Libre Magazine

Just because I am a scientist by training does not mean I do not believe in if it is meant to be it will be.

Just because I was born in the east, does not mean I do not appreciate the west.

Just because I live in the west, does not mean I will ignore the east.

Is it any wonder then that my blog site is called East-West?

Reading Indra Sinha’s open letter to the Prime Minister and government of India reminded me of the passionate 10-minute presentation I had given as part of my undergraduate biology class final grade.

The subject of my talk had been the Bhopal disaster that occurred during the late night of December 2nd and early hours of the 3rd, 1984 and killed more than 20,000 people due to leakage of methyl isocynate (MIC) gas. It seems as a result of that catastrophe and the resulting incomplete assistance and basic negligence more than 100,000 have permanent injuries/chronic illnesses. It turns out many promises where made not too long ago, but few kept. It is for this reason there was a padyatra (a march) most recently from Bhopal to Delhi.

In1999, Dow Chemical agreed to buy Union Carbide for $11.6 billion. The deal