights activist/anti corruption crusader, was gunned down outside her house in the Kohefiza area of Bhopal on August 16, 2011 seconds after she boarded her car to leave for Anna Hazare's India Against Corruption campaign.
What seemed like a politically motivated killing of an RTI activist, was referred to the CBI by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on the third day of murder.</div>
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It took a little more than six months for the CBI to finally crack the case. Joint Director Mr Keshav Kumar and Deputy Inspector General of police Mr Arun Bothra preferred doing most of the legwork themselves. No angle was left un-probed and finally it so turned out that Zahida Parvez, an interior designer, with assistance from her employee and friend Saba Farooque plotted to kill Shehla Masood. Shakib Danger, a ladies tailor who had more than one dozen serious cases pending against him, got the killers from Kanpur for Rs 3 lakhs.<br />
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Shakib Danger was the first to be arrested followed by Zahida Parvez, Saba Farooque, Irfan and Tavis Khan. The CBI had gathered a bagful of technical evidence that nailed the killers. Their movement around Shehla's house was established on the day of the murder, when they had come to Bhopal. Shakib was the first one to be informed by the killers. He called up Zahida to give her the 'good news' and she in turn sent her friend Saba to confirm about it. The timing of the telephone calls fell in place leaving absolutely no scope for doubt. The problem however, was with the motive.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RR5qeXYJ6w4/VDuLhwt2XkI/AAAAAAAABT8/8hGtiCZzdN8/s1600/zahida%2Bparvez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RR5qeXYJ6w4/VDuLhwt2XkI/AAAAAAAABT8/8hGtiCZzdN8/s1600/zahida%2Bparvez.jpg" /></a></div>
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Zahida had not yet been questioned and Shakib had cooked up this story: "I was approached by Zahida to get killers to eliminate Shehla because she suspected her to have an affair with her husband Asad Parvez. I got in touch with Shanoo Olanga and Irfan from Kanpur and the killing was fixed and executed for three lakhs". Irfan was arrested by the UP STF from Kanpur the same night and he cooked up another story. "We killed the girl in Bhopal because we were told that she was of loose character and was doing everything to malign the image of the community and was in touch with anti Muslim forces."<br />
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The CBI later realised that both these stories were cooked but by this time the media, hungry for headlines, had already done the damage. The dead can't defend their honour so there is no dearth of those who revel in maligning. Later it so turned out that Shanoo Olanga, an alleged gangster from Kanpur who was killed in a shootout between rival gangs in Kanpur, never came to Bhopal. It was Shaquib's relative Tavis Khan instead.By the time the CBI realized that Shaquib had taken the investigators for a royal ride, he was already in judicial custody and there was no way that they could have interrogated him again.</div>
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The CBI, however, had recovered Zahida Parvez's diary by this time. Zahida in her diary had noted everything in detail.The motive was now clear. She suspected that Shehla was coming in between her and Dhruv Narayan Singh, the BJP MLA from Bhopal. The CBI also recovered the DNA of Dhruv Narayan Singh from her office in the form of used condoms that she had meticulously preserved along with the dates when they were used. The CBI also recovered a video CD in which Zahida and Dhruv Narayan Singh are having sex in her office. The recording was discreetly done. The diary notings showed that she was passionate about Dhruv Narayan Singh.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IGvrLrO-Tyw/VDuLuShw0wI/AAAAAAAABUE/ELbtT3-rKAk/s1600/dhruv%2Bnarayn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IGvrLrO-Tyw/VDuLuShw0wI/AAAAAAAABUE/ELbtT3-rKAk/s1600/dhruv%2Bnarayn.jpg" /></a></div>
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Dhruv Narayan Singh's <a href="http://dhruvsingh.net/">website</a> describes him as "a twinkling, young & energetic rising star". Coming from a politically powerful, landed family,former Ranji cricketer and son of former state chief minister Govind Narayan Singh, Dhruv Narayan represents Bhopal (Central) constituency that has a sizeable population of Muslims and is in-charge of the BJP’s Minority Cell. He clearly had a unique interpretation of his 'minority outreach' responsibilities.</div>
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As chief of the MP tourism board, he brought on Parvez as an empaneled architect despite her lack of qualifications. His position as chairman of the Bhopal Development Authority also yielded a lucrative bounty for Parvez. Singh was no less generous with Masood. According to the Indian Express, her event management company, Miracle, threw a lavish party at a tourism department hotel in Bhopal without paying the Rs 60,000 tab.</div>
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On Singh's Facebook photo album, Parvez comments: "sir, photgrphs r as gud as u r." More eerie is Parvez's own FB update, posted in early Feb: "Jaante Hain sab Phir Bhi Anjaan Bante Hain...... Issi tarah Wo Humme Pareshan Karte Hain.... Puchte Hain Hamse Ki Aap Ko Kya Pasand Hai... Khud Jawab Hoker... Sawal Karte Hain..."</div>
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The CBI during its investigation has found nothing except the telephone calls that Dhruv Narayan Singh used to make to Shehla and occasional return calls that she used to make to him to establish that Zahida's suspicion was genuine. In fact, on the contrary, certain material evidence has surfaced that suggests that Shehla had nothing to do with Dhruv because of which she could be killed by Zahida. Shehla almost two years before her murder had moved to Delhi and was in a happy relationship.
The grey area as to how and why Zahida suspected Shehla still remains.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v81ZyRPjgYE/VDuL2710GTI/AAAAAAAABUM/bfUuU78SNYE/s1600/shehla%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v81ZyRPjgYE/VDuL2710GTI/AAAAAAAABUM/bfUuU78SNYE/s1600/shehla%2B1.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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Presently Zahida Parvez and Saba Farooque are at Indore jail, where they continue with <a href="http://www.news18.com/news/madhya-pradesh/two-accused-in-shehla-masood-murder-case-beat-up-woman-jail-inmate-507721.html">their violent ways</a>. Asad Parvez, the businessman husband of Zahida Parvez has shifted to Mumbai. Although he initially declared that he would <a href="http://daily.bhaskar.com/news/MP-BHO-shehla-masood-murder-zahida-pervezs-husband-wants-divorce-3118702.html">stand by the side</a> of Zahida, he soon backed out and <a href="http://daily.bhaskar.com/news/MP-BHO-shehla-masood-murder-zahida-pervezs-husband-wants-divorce-3118702.html">took divorce</a> from Zahida. Irfan Ali, one of the key accused, <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/Irfan-turns-govt-witness-in-Shehla-Masood-murder-(case/articleshow/40306572.cms)">turned government witness</a> and recorded his statement before special CBI court in private. No direct evidence of involvement in the murder has so far been found against the second generation politician, Dhruv Narayan Singh. The CBI has decided not to name him as an accused in the charge sheet.</div>
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Sources: <a href="http://m.ibnlive.com/blogs/hemendersharma/67/63539/killed-for-nothing-cbi-chargesheet-in-shehla-masood-murder-case.html">1</a> , <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/politics/shehla-masood-case-meet-dhruv-singh-sugar-daddy-of-bhopal-234018.html">2</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-60071498848805259782014-10-07T11:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:55:02.242+05:30Ama Khan Bhopali - The Orkut Group<span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
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Once upon a time, in the era of pre high speed internet, their used to be a phonomena called Yahoo Chat. Yahoo! Chat was not just about making connections. It actually fueled the economy, by building the cybercafe business in India. College and school kids would come to cybercafes, in groups, and huddle over one Pentium machine, giggling and nudging each other. </div>
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Soon Yahoo!, the company itself began to die under the onslaught of Google. By then however, another heavy weight of social networking was rising. Orkut. With its profile pictures and real names, considered more trustworthy than Yahoo!, flourished during this time. Orkut brought a whole set of new vocabulary like Friending, Unfriending, Blocking, Scrapping, Testimonials.</div>
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Some where around this time, on March 5th, 2007 to be precise, came the awesome group of Bhopal, called 'Ama Khan Bhopali'. Created by Prateek Joshi, moderated by Ishmeet Singh Bedi and Vaibhav Tolani, this was the coming of age of Social Media for Bhopal. The world came to know - and the Non Resident Bhopalis recalled - the awesome lingo of Bhopal. Bhopali - the generally spoken variation of Hindi in Bhopal - is a hilarious language. It takes some understanding though for an outsider. However once they get a hang of the language, they enjoy it enormously. This sharing of the native Bhopali lingo was brought about beautifully by the group 'Ama Khan Bhopali' and was a rage among the Bhopal youngsters of yesteryears. Many sites across the net world found out the group and shared the Bhopal slangs, bringing about many guffaws.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b1As32GAgFA/VCg3fLoCVjI/AAAAAAAABTA/u5_Q_2cwR5k/s1600/founders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b1As32GAgFA/VCg3fLoCVjI/AAAAAAAABTA/u5_Q_2cwR5k/s1600/founders.jpg" height="203" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Vaibhav Tolani, Ishmeet Singh Bedi and Prateek Joshi - Profile pictures of founders - "Ama Khan Bhopali"</u></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Apart from the awesome lingo other features less appreciated about Bhopal is the Batole - ideal gossips shared on the <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2006/12/patiyabaazi-of-bhopal.html" target="_blank">patiyas of Bhopal</a>. Their was a exclusive thread at "Ama Khan Bhopali" for this.</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-131875d0-bcec-d69f-d3c6-f1992735043e"></span><br />
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Sample these Batole from the thread <b>"Sabse Karra Batola"</b> at "Ama Khan Bhopali" :</div>
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"Abi kuch din pele ki baat he..hum saab apni badi jheel kinare bhutto ka lutf utha rhe the..</div>
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Ek janab aaye bhutte wale kanne..ken lage miya 2 sek do pese baad mein le lena..</div>
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Bhutte wala bola kese nange nawaab ho 10 rupye nai hain jeb mein..chalo kha aage badho..</div>
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Bas saab un janaab ki fir gayi..ken lage uljhega to tere bhutte nai bikenge naya kaam shuru kalle..</div>
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To bhutte wala bola aap hi bataen kya kaam kiya jaye..</div>
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Miya jawaab aaya...tu machli k paye soop ka thela laga..chatori se jyada chalega ma kasam..shaan ho jaegi teri..</div>
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Itta bol k miya vo bhag gaye wahan se aur bhutte wala gali bakta reh gaya..."</div>
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"Ek martaba hum apne yaaro k sath jim carbet ki taraf nikalliye..apni jonga mein..ab miya ghusne ka intazam to tha nai..bas saab koi baat he kya..guard k sath 15 min bethe chai pi..apni pehchan ban gayi aur kya chiaye..</div>
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Chand miya ne jese ki chadhai ki apan kat liye jim carbet mein..Sher dekhne ka mizaaj ho riya tha..par saab andhere mein ghanta kuch nazar nai aa riya tha...</div>
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Apan koi haar maan ne wale the kya..nikala apna nokia 1100 aur torch se lage dhoonde sher ko..</div>
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Subah tak khoj poori nai hui...hum kha pak gaye..</div>
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Sher ki amma ka ____ ab nai dekhna sala ch___ bana rakha he..</div>
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Paltan beth gayi jahan pani dikha aur hon lagi picnic..</div>
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Bhot gosht soota..ab sala gosht ko soongh k sher aa gaya ma ka ___hum bhage sab chhod k..</div>
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Apne chilman bhai mootne gaye the..</div>
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Sher un pe jhapta or patloon pakad li nawab saab ki..</div>
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Ab vo patloon unhe utarni padi..or bhage jonga ki taraf..nange hi bhage aa rhe the chilman miyan...</div>
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Us din to kher sab zinda ghar aa gaye..par yaadgar ho gaya kissa...tab se chilman miyan ko nange nawab k naam se jana jata he..."</div>
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"Ek baar essa hua raat ko raisen ke jungle mai shikaar khelte khelte subah ho gayi aas paas dekha tou bepanah kangaroo uchal rhai the.</div>
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Samajh mai nai aaya. Thori door ek dhabe par jeep rok kar poocha "yeh kon si jagah hai". </div>
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Woh bola "bhat who are you" arre humne socha shaksharta mission mai gaon walon ne angrezi seekh li </div>
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Hum ne bhi jawab diya "koon khann Bhat is this palace"</div>
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Woh bola "this is australia" "</div>
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"Saab apan ko bhopal me sab jante hai aap kisi se bhi puchlo ke munne shikari kon hai....</div>
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Mene pucha shikari kyu ?</div>
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Sab ken lage...are aapko nahi pata apan ne sher ka shikar kia tha......</div>
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Mene pucha wo kaise.... to ken lage.... </div>
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Ek bar ki bat hai baba ke santh shikar pe gaya tha baba jeep chala rahe the. Sher ne baba pe hamla kardia...</div>
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Apan pe karta to shayad apan kuch nai karte lekin mia walid saab pe attack kia usne.</div>
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Apan ne gardan dabali uski apne hath me, aur sale ka gala ghot ke mardia.....</div>
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Sab ko pata hai tume nahi pata....."</div>
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9jfTnmcVdU3FECOc1pa429bbcBmRtqlXWzersfXGdpXs2vAfvvsURKE44Hk_NJGpd_3C-UPTajVBuFROvpJoy0KBj3Pt3jobNpSIozvA5gRu9Z60Ew8WOCwyCBFUwfRvZQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="28717506.jpg" border="0" height="272" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9jfTnmcVdU3FECOc1pa429bbcBmRtqlXWzersfXGdpXs2vAfvvsURKE44Hk_NJGpd_3C-UPTajVBuFROvpJoy0KBj3Pt3jobNpSIozvA5gRu9Z60Ew8WOCwyCBFUwfRvZQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /></a></div>
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Then there was the thread <b>"Bhopali Mechanics"</b> containing these gems as heard from the Bhopal mechanics everyday :</div>
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<li>Aapki gaadi reverse phaink rahi heigi.</li>
<li>Point shaart hega.</li>
<li>Lapak kaisei aa rahi hegi ? (Lapak - acceleration)</li>
<li>Chakka dag riya hae. (Wheel balancing problem)</li>
<li>Piston mein pilay haega.</li>
<li>Ama aapki gaadi to paidal ho gayi.....</li>
<li>Miyan aapki gadi ka case pechida hogaya haiga, fitig marni hogi</li>
<li>Ama khaa brek AAAil dalega aur miya kiluch problem deria hai</li>
<li>Brek shoe bhi gaye</li>
<li>Are kha mai keeh riya tha keee is chilte pirte janeje ko kab bech riyeee hoooo? Apne pas pertyyy haiii (When are you selling this moving coffin)</li>
<li>Are bhaiii miya rate ka kya haiiii apko jo munasibbb lage ap bata dijiye....waise gadi ekdummm chirkare marti hai</li>
<li>Carbooraterrr main prablem haigi, riks mat lo gadi ka chen saket kharab hogaya haiga</li>
<li>Kalach(clutch) pilate fail henge...bire kasnee padegee...dhibri tight kannee padegee..</li>
<li>Iska to khaan 'injun' down hoga...gaadi total ho gayee he...duo so rupiye lagenge,..</li>
<li>Arre khaan silencer fut gaya he...gaadi peeche se aag moot rahee hegee...</li>
<li>"Bhai jaan chain spacket chala gaya samjho or to or ail beh riya hai engine mein, isliye gaadi dhua jaada de rae aee,piston bhi tede ho gaye he isliye load nai le rae aee bhaui jaan gaadi sukhi chalaoge to engine baith jaega ailing kara lo nahi to gear set or chain set daalna padega aap bolo to modify kar doon hayabusa ki baady bhot shandaar lagegi apki rx 100 par kasam bhopal ki badi lake ki maza aa jaayega socho mat karva hi loo"</li>
<li>Hamare yahaan ek mekanik hen; miyan khan totle hen. Jiska dekho pittan {PISTON} kharaab kehte hen. Kehte hen pittan dalega. Isiliye unka naam shafiq pittan urf totle miyaan hpar gaya hega. Waise unka naam tapeek bhi henga, kuch log unko Tapeek Kabadi bhi kehte hen, showroom ki Bike men kharaabi nikaal dete hen"</li>
<li>"Kal hum apni embishon le gaye apne bhopal k mashoor rashid urf munne mekenik ke paas. Hamare gadi ke dono leg guard mud gaye the. Wahan ek 7-8 saal ka launda bhi tha gadi dekh ke ken laga "Bhai jaan ye to titli ho gayi hai, udti bhi hai kya ?" </li>
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Then the thread "<b>Bhopali death ho jane par kya bolte hain</b>" had the hilariuos phrases used by Bhopali even to inform about death of a person. Sample : </div>
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<li>Thatri uth gayee</li>
<li>Mamoo Lambey ho gaye</li>
<li>Maamu let liye...</li>
<li>Bade miyan shaan se kharach ho gaye.........</li>
<li>Unke toh tajiiye thande ho gaye miya.....</li>
<li>Karbaat lee baithey... jummey ke ek din pheley..</li>
<li>Bhai Miyan Nipat Gaye</li>
<li>Bare bhai chal diye</li>
<li>Abbu 'khatam' ho gaye</li>
<li>Alla ko pyare ho gaya</li>
<li>Janaza nikal gaya</li>
<li>Ganjbasoda wale mamu shaant ho gaye....</li>
<li>Moholle ki jaan hua karte the..aap dekh hi lo..sab jagah gham pasra hai..</li>
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Then of course, there was the <b>Bhopali dialogues</b> that were shared by many blogs - </div>
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<li>Kallat se STD ho rei hegi pet mein (Kal raat se acidity ho rahi hai pet mein)</li>
<li>Zero bate sannata</li>
<li>Chachaooooo ekdum bhannaat lag riya hega</li>
<li>(name of a person) Bhai Ko (short for Bhai Ko salaam)</li>
<li>Kalmein kaise beh rahi hai tumhari</li>
<li>Gaadi pinna dee ( accelerated his vehicle)</li>
<li>Koon khaaan party sab khairiyat ? (Asking the person if he is alright)</li>
<li>Sabar Ali ko pakro (Have patience)</li>
<li>Arre miyan aatu, rokke. Dil toh pichei chuut gaya.</li>
<li>Kyon jhoom riya hega be</li>
<li>Kanney kat gaye</li>
<li>Rawangee daal lo</li>
<li>Sar par de riya hega mila mila ke</li>
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<li>Arey pehelwaan</li>
<li>Haan kha sab kismat ki luck hai</li>
<li>Kon Khan Kan Ja Riye Ho!! (where r u going?)</li>
<li>Haan Khan Pathan, Khairiyat ? (Asking the person if he is alright)</li>
<li>Ko Khaa, kaisey /Ama Khaa, Kaisey?</li>
<li>Abe je ka kar riya hai? (What are you doing?)</li>
<li>Taap an taoun (Top-n-town)</li>
<li>Iscooter thodi silo (slow) chalana</li>
<li>Lept (left) gali mein lele, saamne thulla khada hega!</li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://en.blog.orkut.com/2014/06/tchau-orkut.html" target="_blank">Orkut was declared closed</a> by Google on 30th September 2014. With that went the legend "Ama Khan Bhopali". The group shall remain, in Bhopal's memories, in hours of lost productivity, in the embarrassing moments of awkward guffaws at the most inappropriate place and time, in floating scraps of conversations and in shards of indescribable delight.</div>
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Goodbye old friend. Bohot hi umda kism k patiye the miyan .. inke batole sehore tak world famous the</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.comBhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India23.2599333 77.4126149999999622.7929063 76.767167999999955 23.726960300000002 78.058061999999964tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-87282058742048735102014-09-30T11:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:55:20.702+05:30Sharadiya Bhopal 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-58s_eI0Y28k/VCFOx0piFLI/AAAAAAAABP0/oWmZDodkGCg/s1600/dandiya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-58s_eI0Y28k/VCFOx0piFLI/AAAAAAAABP0/oWmZDodkGCg/s1600/dandiya.jpg" height="173" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">It is Navratri time in Bhopal. Time for Dandias, time for Mata rani, time for devotion and fasting. The hidden motifs of that promotion, that land deal or business deal, that college admission or campus placement - everything can wait, let us get down to devotion of ten days first. Surely "Mata rani" will take note, she knows all desires of every heart, right ?</span><br />
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For the Bengali community of the city though, it’s "that" time of the year - Durga Pujo.<br />
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So what is different, apart from the spelling ? The Bengali community, most of whom are second generation Bengali whose father had migrated into the city of Bhopal, try to follow the traditions of Bengal as closely as possible.To start with, the Pujo starts from the sixth day - the Shashthi. The preparations for the Puja are made complete on this day. Preparations on Sasthi consists of three aspects Kalparambha, Bodhan, Adhivas and Amantran.<br />
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Kalparambha- This ritual is done in the early hours of the morning. It deals with the Sankalpa to conduct the puja properly and by abiding all the rituals and customs. The ritual consists of installing the ghata, water-filled copper pot, at a corner of Durga mandap and offering worship to Durga and Chandi.<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jknrd3Wrieg/VCb0MufbLgI/AAAAAAAABSA/UCB_SM9xbxw/s1600/Durga.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jknrd3Wrieg/VCb0MufbLgI/AAAAAAAABSA/UCB_SM9xbxw/s1600/Durga.jpeg" height="333" width="400" /></a>Bodhan - This is performed at the dusk. Durga Puja falls midway through the sleeping period of the Gods and hence they need an ‘awakening’; which is nothing but the Bodhan.<br />
Adhivas and Amantran- The procedure of invocating the Devi in the bel tree, post the Bodhan , is known as Adhivas. The ritual consists of the following steps-<br />
Devi Durga and the Bel tree are first worshipped. Twenty-six sacramental things are sanctified by touching Devi Durga and the Bel tree with them. To get rid of evil effects, a red coloured thread is tied around the altar where Puja is done. Then ‘amantran’ is done, which is actually inviting the Devi to accept the Puja the next day. Then the Devi is worshipped and arati is done. These marks the end of proceedings on Mahasasthi and the daily Puja starts on the next morning.<br />
While the women folks (married with children) generally observe a fast, the gents start preparing for the celebrations on right earnest.</div>
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The next day Saptami is the day when the action actually starts with a ritual called Nabapatrika.<br />
During dawn, just as the first light of sun descents on earth, Kolabau or Nabapatrika rituals are performed. The ritual is actually an ancient practice, practiced by peasants for prosperous harvest. In the absence of idols, they worshipped Nature i.e. certain plants and trees. Gradually, it became a part of Durga Puja tradition. Since nine plants are involved in the ritual, it is known as ‘Nabapatrika; meaning ‘Composed of Nine parts of Plants’. These 9 plants collectively signify Navadurga Goddesses, nine aspects of Goddess Durga.<br />
The 9 Plants comprising Nabapatrika are:<br />
Bel - Wood Apple Tree. It denotes Lord Shiva.<br />
Dhan - Rice Plant. It represents Goddess Lakshmi.<br />
Daalim - Pomegranate Tree. It indicates Raktadantika.<br />
Halud - Turmeric Plant. It represents Goddess Durga.<br />
Kola - Banana Plant. It represents Goddess Brahmani.<br />
Kochu - Colacassia Plant. It represents Goddess Kalika.<br />
Maankochu - Arum Plant. It represents Chamunda.<br />
Ashoka Tree symbolises Sokharita.<br />
Jayanti Tree. It denotes Kartiki.<br />
The stem of the banana tree is draped in a new red and white saree and the leaves are left uncovered. This banana plantain structure signifies the form of Durga. It is offered a pre-dawn bath in the river amidst Dhaak (drum) beats and conch symphonies. The ritual is performed on the ghats (banks) of a river or pond. The idol of Goddess Durga is not taken to the pond instead life is symbolically transferred from water to plantain tree. Vermillion is applied on the leaves. Then it is brought back in a procession and is placed near Lord Ganesha in the Durga Puja Pandal (tent). The morning of Maha Saptami (seventh day) starts with worship of the Mother Shakti (Durga). The ceremony of Anjali is performed wherein a devotee offers prayers and flowers on an empty stomach, amidst the chanting of mantras to the Goddess. After the completion ‘Prasad’ (sweet meat) is served to devotees. <br />
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For the males the devotion part takes a back seat. For most Bengali males it is just park the vehicle, get in the arena, take a quick look at the image of goddess, fold hands for a few seconds and then start looking around.<br />
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Look for friends, mostly.<br />
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This is the time when the friends of school, even pre school time come back from their jobs. Then starts the phenomena that every bengali is born with in their DNA. "Adda". This is basically talking, about anything, everything and every thing in between. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pVF90oX6SBg/VCFPx1F5GWI/AAAAAAAABQM/4Xanvwo1WVI/s1600/Bhog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Adda cannot be explained to any body who has not experienced this. The adda sessions can actually stretch for three days with little unwanted interruptions for food. Then adda also continues while having food.</div>
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In the evening (evening for Bongs start at around 10 PM), the adda continues. Dressed in newclothes the entire family is very busy at the puja venue. After the customary folding of hands in front of the idol, the adda starts. Joined by entire family, in a huge group of 45 people or small group of 4, the adda continues.<br />
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The ladies are usually at the cultural events, which could be “singing by local talent”, an euphemism for the wife/daughter of one of the Pujo’s chief patrons given the privilege of hogging the mic before the “guest artists” come on to the stage. Not to forget the vicarious pleasure of watching energetic Bangali bhodrolok and bhodromohila trying to be “Punjabi” hep by dancing in a ring-a-ring-a roses pocket full of poses style to the tune of modern bangla bands.<br />
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The gents mean while, are too engrossed in their own "bhakti" - the engrossing chat sessions. Once when a new father was handed over the charge of handling his toddler daughter, the daughter walked up to the stage in middle of a performance. The organisers started requesting for the parents to come pick up their child, her mother somewhere at the end of the crowd started to loudly wonder at the negligence of the parents. The father was luckily alerted by a friend, and he collected his daughter without detection - just escaping being martiared on that occasion. When this event ends the bong male reluctantly takes a break and goes to drop off the family to home - specially if a old parent is to be taken care of. Dropping the children and elderly home, it is back to the adda, which is known to continue till 5 in the morning.<br />
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Eigth day or the ashtami is marked by Kumari Puja. Pre-pubescent girls were worshipped as goddesses on Ashtami day. The ritual of Kumari puja, a significant part of Maha Ashtami worship, was started in 1901 by the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission , Swami Vivekananda.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FJgm_lJZkPY/VCgLX_tIGeI/AAAAAAAABSg/Mczw3CuXY5w/s1600/Swami_Vivekananda_in_Belur_Math_19_June_1899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FJgm_lJZkPY/VCgLX_tIGeI/AAAAAAAABSg/Mczw3CuXY5w/s1600/Swami_Vivekananda_in_Belur_Math_19_June_1899.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f1f1f1; color: #888888; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Vivekananda at Belur Math on 19 June 1899 (right) Vivekananda (photo taken in Bushnell Studio, San Francisco, 1900)</span></td></tr>
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An unmarried girl between one to sixteen years in age, who has not yet reached puberty and is bereft of desire, worldly pleasures and anger, is selected for the ritual that highlights the importance of women. Depending on their age, the girls are worshiped in the various forms of the goddess. At break of dawn, the Kumari was bathed in Ganga water, draped in a red sari, adorned with flowers and jewellery, with a "sindur (vermillion) tilak" applied on her forehead. The young Kumari fasts the whole day until the puja is over. She is made to sit before the goddess's idol on a decorated chair with priests chanting hymns and dhak (traditional drum) being played in the background. According to religious belief, after the puja, the divinity of the goddess descends into the Kumari.So it continues on Ashtami too. The khichuri, the late night, the adda - and oh before I forget - many marriages are initiated during these days.</div>
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Community lunch, called Bhog, is usually organized in the Puja pandals at various
locations on this day, which usually is a simple affair of Khichri, a kind of mix
vegetable (called labra), tomato chatni and rice kheer (called payesh).
Preparation of this food is a huge affair in themselves, and cooking
this food in the intevening nights of saptami-ashtami
are known to create friendships of a lifetime. There are many stories
like someone throwing a shoe at a friend which ended up in the boiling
khichri, or insects ending up in the khichri which could not be taken
out and were further mixed in the three quintals of rice and daal, but
those are rumours spread by opposition parties. Around noon,
a bhog prasad (cooked separately by a brahmin lady) from Maa durga is mixed
with this food and the distribution starts among the general people.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s5euNETSoE4/VCb0n-eytHI/AAAAAAAABSI/AVhfrBeGxxM/s1600/Durga2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s5euNETSoE4/VCb0n-eytHI/AAAAAAAABSI/AVhfrBeGxxM/s1600/Durga2.jpg" height="253" width="400" /></a></div>
An integral and important part of Durga Puja, Sandhi Puja is performed at the juncture of the 8th and 9th lunar day. Sandhi puja lasts from the last 24 minutes of Ashtami till the first 24 minutes of Nabami. During this juncture (the "Sandhikhan"), Durga is worshipped in her Chamunda form. Devi Durga killed, Chando and Mundo, the two asuras at "Sandhikhan" and thus acquired the name of "Chamunda". While the Goddess and Mahishasura were engaged in a fierce battle, the two generals of Mahisha, Chando and Mundo attacked the Devi from the the rear. Durga appeared to them, a brilliantly glowing woman with her hair knotted on her head, a crescent moon above her forehead, a 'tilak' on her forehead and a garland around her neck. With golden earrings and clad in a yellow saari she emitted a golden glow. Her ten hands possessed ten different weapons. Though she appeared beautiful her face turned blue with anger when she faced Chondo and Mundo. From her third eye then emerged a Devi with a large falchion and a shield. She had a large face, bloody tongue and sunken blood shot eyes. She was Chamunda. With a bloodcurdling shriek she leapt forward and killed them. This moment was the juncture of the 8th and 9th lunar day.<br />
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By the evening, a sense of urgency takes hold of completing all the unfinished celebrations, being the last day of Durga Pujo. More adda, more eating and more of "everything else" follows. </div>
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Soon and inevitably, it is morning of Dasami or dussehra. It is time for bidding Maa Durga farewell.</div>
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Uma or Durga is treated as the daughter who will be going to Shiva's place after her annual vacation of ten </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ur62JsS6WPo/VCgMrQNsnXI/AAAAAAAABSs/gpdHKFTRgLI/s1600/bhopale%2Bsindur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ur62JsS6WPo/VCgMrQNsnXI/AAAAAAAABSs/gpdHKFTRgLI/s1600/bhopale%2Bsindur.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
days at her father's home. Durga is given a traditional farewell by the Bengali women by putting vermillon (sindur) on her forehead and wiping her face with paan leaves. This has become a big photo op and attracted much media attention in recent years - the photos you find the next day on local dailies.<br />
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However the men are sad as the party time is over. They have had their fill of food and bubbly by this time and graduate to traditional and stronger "bhaang" for the last day. The hilarious and amazing dance steps that follow has to be seen to be believed. From the pandal to Prempura ghat, the energy that is shown on the day by bengal youth will remind you of Ganguli at the Lord's balcony. Incidents abound when the sad (and heavily intoxicated) bong male lied down in front of truck carrying the idol and asked mother (Maa Durga) to be carried over his chest.</div>
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Immersion of goddess in water starts another event called "Bijoya Dashami" - when bengalis exchange greetings with all their relatives, friends and acquaintances. Families visit each other, embrace friends, touch feet of elders - and of course - eat. Usually it is the traditional Coconut balls known as "Narkel naru" - apart from assortment of other sweets. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4x1eEkTk8MU/VCFSAzKtI9I/AAAAAAAABQ0/Y6GEFsFCjPI/s1600/wish-you-subho-bijoya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4x1eEkTk8MU/VCFSAzKtI9I/AAAAAAAABQ0/Y6GEFsFCjPI/s1600/wish-you-subho-bijoya.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
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So ends the Bengali pujo for a year - and long wait for the next year pujo starts - not knowing the intervening year would leave how many of them unscathed - to enjoy the next years pujo.<br />
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Possibly related - <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2007/10/kalibari-at-bhel-bhopal.html" target="_blank">Kalibari BHEL Bhopal</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-75769500708539982392014-09-23T11:00:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:55:38.972+05:30Ghantiwale baba<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">So, you wan't a story ?</span></h4>
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Okay, so one and only one you will get. Then you go to sleep. Fine ?</div>
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In olden days,when the djinns and darvishes roamed freely in the world, there lived a farmer named Salim. Salim was a hard working man, who used to toil on his fields, did not gamble, did not even go to the village tari shop, saving all his money to bring true his only passion. He wanted his son - Ibrahim - to get employed with the Nawabs. <br />
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Ibrahim, the preteen handsome son of Salim, knew of this over whelming dream of his Abbujaan and <i>prepared well</i> to fulfill his dream. </blockquote>
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Looking at the growing young boy, Salim fondly recollected the times, when as a restless toddler, Ibrahim would run out of the house so often that Salim had to tie a cow bell on his torso. Ibrahim used to be traced by the sound of this bell, earning him the title "<b>Ghantiwale baba</b>". </blockquote>
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<a name='more'></a>Late in the day, Ibrahim and Salim found out that studying hard at the village madarsa cannot be called "<i>preparing well</i>". Getting into the Nawab's services required a special exam to be cleared. Many young guys from the city were already preparing for this exam since last five years.</blockquote>
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Salim was crest fallen, and so was Ibrahim.<br />
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Around this time a god sent djinn made a blessed appearance. He asked for some alms from a glad and eager Salim, who praised the almighty for this opportunity to fulfill his dreams. In return of the alms, surely the djinn blessed Ibrahim , and soon Ibrahim was in the Nawabs services !</blockquote>
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That, sadly is not the end of the story, my dear.</blockquote>
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Some months down the line, Salim found the nagar kotwal at his door, asking him about whereabouts of the blessed djinn. </blockquote>
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"How can an ordinary person like me know about the whereabouts of a djinn" Salim pleaded. "Then you come with me to the Kotwali" said the nagar kotwal with a smirk. Salim was surprised to find Ibrahim, along with several others, in the kotwali - pleading there ignorance of the whereabouts of the djinn, to an indifferent kotwali staff.<br />
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Days rolled to months, and they all were still pleading with the kotwal. Each passing day sent Ibrahim and the younger lot into desperation. At some point, Ibrahim's mounting rage overwhelmed his inborn respect for Abbujaan. He started shouting accusations at Salim for all his misfortune. </blockquote>
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Salim was so shocked and surprised that he went dumb struck. No, he was not dumb struck for a minute, an hour or a day. He was dumb struck from then till eternity, not speaking, shedding tear or showing any signs of emotion, even when the kotwal informed him of the suicide of his son Ibrahim - the "Ghantiwale baba" - in the kotwali.<br />
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The exasperated nagar kotwal did not have any use of this dumb man, but had the good heart to drop him home. For years hence, Salim sat at his doorstep, staring blankly at the horizon from morning till late in the evening, when his begum will call him for his roti. </blockquote>
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He never recognized anybody again, nor betrayed any understanding of a spoken word. Sometimes, deep in his sleep, he would hear intently to the sounds of the ringing cow bells, which sounded strangely familiar.</blockquote>
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Oh, you are already asleep ? So I thought.<br />
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<u><i>(This is completely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person or djinn, dead or alive, is purely coincidental)</i></u><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0Bhopal MP India23.241346102386135 79.453125-5.5647263976138639 38.144531 52.047418602386131 120.761719tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-29322036806005570792014-09-13T19:38:00.001+05:302015-04-22T10:56:17.436+05:30AIIMS BHOPAL<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Du2QbwqXklQ/VBRPXY7ZABI/AAAAAAAABO4/Jn54iHv1Gro/s1600/aiims2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Du2QbwqXklQ/VBRPXY7ZABI/AAAAAAAABO4/Jn54iHv1Gro/s1600/aiims2.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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As per the <a href="http://www.aiimsbhopal.edu.in/" target="_blank">official website</a></div>
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<h4>
"AIIMS Bhopal is one of the SIX AIIMS like apex healthcare institutes being established by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojna(PMSSY). With the aim of correcting regional imbalances in quality tertiary level healthcare in the country, and attaining self sufficiency in graduate and postgraduate medical education and training the PMSSY planned to set up 6 new AIIMS like institutions in under served areas of the country.</h4>
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These institutions are being established by an Act of Parliament on the lines of the original All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi which imparts both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in all its branches and related fields, along with nursing and paramedical training. to bring together in one place educational facilities of the highest order for the training of personnel in all branches of health care activity."</h4>
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Bringing true the worst fears of the above "sarkari" declaration, AIIMS Bhopal is the proverbial government "work in progress" since Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government announced on 15th August 2003 establishment of new hospitals on the lines of New Delhi's AIIMS. The foundation stone was laid on 20th January 2004. Soon after UPA-I government was formed, which luckily decided to go ahead with these institutes. <br />
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Dr Harshvardan - the Central Health Minister - visited AIIMS Bhopal on 16th June 2014. The work seems to have picked up after this visit. <br />
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Only 300 patients are being allowed in Outdoor Patient (OPD) as on date. For this, tokens are distributed in the morning from 8 AM onwards till 11 AM officially. However the ground reality is ques are seen from as early as 6 AM. Tokens of two series A and B are distributed - one each - on first come first served basis. The tokens reportedly are over by 8.30 AM, by which time the registration counters alos open up. Two queues are formed for series A and B. It takes about 1.15 minutes for one person to register at the counter. For registration name, address, mobile number, medical depatment you want to goto and an amount of Rs 10/- is asked for. Once you have registered, you can go to the respective department, get your pulse, blood pressure recorded at the nursing station outside and wait for your turn with the doctor.<br />
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For follow up visits you require the registration number printed on the registration prescription. This registration number is unique to a person and should be saved for future references. You require to pay Rs 10/- and move on to the respective department, without any token problem any longer! Most common investigations are available in the premises, for some you might be asked to get them done form outside.</div>
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<a href="http://www.aiimsbhopal.edu.in/out_patient_services.aspx" target="_blank">Departments</a> <a href="http://www.aiimsbhopal.edu.in/telemedicine.aspx" target="_blank">Telemedicine</a></div>
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Another interesting facility is the <a href="http://janaushadhi.gov.in/" target="_blank">Jan Aushadhi facility</a> started for cheap medicines by the government. This operates from Gurudev Tagore Complex - located on the road leading from RRL to AIIMS after crossing the the AIIMS hospital turn. Open from Morning 8 AM to 8 PM the medicines are unusually cheap, and the owner is pretty helpfull. <br />
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<u><b>How to reach</b></u> - Turn left from Regional Research Laboratory after crossing the Habibganj under bridge. After crossing Sagar Public School on your right you can see the AIIMs building. Take a right turn and act important to convince the guards that you are authorized to park the vehicle in front the AIIMs building. If unsuccessful, take the turn after divider and park on the other side of the road, walk across the divider. So if you have a patient you are taking along with you, you would like to win this one. <br />
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<i>Tokens distributed in the morning are a major bottle neck. Reports abound about budding entrepreneurs selling these tokens. If you fail to manage a token, just wait patiently while the token holders line finishes and politely request the staff - not the guards - for a registration after they are relatively free. They usually oblige. This happens by about 12 noon give or take an hour. </i><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0Bhopal India19.973348786110602 79.1015625-8.832723713889397 37.7929685 48.779421286110605 120.4101565tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-42361163598469974372014-01-11T15:21:00.001+05:302015-04-22T10:56:27.489+05:30AAP ka Bhopal <div style="text-align: justify;">
After taking the National capital by storm, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all set to contest the Lok Sabha 2014 across India. The way Arvind Kejriwal - head of AAP and Chief Minister of Delhi - has gone about his politics has fired the imagination of people. Luminaries like <a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/The-underage-optimist/entry/why-aap-is-the-most-exciting-new-party-to-join-politics">Mr. Chetan Bhagat</a> and <a href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/aam-aadmi-party-did-what-rahul-gandhi-wanted-to-do-digvijay-singh_899407.html">Mr. Digvijay Singh</a> has started acknowledging this new phenomenon in Indian politics. In arun up to Lok Sabh aelection 2014, hunt for worthy candidates to contest on AAP tickets for Lok Sabha 2014 has started in Madhya Pradesh too.<br />
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Madhya Pradesh State Secretary of Aam Aadmi Party <a href="http://www.siliconindia.com/startupcity/company/hunka-technologies/akshay-hunka-cid-215-eid-19.html">Mr. Akshay Hunka</a> joined Bhopale for a informal chat on Bhopal ka <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2006/12/patiyabaazi-of-bhopal.html">Patiya</a></div>
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<b>Q1) Kindly introduce to Bhopal people AAP's working team with their background.</b></h3>
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<b>Abhay Verma</b>- State Co-ordinator, belonging to a very huimble background from Rewa.<br />
<b>Akshay Hunka</b>- State Secretary; Runs his own IT firm (Hunka Technologies, Bhopal) developing mobile applications.<br />
<b>Prahlad Pandey</b>- Was a management Lecturer in a college in Indore but has left his job and is active full time. He is the state Spokesperson<br />
<b>Vijay Mishra</b>- District Co-ordinator Bhopal<br />
<b>Sharad Kumhre</b>- State executive member, Bhopal<br />
<b>Shabnam Khan</b>- State executive member, Vidisha,<br />
<b>Mamta Pathak</b>- State executive member, Satna<br />
<b>Shailendra Singh</b>- State executive member, Gwalior<br />
<b>Sandeep Mukherji</b>- Runs a Charted Accountants Firm and is the State Treasurer<br />
<b>Ritesh Shukla</b>- Special Invitee Member State Executive; Does reasearch work<br />
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Q2) What would your (unofficial) manifesto for 2014 LS elections look like in Madhya Pradesh ?</h3>
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National Manifesto will be reflected in Madhya Pradesh too. Lets briefly discuss issues which are common at National and Local level.Any country has to have 6 fundamental amenities made available to 100% of the citizens without which Prosperity and peace in the country is impossible.<br />
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1. Water easily accessible to all the families all the time.<br />
2. Electricity 24 by 7 to all<br />
3. We believe "Right to Education" is making a fool of our kids thus we want Right to world class Education for all. In MP we want it in the next Education Session of 2014. The government is invited to discuss how this can be realised.<br />
4. World Class Health for all<br />
5. World class Physical (Road, Railways etc)and Virtual (Internet and Telecommunication) Communication System made available to all till the Village and ward level<br />
6. Efficient, Effective and benevolent Law, Order and Justice delivery system<br />
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We think the core role of government is to manage the above amenities. Once this is done, only then government will be able to manage other stuff such as Defence, International Relations, etc<br />
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Q3) You might be aware that Bhopal gas victims have lost faith on all political parties and have <a href="http://twocircles.net/2013nov14/irked_bhopal_gas_victims_launch_campaign_opt_nota_button_mp_vidhan_sabha_polls.html">opted for NOTA</a> in 2013 assembly elections. What is AAP bringing on the table for them ? </h3>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We are in touch with Gas victim organisations and we are assessing how this issue could be resolved amicably once and for all. Gas raahat is another issue of corruption where those who really got affected have either been left out or have been inflicted with tokenism. There have been beneficiearies who have neever been affected.</span></span></h3>
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Q4) As Chetan Bhagat has pointed out AAP party wave is over taking Modi wave. Do you see this happening in Madhya Pradesh too ?</h3>
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We believe Modi wave is a deleberately created wave. We invite Modi and all those who are gunning to form the government to answer what will they do post forming the government? We are inviting all to have an open discussion on what resources are required and how will they be arranged in what time frame.</div>
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India has to go beyond "developing nation tag" to a "developped nation immediately. We are already very late."<br />
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Q5) You must be receiving lot of request for <i><u><b>"</b>joining<b>"</b></u></i> AAP. Being the movement that has turned into a party, what exactly do you expect from people who join ?</h3>
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1. Believe and have faith that things can change and can change for good.<br />
2. Understand that Politics is the only constitutional way to initiate and implement change and development for all in the country<br />
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Q6) As <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-26/delhi/45591927_1_lokpal-bill-congress-and-bjp-arvind-kejriwal">Mr. Arvind Kejriwal </a> said, AAP might be contesting 20, 200 or 400 seats depending on availability of suitable candidates. How many are you expecting/targeting in Madhya Pradesh ?</h3>
We are not contesting elections. People are contesting elections and we are just providing platform to the best deserving candidate. We are hoping that we get representatives from all the constituencies<br />
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Q7) Please share a short history of Bhopal's association with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Shehlafans">Kejriwal's movement</a> like RTI, Anna Hazare Ramlila Maidan 2011 etc ?</h3>
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India Against Corruption became operational in MP as a conductive impact of movement in Delhi and once AAP was declared a section of IAC joined AAP and thereafter we started working in Tandem with Delhi Team. We have formal Distric Executive teams in 38 out of 51 districts already and all these exec members are elected members and these members have elected the State executive Members who in turn have elected the office bearers.<br />
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We already have sections of society started joining us. Teachers associated with Higher Education, Auto drivers, Shopkeepers, Students and such other sections have started joining us and very soon we will have these associations.<br />
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Aam Aadmi Party Shikshak Association (AAPSA) Bhopal is in the making and we are having our first meeting in Party office, above Milan facing Board office, Manoj Mishra Classess, at 12.00 PM on Jan 5th, 2014. All are cordially invited. Lets strengthen each other and be free.<br />
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<b>Twitter :</b> <a href="https://twitter.com/Aap_MP">@aap_mp</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AAPBhopal">@AAPBhopal</a>,<br />
<b>Facebook :</b> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/AAPMadhyaPradesh" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>AAPMadhyaPradesh</a><br />
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<b>Disclaimer:</b> Reflecting the mood of present day Bhopal, posted to circulate information. Post does not indicate endorsement. First in the proposed series of <a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2006/12/patiyabaazi-of-bhopal.html">Patiya</a>, please suggest people whom you would like to see on the blog.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com1Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India23.2599333 77.4126149999999622.7929063 76.767167999999955 23.726960300000002 78.058061999999964tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-77608856766258165272013-11-24T17:43:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:56:41.243+05:30Assembly Elections 2013 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The voters of Madhya Pradesh are being given a stark choice: pick between a caring Mama (maternal uncle) and a man whom the masses address as Maharaj (king) because of his royal roots. BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, 54, is projecting himself as a “farmer’s son” who will “serve” and not “rule”. He is seeking a third term saying kings in their palaces know or care little about the people. Jyotiraditya Scindia, 42, a royal scion educated at Harvard and Stanford, is silently countering the charge by cultivating the image of a mass leader. The Congress chief campaigner moves around in an open jeep, leaning across and stretching his arms out to shake hands with people in the streets. His plea: throw out the corrupt Shivraj government. Each has distinct advantages and weaknesses. The “tried and tested” Shivraj acquired the “Mama” tag after the success of his Ladli Laxmi Yojna, under which the state gives a girl child over Rs 1 lakh in instalments till she turns 21. His problem is that most of his colleagues are seen as corrupt. “Shivraj is in our hearts but his ministers and MLAs are thieves,” said Banwarilal Shak in Gwalior city.<br />
Jyotiraditya’s problem is that a faction-ridden Congress, despite putting up a united face in recent months, has balked at declaring him its candidate for chief minister.<br />
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“As chief minister, he will certainly do well, but will the Congress make him the chief minister? It has too many kings in its ranks,” said a doubtful Suraj Singh, sarpanch of Baretha gram panchayat in Gwalior. His allusion was to the known differences between Jyotiraditya and fellow Congress royal Digvijaya Singh. Shivraj knows his ministers are pulling him down; so he is trying to blur his team out of the picture. “If you don’t elect the MLAs, how will I become chief minister?” he pleads with folded hands. But while some of his government’s schemes have been popular, the failure of many others has earned Shivraj the nickname of “Sapno ka saudagar” (seller of dreams). So, Shivraj has been left playing the Mama vs Maharaj card. “All the kings have joined hands (in the Congress). But they live in forts while I am your servant and live among you,” he says.<br />
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As the crowd roars, the tension on the chief minister’s face eases. But Maharaj has been drawing cheers too. Every second day, he hits the streets, shaking hands. Jyotiraditya is harping on government corruption in a state whose Lokayukta is investigating 14 ministers. Mama is trying to counter the charge by insinuating that a Congress government would be more corrupt. “They have been hungry for the past 10 years. Imagine what will happen if they come to power,” he says, the unsaid implication being that his ministers’ appetite has been sated. But there’s no masking the chief minister’s nervousness.<br />
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<u><b>ACCOUNT<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>CANDIDATE<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> PARTY<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SYMBOL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b></u><br />
BERASIA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ANITA AHIRWAR<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bahujan Samaj Party Elephant<br />
BERASIA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MAHESH RATNAKAR Indian National Congress <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hand <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BERASIA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>VISHNU KHATRI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bharatiya Janata Party <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lotus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ARIF AQUEEL <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Indian National Congress <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hand <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ARIF BAIG <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bharatiya Janata Party <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lotus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SANJAY NARWARE Bahujan Samaj Party <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BSP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>S. ARIF ALI SHANU Samajwadi Party <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>AZEEM DURRANI Independent <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Kite <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>KABIR + KANHAYA RAO<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Independent Dish Antenna <br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAJU/RAJKUMAR BEGWANI Independent Sewing Machine<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>VAKEEL KHAN <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Independent <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Air Conditioner<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UTTAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SHIVSHANKAR SHARMA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Independent Almirah<br />
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NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> MOHD. ATIK <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bahujan Samaj Party Elephant <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> VISHWAS SARANG <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bharatiya Janata Party Lotus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SUNIL SOOD <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Indian National Congress Hand <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> AZHAR ALI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Samajwadi Party Bicycle <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> AWADH V CHATURVEDI Bhartiya Shakti Chetna Party FLUTE<br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> OM PRAKASH SHARMA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Samata Party Air Conditioner<br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> JUMMAN KHAN <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>National Loktantrik Party Table <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> NASIR ALI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Akhil Bhartiya Gondwana Party Black Board<br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> BHAI K. RAJVEER DOHRE Bharatiya Bahujan Party <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sewing<br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SYED ABDUL JALIL SHIRAJ BHAI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Independent <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Whistle <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SHEKH ISHAK URF KHAN SAHAB <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Independent AutoRickshaw<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
NARELA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SUNIL BADALKAR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Independent Saw <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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BHOPAL DAKSHINPASHCHIM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>UMASHANKAR GUPTA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BJP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lotus<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSHINPASHCHIM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>PAPPU PARVE <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> BSP<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Elephant<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSHINPASHCHIM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SANJEEV SAXENA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>INC <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hand <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSHINPASHCHIM PT. BABULAL MALVIYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RSP<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Almirah<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSHNPSHCHIM SMT MANVATI TIWARI JAMP<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>AutoRickshaw<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSHNPSHCHM RAGHUBEER SINGH MARKAM GGP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Saw<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSAPSCHM SIDDHARTH MORE BASD Glass Tumbler<br />
BPL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSAPSCHM DR. DINESH KUMAR SHUKLA IND AirConditioner<br />
BPL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSAPSCHM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DHANANJAY SINGH CHOUHAN IND<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Coconut <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BPL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSAPSCHM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAMKUMAR AGRAWAL <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ceiling Fan <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BPL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DAKSAPSCHM <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SHARAD KUMAR SAXENA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kite<br />
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BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ARIF MASOOD <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> INC <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Hand<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>NISHANT SATSANGI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> BSP Elephant<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SHAILENDRA KUMAR SHAILI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>CPI <br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SURENDRA NATH SINGH <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BJP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lotus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAM LAL/MAHATMA TYAGI ABGP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Black<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SURESH YADAV <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> LJP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bungalow <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>JAVED SIDHDIQUI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Almirah<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>PRAMOD MISHRA (RAJAN) IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Air Conditioner<br />
BHOPAL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MADHYA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SACHIN DAS BABBA<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND HOCKEY & BALL<br />
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GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>GOVIND GOYAL <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>INC <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hand <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BABOOLAL GOUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BJP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lotus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAMPAL DHOSALE <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BSP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Elephant<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>HARSHWARDHAN SINGH RAJPUT <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>NCP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Clock<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SMT URMILA SINGH PORTE <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> ABGP Black Board<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>GANESH BHARTI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BSCP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>FLUTE<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>GULAB YADAV <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bicycle<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>K.P. DWIVEDI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SUCI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Battery Torch <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SANJAY SAXENA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SHS <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bow & Arrow<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ANIL WANI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>CALCULATOR<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DEVENDRA PRAKASH <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Walking Stick <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DWARKA PRASAD SEN <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Scissors<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>NAG SEN TAYADE <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Auto- Rickshaw<br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BALRAM UCHCHAL/SUNNY PETER<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Candles <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
GOVINDPURA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAHUL KUMAR SAXENA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Hat<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ANIL PANDEY <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BSP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Elephant<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MANOJ TRIPATHI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>NCP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Clock<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAJENDRA MANDLOI <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>INC <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hand<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAMESHWAR SHARMA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BJP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Lotus<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RAMSWAROOP YADAV <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Bicycle<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>SURESH UIKEY <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>GGP <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Saw<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RADHESHYAM PRAJAPATI<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Air Conditioner<br />
HUZUR <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>YASWANT SINGH MEENA <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IND <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Almirah<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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Then there is None Of The Above or NOTA.<br />
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None of the Above (NOTA), also known as "against all" or a "scratch" vote, is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of all of the candidates in a voting system. It is based on the principle that consent requires the ability to withhold consent in an election, just as they can by voting no on ballot questions.<br />
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The Election Commission of India told the Supreme Court in 2009 that it wished to offer the voter a "None of the above" option at the ballot, which was something that the government had generally opposed.[20] The People's Union for Civil Liberties, a non-governmental organisation, filed a Public-interest litigation statement in support of this. On 27 September 2013, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the right to register a "none of the above" vote in elections should apply, noting that it would increase participation. The judges said that this "would lead to a systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates". "Democracy is all about choices and voters will be empowered by this right of negative voting," said the order passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam.<br />
The "none of the above" (NOTA) choice differs radically from "right to reject" (RTR). Although the votes registered as NOTA are counted, they will not change the outcome of the election process.The Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to provide a NOTA button on the voting machine which would give voters the option to choose "none of the above". The Election Commission has said that the judgement will be implemented immediately. Although frequently termed a "right to reject" in India, a former head of the Election Commission has noted that it is not in fact such a thing.The Supreme Court of India ruling in September 2013 that a NOTA option must be implemented does not affect a campaign by the Aam Aadmi Party for RTR. The Aam Aadmi Party's RTR concept is intended to allow a situation whereby if sufficient people vote to reject then the election is voided and a new election would be held.<br />
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NOTA, recently introduced might be a toothless weapon today, but if not exercised, will bring us back to the same situation "Choosing Not a leader, but a lesser criminal". Number of NOTA Votes polled today will decide the course of elections tomorrow. If Supreme Court has finally woken up to introduce NOTA, they will definitely wait to see Public reaction, to give appropriate Teeth and Power to it.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-37160497391226179252013-10-01T14:46:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:56:58.966+05:30The Man Who Would Be King<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Background recommended reading: <b style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2006/12/french-connection.html"><i>French Connection</i></a> and </b><a href="http://bhopale.blogspot.in/2006/12/bourbons-of-bhopal.html" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Bourbons Of Bhopal</i></b></a></h4>
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Anon—so beginneth the tale of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, with an angel swooping o’er the earth. The angel flew over the green pastures and sunflower fields that were Europe, above the burnt highland that is Asia Minor, and then out across an emerald ocean, the Indian, to the lush shores of its namesake. The angel’s silver wings were those of a jetliner, and he sat inside the machine of his being, reclining in splendor, perchance sipping some fine wine. In the course of flight, the angel’s shadow fell over spired castles and well-appointed châteaus, exquisite alcazars and fortresses made of red clay. In the interior of India, he passed over a resplendent marble mausoleum engraved in jasper known as the Taj Mahal, built during a seventeen-year span by a king named Shah Jahan as a tribute to his third wife, who died in childbirth. (For his troubles, he was dethroned and imprisoned by his son and left in a cell to die, though one that permitted a view of his glorious creation.)</div>
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The angel’s destination was a city on the Malwa Plateau called Bhopal. </div>
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Bhopal—built atop volcanic rock, its own ancient palace crumbling upon itself, streets clogged with cows and goats and sari-clouds of color, birds circling at dusk in the pinkish-orange gloaming like the slow movement of a dark scythe. Looming over the lower city was a giant mosque, Taj-ul-Masajid, its pale white domes hovering in the shimmery heat like an extraterrestrial incursion, its minarets reaching to heaven, its tiny rooms full of boys memorizing the Koran, their voices murmuring across the hot stones of the vast inner courtyard. And there was one other notable landmark, a death memorial really, the abandoned chemical plant—that of Union Carbide—on the north edge of town that on a particular December day twenty-two years earlier oozed methyl isocyanate, a toxic plague that ultimately caused 22,000 deaths.</div>
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Why had this angel come to Bhopal now, you might ask? Of all the cities of the world, why this dustier, irascible, ignominious one?</div>
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Fate, friend: The wheel spun, the globe revolved, and the angel landed in central India, making his way through the town of Bhopal, among the vegetable and meat stalls, among the poor and hungry, among the Hindus and Muslims, to the gate of our unsuspecting hero, Balthazar. The angel wore a pressed white tunic and a silk vest. He was a tall white man of nearly 70—well preserved, of regal bearing, with a full head of silver hair. In this frenetic, rural city, he was a celestial vision of calm and erudition. He seemed not to shed a drop of sweat.</div>
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He knocked on the large wooden door near which the French fleur-de-lis greeted all visitors as Balthazar sat in the cool blow of air conditioners, in a disconnected kind of gloom. He possessed an ample belly and a Taurus-like bellicosity, though his were harmless snorts, loving snorts, humanitarian snorts, his were ineffectual snorts, snorts to what might have been, lost snorts in the winds of time. He had big, rounded cheeks and wore a bushy mustache. Hair sprouted from the nape of his neck. He seemed to be missing a tooth or two, upper back. “Ours is a life of insecurity,” he would sometimes say. “What will happen tomorrow? And how can we be safe among all these hidden grudges?”</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ef7arodhFGQ/UkqG2VD919I/AAAAAAAABE4/59h1a8UO1To/s1600/Prince+Balthazar+IV+and+Princess+Elisha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ef7arodhFGQ/UkqG2VD919I/AAAAAAAABE4/59h1a8UO1To/s640/Prince+Balthazar+IV+and+Princess+Elisha.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Prince Balthazar IV and Princess Elisha</b></td></tr>
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The angel pressed the doorbell and Balthazar rose heavily, making his way through the house, swinging the door open wide, and this otherwise ordinary Indian man looked upon the angel glowing there, who looked down upon Balthazar, and reflexively they embraced.</div>
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It is not uncommon for angels to take corporeal form, to appear before us on earth as people with names and credentials. Some may be street sweepers or poets, and this angel here, this bearer of good tidings, was known as Prince Michael of Greece. He and the Indian man before him shared a name: Bourbon.</div>
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On his front stoop, Balthazar was blinded, flummoxed, could only utter the words: “Your Highness.” Prince Michael clasped his hands to Balthazar’s shoulders, looked him in the eye, and replied, “Nonsense, we are cousins! You shall call me ‘Cousin.’ ” The feeling that came over Balthazar then was one of “great warmth,” as he would later put it. Referring to the royal Bourbons in Europe, Prince Michael told him, “You are in their talks—and have been for many years.”</div>
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In their talks. But who were they? And when and where did they talk? No doubt in the gilded rooms of capacious castles, nibbling cookies, sipping tea served by tailcoated butlers.</div>
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Balthazar could not begin to imagine such a scene, but technically this was his family the angel was talking about—more cousins, blood brethren in France, a place he’d never been. How his line of the family had been separated and removed to India led back to the fateful day in the sixteenth century when the king’s alleged nephew Jean-Philippe had killed a man in a duel. The tale had been told time and time again: Jean-Philippe fleeing for his life from France; Jean-Philippe kidnapped by pirates; Jean-Philippe sold in a Cairo slave market; Jean-Philippe escaping and making his way to India, where he presented himself at the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar, thus becoming one of the emperor’s most trusted advisers.</div>
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Prince Michael had become fascinated with that early swashbuckler, the progenitor of the Indian line, Jean-Philippe, so much so that he’d written a book based on his life. After years of research, Prince Michael said, he had found out a little secret, too. He believed that the long-forgotten, down-at-its-heels Indian strain of the Bourbon family might, in fact, be its most senior. More senior than other lines, including the Orleans, the Capetians, and the Navarres. It had been nearly 200 years since the Bourbons ruled France, or since France had a monarch at all—and yet the royals still kept competing lists that itemized who stood in line for the throne. At stake was not just one’s place in line but one’s social stature and relevance, as well as a claim to the vast family holdings, estimated in the billions.</div>
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Balthazar’s bushy eyebrows shot up. A man of congenial hospitality, he offered Prince Michael a seat at a table set with mutton curry and chili chicken. The annunciation scene was in place. On the wall nearby were framed images of the Eiffel Tower, a château, the Arc de Triomphe.</div>
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The angel-prince-messenger spoke.</div>
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“If my theory is correct,” said Prince Michael, “then you are France’s king-in-waiting.”</div>
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Balthazar seemed not to understand.</div>
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“If there were a throne,” Prince Michael said for emphasis, “you would be the Dauphin.”</div>
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When it finally dawned upon our Balthazar what was being said, he found himself transported to a state of fuddled joy. Could it be true? He, king? One day—just this morning—he’d been a man at great risk, hunted and haunted by his family history in India, living as a Catholic among Muslims and Hindus, threatened with bodily harm. And now…this! In a fairy tale, this is where the man living in proverbial rags would ascend in ermine to the throne, to the loving cheers of his subjects, jeweled scepter flashing, shining an infectious happiness, which would in turn infect his kingdom with everlasting happiness. This is where the royal trumpets would be cued, and so would begin the commencement of celebratory cannon fire.</div>
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But it didn’t happen that way.</div>
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The cousins finished their meal and embraced on the doorstep, Balthazar filled with “great satisfaction, great love” for the angel. Lost in the moment, he thought he heard the prince make a promise, that he would prepare for Balthazar to visit the homeland, France. At which time, with the proper introductions, Balthazar could assess for himself just what his auspicious future might hold.</div>
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Sometime after their good-bye, the prince took leave of Bhopal, flying back over ocean, desert, and mountain to the swaddled comfort of royalty. And Balthazar was left behind, ecstatic, near bursting, in-waiting with his dreams.</div>
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O what bright news was this? What orbed luck? Who hasn’t come to a moment of desperation in life, and who hasn’t dreamed that one’s ill-starred existence might be suddenly solved by a knock at the door, an angel announcing: You have been found! You shall have riches, power, happiness!</div>
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It is, for one in a position of vulnerability, a dream come true. Elation. For the angel-messenger who might liberate us from our torment also completes us, brings us to the full glory of our delusions. So would you, friend, take the throne? There’s hardly a knave among us who wouldn’t, though it’s a profession that often ends poorly, conferring upon one a lifetime of paranoia and longing. If the truth must be told, kings carry bleak outcomes in their bones. Look now—Lear on his heath, Arthur betrayed by Lancelot, Oedipus killing Father, marrying Mother…</div>
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But we have wandered far afield from our dear friend Balthazar and his precious joy.</div>
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In the afterglow of the prince’s visit, there was an excitement like none Balthazar had felt before in his life, barring births and first love. Knowing that he might soon take leave of Bhopal, he saw the city in new and wondrous ways. The old tensions—of feeling exposed at every turn, of being one in a very small Catholic minority—were overridden now by an inflating sense of possibility. One could almost regard the colorful street scene outside his door as poetic rather than maddening and insane, pitting neighbor against neighbor for survival. One could stand at sunset by the shore of the upper lake, watching the blackbirds wheel above, and remark, “There is no light in all the world like the light of Bhopal!”—and truly mean it.</div>
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Balthazar had spent a lifetime in dialogue with his family’s history, with all the Bourbon ghosts who came before him: the jeweled, wealthy, powerful progenitors of his line, from Jean-Philippe down to his own father, Salvador, who had passed away thirty years earlier. The Bourbons had always served the Indian rulers with distinction, honor, and great loyalty—and for their services, they’d been richly rewarded with privy purses, which were monetary allowances, and jagirs, which were land entitlements. But then, with India’s independence in the late ’40s, the state had abolished old jagirs, over time robbing the Bourbons of most of their holdings—and then, in the early ’70s, abolished the privy purses, which had been the Bourbons’ primary source of income. After hawking their jewels, after being moved from the palace to what the family called an “outhouse” near the church, Balthazar’s father had finally been forced to take work as a low-level government functionary, trapped by servitude to the very force that sought to undo him.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXOgw5lC2m8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Balthazar now lived in the old section of Bhopal, among the masses. It was here in the ’90s that Hindus and Muslims rioted and burned whatever they could, including Balthazar’s law office down the street. Recently, when a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl eloped, they were burned in effigy not far from Balthazar’s door. He’d come close to losing his own life, too, when a small mob attacked him with iron rods, striking him first in the legs, until he fell, and then raining blows on his head and back and arms. Was it because he was Catholic or because he was a Bourbon?</div>
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If nothing else, our Balthazar was an absolutely sane man, a highly religious man who believed God’s hand moved the universe. As a lawyer, he possessed an intellect marked by logic. He understood the burden of proof, which in the case of would-be kings was quite complicated. And yet, with the prince’s Amazing Revelation, one based on conjecture and opinion, he was willing to suspend his disbelief for a moment. The prince had placed him before the Duke of Anjou and the Count of Paris, the two leading contenders for the crown (which, by the way, did not exist). If they wanted to test his DNA, they’d find he came by his last name honestly.</div>
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So did that make him king?</div>
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More than anything, this new status marked a very important reversal, the beginning of a vindication for the family’s long, slow fall from grace. He couldn’t think of his own father without being overwhelmed by anger for what they’d done to him.</div>
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Even producing an heir had been taxing and heartbreaking. The first three boys had died before a year, then there were four girls, and finally him, Balthazar, the chosen. Even when Balthazar was a teenager—much to the boy’s embarrassment—his father would hold his hand walking down the street, half out of love, half for protection. And now, at the age of 48, almost thirty years after his father’s death, Balthazar had received the prince bearing news of his good fortune. And his vindication. Oh, had Daddy lived for this day! Somewhere in heaven, he was smiling down. His son Balthazar would salvage the family name. But how?</div>
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“To fully rise again in the Bourbon sense,” Balthazar said, “would be to win the hearts of the French people.”</div>
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*****</div>
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Amazing was the news that Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon held within his breast, but it wanted to be sung out! It was the kind of urgent revelation that might hasten one’s ascension—and on the other hand (that of the European family, pure-blooded France, all of Christendom), it seemed so far-fetched that it was, well, like the perfect cosmic joke.</div>
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Q. Who is the king of France?</div>
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A. That’s right, mesdames and messieurs—a short, hirsute man of bushy ’stache living in…Bhopal, India!</div>
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When the prince’s book about Jean-Philippe de Bourbon was published shortly after his visit, he proclaimed his theory to the world. Soon there was a cavalcade of reporters knocking on the front door to the home of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, the media-anointed lost king of France. Journalists from Agence France-Presse, The Guardian, and The Statesman came to report on his life. They wrote about his history and how, though he’d never set foot in France, he was a Francophile who spent much time dreaming of the homeland. They described him as portly and rotund. Some thought he was a -mechanic, a farmer, whatever made a better story. They asked him how it felt to be king, a question he sidestepped with quasi diplomacy. “I’m not desirous of any fortune,” he told them, “but if I’m truly the legitimate heir, I should get the recognition.” They photographed him, often standing before the fleur-de-lis, part of his family’s coat of arms, the great symbol of monarchist France. And for each, he painstakingly recited the history of the Indian Bourbons, almost five centuries’ worth, from Jean-Philippe to the he-who-would-be-king, Balthazar.</div>
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It would be fair to say that the attention was quite heady, especially after having had so little attention at all—and after having been completely ignored by his European cousins. Balthazar had waited all his life for some message of hope—anything to reclaim the family’s former glory—and here it had come out of the blue, with repercussive force. Random letters arrived, like this from one Kenneth Hesselwood of Belgium:</div>
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“I am now sixty,” Mr. Hesselwood wrote. “My father died when I was seven…and [I] am a retired chief inspector after forty years with the Brussels police district. I hope you shall accept this humble letter. I admire your great work at…the court. I wish you and all the members of your family the best for the future. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant.”</div>
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Even his colleagues at the high court greeted him with respectful jocularity. “All hail the king of France!” they said. Or, in a hush: “So when will you leave us and take the throne?”</div>
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What throne? the would-be king wanted to bellow, brows flaring—and by whose authority? He bespoke whoever would listen: “My friends ask me, ‘Should we come for the coronation?’ How to explain it to them, in their ignorance—wait, should I say ‘their ignorance’ or ‘their love for me’? ‘We don’t need any proof,’ they say. ‘You are king! You are!’ ”</div>
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And now his cousin the prince was, he hoped, setting the stage for Balthazar’s first visit to France, though there was no word yet of his progress. It was delicate; it might take a month or so. “I don’t want to go as a tourist. I want to see the family homes and my relatives,” announced Balthazar, “but given our history here in India, I need to be careful not to stir jealousies.”</div>
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And what were the provocations to which he alluded? It was the history of a pale-faced family making its way in a dark-skinned country, as for several centuries the Bourbons took only European brides, thus preserving their bloodline. It was the history of a stubbornly Catholic family making its way among Muslims and Hindus—and more than once paying a bodily price for its faith. It was the history of interlopers currying favor with the -emperors and nabobs to their own great material gain who, no matter what their largesse to the nation, inspired resentments among the natives whose land it was.</div>
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It was Balthazar’s namesake, his great-grandfather, who had done the unthinkable and paid with his life. As the legend went, that Balthazar (his Indian name was Shahzad Maseeh) had acted as first minister to the rulers of Bhopal and ended up sleeping with the queen. Regardless of whether the queen had seduced him, the affront could not stand, and he was poisoned by his Muslim rivals at the court.</div>
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Balthazar, the supposed king of France, knew this history by heart, so many times had it been told to him by his father. It was after his great-grandfather that the Indian Bourbons started taking Indian women for brides, perhaps for their own survival, which to their minds hardly lessened their royalty. In fact, his father had bequeathed him an old history book with an inscription on the opening page, there in neat hand, that read:</div>
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For my sweetest son, Balthazar,</div>
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You are a toddler, two years old. Please do not lend this book to anyone for the sake of chapter accounts of the Bourbons in Bhopal. This book is purchased, this book will make you understand that you are a son of a dynasty and will inculcate and instill in your mind the qualities of a noble family that might help you to shine according to my wishes.</div>
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Your loving Dad,</div>
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Salvador Bourbon</div>
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And now maybe Balthazar was King—and a very important visit to France was in the offing. What vindication indeed!</div>
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“There will be a lot of interest should I go,” said Balthazar. “When it’s time, I shall notify the press.”</div>
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*****</div>
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And so he waited with his dream. Inside the cloud castle of his own mind, the King’s voice was all-powerful—and with no other voice in his head, soon his ascendancy was all but official: His Royal Highness. The King. Of France.</div>
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The King did not like waiting. It was very awkward, indeed. But with no invitation yet proffered, his initial joy settled into a kind of protracted yearning. How could it not? To gaze upon the boulevards of Paris, to consume the fromage, to promenade the halls of Versailles, to be properly received by his cousins, the princes and marquesses of France, to claim what was rightfully his, that scepter, that royal gravy boat of bone china finely etched with swans—when, in fact and deed, would this all be forthcoming?</div>
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After the initial rush of media coverage, the King found himself right smack back in his old life. Working at the court, defending common criminals as well as arguing civil cases—divorces and the like. Helping his wife with the school his father had founded, the Bourbon School. On the streets, he was just another face in the crowd, shuttling the children to school, trolling for fresh fruit. Zooks, he was a king! Wasn’t this engagement with the hoi polloi beneath him? One had only to ask Prince Michael.</div>
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Another thing piqued him mightily: If one had perused the list of royals that stood in line to the French throne, his name had never warranted so much as a mention. An unpardonable slight—and even as the Indian Bourbons now clung precariously to the last branch of honor, the European Bourbons had never once contacted them directly, by mail or phone. The only thing that linked them to Europe was the rare royalty-magazine article about the swarthy Indian Bourbons, separated by 5,000 miles (Paris to Bhopal) from their lily-white kin.</div>
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Now time itself was the main offender. One week had turned to one month, then three, then six. Stuck in place, the King saw the traumatic events of his past come rushing forward again. The humiliations suffered by his father, who had only the biggest heart, who literally picked broken men up off the street and gave them roofs over their heads. The humiliations suffered by him, the King, who was seen as the embodiment of his family’s past affronts: All hail the Bourbon, taker of Indian women, taker of Indian land, taker of Indian treasure, believer in that heretic Jesus Christ! From the attack, he still had scars and clots on his back and a thumb that didn’t work.</div>
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Behind the broad smile, the King sank into a darker mood. He cloistered himself in the cool, shadowed inner depths of the “outhouse,” his rambling abode. He had servants. A driver. A woman in the kitchen. Men farming his land. He had four ferocious Great Danes that ate better than most Indians—and would eat most of them, too, if they came over the high walls surrounding the property. In truth, he was not so poor after all! But His Highness dismissed all that with an angry flare of eyebrow. His family once rode by elephant from their palace to church, to the houses and lodges in their possession. His coach now was a Maruti Suzuki, a common economy vehicle; his houses numbered one, this one here. His family once owned more than twenty miles of land, what would have carried a value of $1 billion today, according to the King’s calculations. His family now owned sixty-five acres. His possessions, he said angrily, were a mere splinter of his family’s former glory in Bhopal. He liked to call his line of the family “Bourbon on the Rocks.”</div>
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Over and over, the same haunting question looped in his mind: Wasn’t he the senior of the senior line? Prince Michael of Greece had said as much. Senior of the senior line. King! (Of a throne that did not exist.) It was increasingly hard to be diplomatic.</div>
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“If I am in their talks, then why have they not shown their concern or support?” the King asked, half hurt, half in rage, referring to his faraway family. He sat on his own throne now, a gaunt chair with armrests, sipping tea and nibbling cookies, in the cold blow of the air conditioners again. His three children—who ranged in age from 15 to 21 and whom he tenderly called “my dears”—came and went. His wife sat to his right and at his command sprang to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of sweet lime for him. Time was passing; the monsoons were approaching. Extreme weather was upon the King now, cataclysmic, earth-ending rains. The shades were drawn against the heat, and a table lamp was on and glowing.</div>
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Exactly how they might show their support was for them—the king of Spain or the Duke of Bourbon, the Duke of Orleans or the Count of Paris—to decide. He claimed not to know but then enumerated abstract possibilities, stressing that he was not asking, that it was a terribly awkward position in which he now found himself. But, okay, for one, a title might be bestowed. The chief of the house of the Bourbons—the so-called titular King Louis XX who resided now in Venezuela with his Venezuelan wife—went by a couple of titles: the Duke of Anjou and of Bourbon and the Duke of Touraine.</div>
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Didn’t he deserve something?</div>
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For two, there were those privy purses, the grants that sustained one’s royal lifestyle. “Perhaps when the time comes,” the King said, “Prince Michael will share with me how this works in Europe.”</div>
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And finally, citizenship would help remove an obstacle to the possibility of his taking up residence in France someday, which would remove the obstacle of claiming the throne as a Frenchman, if it ever came to that, if the royals and commoners would have him.</div>
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On the day Prince Michael had taken his leave of Bhopal, the King’s happiness had billowed and proliferated. And so he’d retreated into the safety of his house, where he waited…and waited…and waited.</div>
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His chest tightened now with each passing day; a queer venom rose that he could not hold down. What went unspoken was the possibility that they saw him as a bit of a rogue, an eater of broken meats! What went unspoken was that, perhaps, he’d been made a fool by this good tiding, this visitation!</div>
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“I am told by my cousin that the queen of Spain is talking about Balthazar Bourbon in Bhopal, inquiring about my health, but after that, it’s finished,” lamented the King. “The inquiries are finished. ‘How is he?’ ‘Oh, he’s doing very well.’ It’s finished. But who understands, who has gone within me to say what is the state of my heart over here? How do I sustain? How do I live?”</div>
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Almost on cue, the air conditioners died; the room went dark. The King exhaled a resigned sigh that contained within it a lifetime of sighs. “Blackouts,” he proclaimed. “They are common here.”</div>
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*****</div>
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Friend, it has been suggested in the tomes of history and the parchments of drama that one of the most common afflictions of kings is madness, brought on by their own fantastical self-delusions. Nothing is ever enough for the king. There is a surfeit of funds, adulation, good times. But he requires more land, jewels, women. He sits, derriere upon sumptuous throne, discontented by his good fortune, and slowly, in this manner, he unhinges from the universe we know.</div>
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He wants more, yes, but who among us does not? We may be knaves, but we strive and reach, too. And in the process, we become blind to our own posturings upon that stage of our own making. Let it be suggested that the resonations between us and our King are greater than we may first believe, for there is always one more circle to which we hope to gain admittance.</div>
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In the case of our King, that last circle is now closed—and yet he believes. He believes in his own golden fiber, his latent greatness. He believes in the magical powers of his last name. And yet isn’t that name its own curse? Just ask his ancestor, King Louis XVI, and his wife, Marie Antoinette, guillotined by Parisian revolutionaries; ask the Bourbons who were massacred in 1775 at an Indian fortress known as Shergarh; ask his great-grandfather Balthazar, who, after taking the Indian queen, was snuffed out by Muslim rivals.</div>
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The King comes to the conclusion that he is owed his ascendency like an unpaid debt, all because one day an angel knocked on his door bearing some news that bathed our King in celestial light. His faith, then, comes to bear a very existential problem: His stated destiny, which is the vindication of his lost family, belongs not to his God but to those who seem less than concerned about him—his brethren, the European Bourbons.</div>
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So, friend, be thankful that your own life isn’t one of such fragility. (Or is it?) Be thankful that no angel knocks upon your door now. (Prithee, what is that knock?)</div>
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Ask yourself: What comes in the wilderness beyond that light? What any king knows best: danger, darkness, death.</div>
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*****</div>
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Spring came and went. The monsoons came and went. And then the dry season—and its brain-drilling, sweltering heat. One year after the annunciation that had given birth to nothing and still no word or missive from the prince regarding the invitation.</div>
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When the King felt most inert now—when he felt that slow, slumbery, lubricious death inside—he forced himself to move, to escape, sometimes with no destination in mind. He might call for his driver and slip into the backseat of his Maruti Suzuki and exit past the slobbering Great Danes, through a first gate and then a second that opened to the street. And though servants opened the gates—and three women smiled from a nearby guardhouse—the King would pay them no mind, wouldn’t even look at them from the backseat, glowering there as he often was. Soon the car would be crawling past animals and carts of sticks and fabric, people moving in colorful rivers on either side of the street, cow haunches greeting his gaze through the window.</div>
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After a while, the King might brighten a bit, caught up in the flow of energy. “This is a lovely city,” he would proclaim, seeming to dismiss his own proclamation with a wave of his hand. (How very French that gesture appeared!) Passing the palace—Palace Shaukat—that once belonged to his family but now stood in disrepair, he might look for his great-grandfather in the windows.</div>
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And his grandfather.</div>
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And his daddy.</div>
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Two lakes organized the city, the upper and lower. The King might skirt the lower, which was smaller and had muddy banks choked with grass, and then climb the hill along the upper, which was vast, beautiful, and retained the wild character of a time when tigers lived on the outskirts of the city. Up the hill, where the homes became larger and more spread out, where Bhopal’s upper class, such as it was, resided.</div>
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Now the King uttered words in Hindi, and the driver drove out to the country, maybe a half hour from Bhopal across flattened brown fields, until arriving at his acreage, the place where he’d been beaten nearly to death.</div>
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This was the King’s farm and these were his servants, standing in dirty rags, shyly offering him through the window their hands, which he took, filthy as they were, again without making eye contact, and he spoke rather brusquely to them from the backseat, prattling orders: It’s time to send for a plow. Only wheat and soybeans this year. The well needs scrubbing. The wall needs fixing.</div>
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One had credit card debt and sheepishly asked if the King might pay it for him. And the King would not, in order to teach him a valuable lesson. “I love my servants,” he said, “but they are not smart enough to understand.”</div>
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He directed the driver to a grove of trees where a canopy of leaves offered shade from the lasering sunlight. The King pulled himself out of the car and stood for a moment, alone, scanning the fields, looking up through the leaves above. That feeling in his chest unhitched, and he drew big mouthfuls of air, as if surfacing from underwater to an image of Daddy again, on his deathbed.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OFq5Xag7L2o/UkqQq2SUawI/AAAAAAAABFI/MUTKxHGurlo/s1600/Prince++Adrian,+Duke+of+Rehti+and+Princess+Michelle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OFq5Xag7L2o/UkqQq2SUawI/AAAAAAAABFI/MUTKxHGurlo/s400/Prince++Adrian,+Duke+of+Rehti+and+Princess+Michelle.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Prince Adrian and Princess Michelle</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The King had been 19 at the time (a few years younger than his eldest son now, the one who wanted to go to film school in America and be done with India and all this royal nonsense). But those thirty years ago, the family gathered round, and his father pointed to the King and said to his daughters, “Look at your brother. He is your father now.”</div>
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Thus, Salvador abdicated to his son. And the King took charge. He mediated all family disputes. (The King often sided with his sisters’ husbands so as not to show partiality.) He oversaw the family holdings. He helped maintain the Catholic church, the one adjacent to his house that had been built by his forebears in 1875. He broached few other opinions but his own, for none were worth as much. Except maybe one: To hear the King thirty years later, his father loomed as large as ever. He was the figure who animated him, who looked down from heaven and actually saw him there, recognized his harrowing travails because they’d once been his own. “I’ve stepped into his shoes,” the King would say. “And his predicament.”</div>
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When the King spoke of Daddy, it was always with reverence. “He didn’t have a kingdom, but he was a king,” he’d say. “He was a king with his heart, flowing, overflowing. He could not see anyone in pain. And that is what carried forward.”</div>
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Looking at it now, however, there’d been a kind of unreasonable hope bequeathed from father to son. That the past could be resurrected. And once their position of greatness was restored, the Bourbons would change the world—again.</div>
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But if deprived of those glories, then what?</div>
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“I am stuck,” the King muttered, gazing upon the brown furrowed fields, all that was left of the Bourbon empire in India. “It is a mental state, you see. From which there seems no escape.”</div>
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Well, there was one escape: the Throne That Did Not Exist. He was a sane man, a rational man, a man who had sworn an oath to uphold the law. He dealt in facts and evidence. His delusions, whatever they were, were held privately.</div>
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*****</div>
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Woe, this tale of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon beganeth with the light-filled flight of an angel and endeth with a jail cell. Such is the fate of a monarch’s life. It begins with bright colors and ends in ash.</div>
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In the time between the visitation of the angel-prince and that time even now when no invitation has yet been issued—almost a year deprived of this basic courtesy—our King went back to work at the high court, driving his Maruti Suzuki on his own. Morbidity turned to anger turned to resignation—and the cycle repeated itself over and over until the King was characterized by a certain empty bluster, a disconnection from his own life that lay before him, one replaced by an obsession with visions of Paris and Versailles, of a more formal anointment, of the King himself embraced by white people living in châteaus. (Did those even exist anymore? What was real and what was fantasy?)</div>
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Unbeknownst to him, even now, the prince, while standing by his theory, denied ever offering an invitation for Balthazar to visit France. He claimed that that invitation belonged to powers beyond him. And he described Balthazar’s family this way: “I met them by accident. I thought they were very nice and very welcoming, and they looked like a typical bourgeois Indian family. Nothing French, nothing royal. Except the famous name of Bourbon was inscribed in their passports. Now he calls me ‘Brother,’ but I said, ‘Cousins, yes. But brothers, not yet.’ ”</div>
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Now, on a stifling, overcast morning, Bhopal smelled like a cesspool. The high court was a collection of open-air, sand-colored buildings decorated by mongrel dogs lying in the heat. The rain did little to wash away that scent of mold and urine. Wearing the standard uniform of a lawyer—black jacket, white shirt, and a wide wing collar—the King went to the sweltering library, where he had a book to return. The weak fan on the table almost made matters worse, and then he took his leave, huffing for air, zagging through the crowded hallways. It was like a drill, dodging the press of attorneys and clients as well as a sea of wooden tables set everywhere, what constituted impromptu office stations with the phone number and name of each lawyer painted in Hindi on the wall.</div>
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The King did not loiter. He moved with purpose—busily. He breathed heavily, exposed to the heat as he was. That constriction again, across the chest, that queer anger. He smiled broadly when he bumped into colleagues, but he was not exactly one to make idle chitchat—and his expression returned to seriousness and slight agitation after passing.</div>
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“And how is the King of France today?” said one friend, making a loud show of shaking his hand. The two exchanged pleasantries, and when they broke off the King was almost buoyant.</div>
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So they did love him—right? It was a relief to live in the lacuna between this first question and the one that followed: Or did they?</div>
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The King came upon a courtroom where an old man stood in threadbare clothes, slouched in the defendant’s box. The judge appeared displeased by the villain, but it was hard to imagine the defendant, looking frail and almost kindly as he did there, killing anyone. Watching from the back of the room for a moment, the King emitted a low sound—half-grunt, half-complaint. Did he pity the old man? Had he seen enough to know that beneath the broken veneer this toady varlet was a cold-blooded killer? That his brokenness was an act?</div>
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The King’s eyebrows flared. He stopped to wipe his brow, and then he was swept up among the others dressed exactly as he was, just another in the crowd. All of his history—his name, his blood—had rendered him as common as the next commoner. And yet it was the displeasure flickering on his face that separated him from them. Perhaps he saw the old man, the convict, as lucky—at least he was receiving justice. Even his jail cell might have been easier to accept, after having been recognized and judged. But the King—the King stood before time, before the great cosmic flow of history, and worse than being unjudged, he’d been completely forgotten.</div>
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His jail cell was invisibility. His destiny was inaction (still waiting). His life, he now acknowledged, was nothing but “a tragedy.” Perhaps it’s fair to say that any true king would have preferred the guillotine to nonexistence, if he weren’t sustained by the dream-delusion of what could be: visions of oneself ascending in ermine to the throne, to the loving cheers of his subjects, jeweled scepter flashing. But, dear friend, how likely is such an outcome even for the man who has rightful claim—or who simply desires it more than any other?</div>
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When the King returned to his walled compound, he passed his servants again in the driveway without paying them any mind. And they kept up their conversation this time, paying him none, either.</div>
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<a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/200801/balthaza-bourbon-india-french-throne-royalty?printable=true">By Michael Paterniti a gq correspondent </a></div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Bourbon.Bhopal">All photographs from the Facebook page of the Bhopal Bourbons </a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-37233134688461472192013-09-21T17:07:00.001+05:302015-04-22T10:57:28.866+05:30Before Shit Hits The Fan<div align="justify">
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Some time back, while surveying the low income areas of Madhya Pradesh to start a sanitation project, an woman member of NGO stopped by one of the houses to drink water. However, she was taken aback to see the women of house looking horrified as she drank an entire glass of water. When she asked the reason for their surprise, she was told that, no matter how thirsty they were, women in that area could never take the risk of drinking a full glass of water at one go during the day. Surprisingly, it was not the quality of the water that compelled women to drink less of it, but their 'imprisonment by daylight'. With no toilets inside the house or in the village, women and girls must go to the nearby fields to relieve themselves. But modesty forbids them to do so during the daytime when they are in full view of men. They have no choice but to limit themselves to a few sips of water all day, so that they can wait until dark before needing to use the fields. Although <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17022847">sometimes</a> a newlywed woman leaves her husband's home and returns only after a toilet is built, largely the women folk of India remained "Imprisoned by Daylight". </div>
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-CJOyysNnrIw/Uj1-UWWcfLI/AAAAAAAABBA/18hnUqr-FbE/s1600-h/India%252520sanitation%252520cell%252520phone%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="India sanitation cell phone" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-cdc5-dSVD0c/Uj1-VRhuwkI/AAAAAAAABBI/zc03l1RYaSM/India%252520sanitation%252520cell%252520phone_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="257" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; margin: 15px 15px 0px 0px;" title="India sanitation cell phone" width="414" /></a>In the shadow of its new suburbs, torrid growth and 300-million-plus-strong middle class, India is struggling with a sanitation emergency. From the stream in village to the nation’s holiest river, the Ganges, 75 percent of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste and industrial effluent. Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they’re not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded. A report by the WHO and the UNICEF says that India has a shocking number of 58% of all people who defecate in the open. China and Indonesia share the second place with just 5% of their population not having toilets. Pakistan and Ethiopia are third with 4.5% such people. <br />
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As Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh recently described the Indian Railways as “the world’s biggest open toilet”. “We are the world’s capital for open defecations. 60 percent of all open defecations in the world are in India. This is a matter of great shame,” he added. A government panel report mentions that human waste from open-discharge toilets used by passengers is damaging railway tracks as the PH value found in human urine and excreta is leading to corrosion of tracks. </div>
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No matter whether you travel by roads or railways, it can be easily witnessed that India has indeed become an open defecating ground. Is this problem restricted to the poor and the top 5%, of which you and I are a part, insulated ? As per a <a href="http://riceinstitute.org/wordpress/research/">series of studies</a> on the impact of open defecation on child stunting, by Dean Spears, an economist “elite top 2.5 percent of the Indian population: children who live in urban homes with flush toilets that they do not share with other households; whose mothers are literate and have been to secondary school; and whose families have electricity, a radio, a refrigerator, and a motorcycle or car.” Does this malnutrition seep in to our lives ? The children in this elite sub-set too are shorter than expected, “because 7 percent of the households living near even these rich children defecate in the open”, as per Dean Spears data. </div>
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Programs like "Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan" has been started by the Government Of India (<a href="http://toilettrail.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/how-to-get-the-nirmal-bharat-abhiyan-subsidy-to-build-a-toilet/">Details here</a>) for the poorest who cannot afford making a toilet. </div>
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Meanwhile Madhya Pradesh continues with the highest "fraction of households practicing open defecation" along with the states of UP and Bihar. As a consequence of this high percentage of Open Defecators, 60% Children (<5 Yrs) of MP are underweight. For every 100 children born in Madhya Pradesh, 6 do not survive till their 1st birthday, 8 do not survive till their 5th birthday , 45 do not receive full immunization and 60 children are underweight by age 3. </div>
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<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-o78xmalgj2Y/Uj1-V5IttDI/AAAAAAAABBQ/MQ3E2qRyvcc/s1600-h/od1%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img alt="od1" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-TtjKl06vEWk/Uj1-WfgHppI/AAAAAAAABBY/wawaOeXSzV4/od1_thumb%25255B7%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="387" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="od1" width="411" /></a> <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ng2JGcpi1Oc/Uj1-XODRyaI/AAAAAAAABBg/XcBvzXccqCE/s1600-h/clip_image002%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img alt="clip_image002" border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-fZbhpQ4kTl0/Uj1-X4in7YI/AAAAAAAABBo/U3mFv397UWM/clip_image002_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="320" style="border-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="clip_image002" width="215" /></a> </div>
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Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe are 2 to 4.5 less likely to have access to improved sanitation. </div>
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<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-curybhgMvPY/Uj1-YcbHvuI/AAAAAAAABBw/JHzY1PbUVR0/s1600-h/od2%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img alt="od2" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hzJtnazNpEo/Uj1-ZCFfymI/AAAAAAAABB4/BmuwywFeaxk/od2_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="433" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="od2" width="697" /></a> </div>
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What is particularly intriguing is the 2% of the richest community who continue with Open Defecation. The obvious answer is a urgent change of mindset. </div>
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-1-wwlhTwjvQ/Uj1-ZnnXaCI/AAAAAAAABCA/j8dg_uzbzTc/s1600-h/od3%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img alt="od3" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-tA0vj9h-omI/Uj1-aU079II/AAAAAAAABCI/DILAsN9Q0wI/od3_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="404" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="od3" width="785" /></a> </div>
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While enjoying the political fireworks in the state run-up for another round of elections and possible regime change, let us keep in mind that no government will talk about this taboo subject affecting the daily lives. This problem no longer effects the economically weaker section, but the shit is actually about to hit the fan or even the air conditioner. Society has to the initiative and start changing the mindset at ground level.</div>
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[This post is in collaboration with <a href="http://www.unicef.org/india/">UNICEF India</a>‘s No To Open Defecation campaign. In spite of high growth and higher claims of political leadership, 60% children below 5 yrs of Madhya Pradesh are malnourished - highest in the country. Open Defecation directly contributes to this statistic]</div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-20515634615910707322013-08-24T17:50:00.004+05:302015-04-22T10:57:40.827+05:30Bhopal To Mars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Meet 31-year-old Vinod Kotiya from Bhopal, who dreams of making it to Mars and settle on the planet permanently.<br />
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Kotiya is among 31 Indians who have applied for a one-way ticket to Mars.
Vinod Kotiya from Bhopal dreams of making it to Mars and settle on the planet permanently. In the category of Indian applicants he is reportedly currently leading in the first round of the selection procedure with four stars.<br />
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The Mars One Foundation is a Dutch non-profit organisation that claims that it will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023.
As per the procedure as laid down in the form for making it to the planet the applicants have to clear four rounds to become a part of the team that will leave the first human footprints on Mars.<br />
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Kotiya, a manager posted at NTPC, Delhi happens to be the first Indian who applied for the extraterrestrial experiment.
Talking to Hindustan Times on phone Kotiya said, "A one-way mission to Mars is about exploring a new world like Christopher Columbus and Vasco-de-Gama had done. It is an opportunity to conduct the most revolutionary research ever conceived, to build a new home for humans on another planet.”
"I am ready to endure every difficulty because this will be the flight carrying me to my dream. I always wanted to be an astronaut but I couldn't succeed. But through Mars One project, I can become a Mars astronaut," Kotiya added.
In the first round, applicants will be selected on the basis of their popularity level and answers to certain questions. Kotiya is leading the popularity graph in India group of applicants and is quite confident that he will get selected for the second round.<br />
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"This is a one-way ticket so there is no possibility of returning to Earth. I have a one-year-old daughter. This has created a panic too in my family. My wife has asked me not to go ahead with this project but I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Kotiya said.<br />
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Talking about the extremely cold weather condition on Mars and the chances of his survival, Kotiya said, "I have worked on a hydro power project in the Himalayan region where I had to provide basic IT infrastructure in a difficult hilly terrain for six years. So, I am not afraid of the cold climate. "
On the words doing the rounds that the project would never take off he said people should have a positive mindset. Success might come or not but what was necessary that one should take an initiative to explore new world.<br />
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-<a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Bhopal/Bhopal-man-eager-to-turn-Martian/Article1-1109471.aspx">Shruti Tomar, Hindustan Times</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-14833715602905052492013-08-22T12:27:00.001+05:302015-04-22T10:57:51.786+05:30Neglecting flu may prove risky in Bhopal<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Don't let your guard down if tested negative for H1N1. In the past two weeks about a dozen people in the city have been diagnosed with influenza A and B, the strains of which complicate respiratory disorders in a similar way as it happens in case of swine flu.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f;">Though Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) laboratory in Jabalpur has been testing three strains of H1N1, influenza A and B - it has just been informing about </span><span style="color: black;">H1N1</span><span style="color: #3f3f3f;"> status. However, this changed last week after a senior health official was tested suspected for H1N1.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Senior health official had all symptoms of swine flu but his test report was negative. To calm down him, ICMR officials released his complete diagnostics wherein he was positive for influenza A, a less harmful variant of swine flu, said Neeru Singh, director, Jabalpur Regional Centre of the ICMR.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Taking a queue from the precedent, the District Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) started demanding similar reports from all patients. "In the last two weeks about dozen patients have tested positive for influenza A and B in Bhopal. We are complying data to generate trends," said district epidemiologist Rashmi Jain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Bhopal has reported 34 H1N1 positive cases, which caused nine deaths this year. An analysis of deaths due to other influenza strains is not available with the IDSP.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Neglecting-A-B-flu-may-prove-risky/articleshow/21969607.cms">TNN</a></span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-5576549056653867192013-08-08T15:04:00.002+05:302015-04-22T10:58:03.820+05:30New Plan for Bhopal<br />
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The international fight for justice by survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster in India has been a rollercoaster ride of delay, disappointment and few victories for families of the tens of thousands of people who died in one of the world's worst industrial disasters. However, three recent major legal and environmental developments suggest that the fight following the catastrophe is far from over. The Indian government earmarked $50m for the recovery, which could be used to implement an ambitious five-year action plan to finally clean up the toxic factory site and surrounding area. The poisoned land, where children still play and animals graze in ignorance, contaminates water sources - causing serious health problems for nearby communities. The new plan by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based public interest research group whose funders include the Indian government and the European Commission, is based on a meta-analysis of 15 existing studies to assess soil and groundwater contamination in and around the former Union Carbide factory site. More than 350 tonnes of surface chemical waste, with thousands more buried underground, have been left unsecured since the gas disaster, causing widespread contamination, according to CSE.<br />
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Preliminary epidemiological data from 100,000 patients at the Sambhavna clinic in Bhopal suggests birth defects are up to seven times as frequent among those affected by contamination compared to the general population. <br />
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<b>New plan</b><br />
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The CSE action plan emerged in the last two weeks after roundtable discussions that brought together senior government officials, scientists and survivor groups for the first time. Its supporters say it offers a practical, evidence-based way forward after years of legal wrangling, indecision and inaction.<br />
Immediate proposals include securing the site to prevent further human contact and stopping the annual spread of surface chemicals during the monsoon. Longer-term initiatives include excavation, recovery and safe disposal of all the waste, dismantling the machinery and factory, and developing a centre of excellence and memorial in its place.<br />
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<b>Dow's Olympic sponsorships causes Indian outrage</b><br />
Chandra Bhushan, CSE deputy director general, said the central government had set aside 3.1bn rupees ($50m): "We won't wait for Dow [Chemical Company] to pay for the clean-up." Despite the input of government scientists, the CSE has no authority to enforce its recommendations and, crucially, cannot decide liability, a hotly contested issue both morally and legally. The Madhya Pradesh state government, which now owns the Union Carbide site, dismissed the CSE report. "Who are they to give us advice?" said Babulal Gaur, Minister for Bhopal Gas Relief and Rehabilitation. He said the state would only be directed by the courts. There are plans afoot to present the report to the Supreme Court to order implementation.The use of taxpayer money is contested by survivors' groups fighting to make US-based Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) - which was the controlling shareholder of Union Carbide India in 1984 - and the Dow Chemical Company, which bought UCC in 2001, pay for the environmental damage and clean-up.Survivors, however, suffered a huge set-back in June when a legal battle to hold UCC directly and indirectly responsible for the environmental damage and ill health caused by the contamination was dismissed by the US Court of Appeal on grounds of insufficient merit. The case was an important test for foreign plaintiffs seeking to enforce legal responsibility for environmental harms committed overseas by US-based multinational companies.<br />
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<b>'Compelling evidence'</b><br />
Louise Christian, a British human rights lawyer, said: "The Appeal Court has ignored compelling evidence about the central role played by UCC." She said company documents showed that "UCC failed to give advice which would have ensured the gas leak did not happen, and also prevented the contamination which has poisoned the drinking water around the plant".<br />
Christian added: "Those who run multinational corporations should not be allowed to escape liability for grievous harm by creating complex corporate structures and hiding behind them."<br />
Dow and UCC remain named respondents in a case in the Madhya Pradesh High Court (2004), which is seeking rehabilitation of the abandoned factory site. But the US judgment casts serious doubt on whether any financial liability determined by courts in India could ever be enforced in the US, where the two companies are registered.<br />
In stark contrast, the survivors received a boost in a culpable homicide criminal case against UCC that has been running for 21 years in the company's absence. The Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court in Bhopal ruled that Dow must explain why its wholly owned subsidiary, UCC, has repeatedly ignored court summonses. <br />
The criminal charges date back to December 1987, when UCC and its former CEO Warren Anderson were among several foreigners charged with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" by India's Interpol agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. Numerous summonses and arrest warrants ordering their appearance in court to face the charges have been ignored.<br />
Dow, a controversial sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, insists that it bears no responsibility or liability for Bhopal as it acquired UCC 16 years after the disaster and that the two companies are distinct legal entities.<br />
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<b>'Absconders from justice'</b><br />
Audrey Gaughran, Director of Global Issues at Amnesty International, said: "Dow has always tried to claim it has nothing to do with UCC's liability for Bhopal, but the court has made it clear it has a responsibility to ensure UCC faces the outstanding charges against it. Dow can no longer turn its back on the tens of thousands still suffering in Bhopal."<br />
UCC and Anderson were declared "absconders from justice" by the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate court in 1992. The first extradition request for Warren Anderson, who is now in his 90s, by the Indian government was made to the Americans in 2003.<br />
This was rejected by the US on technical grounds. <br />
<br />
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Those who continue to try and attach this issue are misguided and are misrepresenting the facts regarding Dow, as we never owned or operated the facility in Bhopal.</blockquote>
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- Scott Wheeler, Dow spokesman</blockquote>
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The latest extradition request was made in 2011 as part of the Indian government's response to fury over the lenient sentences given to seven former Union Carbide India employees. The seven appealed the two-year sentences and have yet to serve a day in jail.<br />
More than two years later, the US government is apparently still considering the latest request - a sharp contrast to its own expectations of countries like Hong Kong and Russia to act immediately on the extradition request for whistleblower Edward Snowden.<br />
The summons by the Bhopal Court means Dow must explain why it, the parent company, has failed to ensure UCC's attendance for the criminal trial. It comes eight years after the "Show Cause" notice was first issued, but was stayed after a legal challenge by Dow's Indian subsidiary. <br />
The implications for Dow, which could still appeal the summons at the Supreme Court, are potentially serious. At the time of the merger, Dow made no reference to the pending charges in filings with regulatory bodies. <br />
But if the criminal case against UCC finally takes place, and if it loses, then Dow could be ultimately responsible for any fines levied by the court.<br />
Tim Edwards, from Bhopal Medical Appeal, said Dow "could potentially face billions of dollars of damages in Bhopal, which could have a catastrophic impact upon company shares and dividends".<br />
Scott Wheeler, a Dow spokesman, said: "Those who continue to try and attach this issue are misguided and are misrepresenting the facts regarding Dow, as we never owned or operated the facility in Bhopal."<br />
<br />
Almost three decades after the world's worst industrial disaster, which killed between 15-25,000 people, there is still little common ground between the survivor groups and those alleged to be responsible.<br />
Even the $470m settlement paid by UCC and Union Carbide India in 1989 is now being challenged in the Supreme Court as "unjust". Both UCC and Dow are vigorously contesting the case. This fight, campaigners say, is long from over.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2237546556525436396.post-64959356239154309002013-07-15T13:08:00.000+05:302015-04-22T10:58:18.212+05:30Games of Bhopal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vHykb7DZIKk/UeOmiF8KxzI/AAAAAAAAA_I/6WE5wfx3aTg/s1600/6010997802_e310cd4855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vHykb7DZIKk/UeOmiF8KxzI/AAAAAAAAA_I/6WE5wfx3aTg/s200/6010997802_e310cd4855.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">A quarter of a century back, passing through the graveyard behind old Saifia College to take a shortcut to Bhopal Talkies square, we students always noticed the huge stone slab on a grave with meticulously carved lines of the board game solah-gota, the local variant of Chinese chequers. Often we wondered what kind of people had the courage to play games in a graveyard (and time to carve stones for the purpose instead of just using chalk or charcoal). Looking back, it seems that there could not have been a better place to indulge in one of the favourite pastimes of the Bhopalis under the cool shade of the huge tamarind and custard apple trees; away from the din of the streets and constant nagging by wives and children. Nobody disturbed them in the graveyard; those resting there permanently the least.</span><br />
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This was the lonely place where a lecturer, also taking a shortcut, once accidentally came face to face with a college bully whom he had admonished in the classroom earlier for boorish behaviour. The lecturer, his heart in his mouth, thought he too would soon be resting in peace at the spot. To his surprised relief however, the bully folded his hands and tendered a sincere apology. Bully he might have been, he did not have the moral courage to apologise in public.</div>
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This graveyard was not the only place where the game was played with utmost seriousness. Nor was this the only board game played by the people. By the end of the 1960s, women in Bhopal had given up playing the ancient game of Chopad or Chausar. It is a matter of research as to what took people away from the game royal. Radio and cinema had arrived much earlier without making a dent at the popularity of the game and TV did not arrive until 1982. Moreover, other board games like Nau-gota, Solah-gota (played with nine and 16 pieces respectively), Changay-ashtay (another board game), chess and carrom continued to be popular. Why then only Chausar vanished?</div>
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Returning to our subject, when these local board games were the cheapest and most popular sources of entertainment for the poor and the middle classes, it was not uncommon to hear women calling their adolescent girls, “Manhoos, tu phir Bua ki ladki ke saath changay-ashtay khelnay chali gayee. Hum razai main doray daalnay ke liye pareshan ho rahe hain. Tujhay kya fikr.”</div>
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These games even inspired poetry. Take for example this couplet with game terminology:</div>
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“Ek hi waar me kar diya dushman ka safaya,</div>
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Changay main jugadda, pe main mari, ashtay baqaya!”.</div>
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What one needed to play these games were a companion, a chalk or charcoal piece to draw the board, a few tamarind seeds (called ‘chiyen’) broken in two halves, and pieces made of anything under the sun like broken bangles, small stones or kernels of palm-date and Jamun. Then flowed terms like ‘goat khulna’, kachhi goat, pakki goat, toad hona, laal hona, sookhi maat, geeli maat, cheenta-cheenta baithna and the like. Even mini-tournaments were held and contestants, like today’s hi-tech sports coaches, used palms as computers to draw sketches for various moves.</div>
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‘Naqshay banana’ they called it.</div>
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The games were played on roadside patiyas all over the town and of course in homes. Children happily spent their summer vacations playing these games. But some of the places where these games continued uninterrupted almost round the clock were Fire Brigade (the fire-fighters returned to restart from where they had left after dousing fire in some part of the town!), tonga stands, taxi stands, the boundary wall of Kamala Park, Yadgar-e-Shahjahani Park, the other small parks, the graveyards of course, under the tamarind tree beside the Upper Lake, in ‘deorhis’ (the entrance passages of old houses), Yacht Club, filtration plant and the government offices where only the employees played.</div>
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Television and televised cricket then devoured these innocent pastimes of innocent people.</div>
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-Late Nasir Kamal</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bhopal-e</div>Bhopalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935497470583569642noreply@blogger.com0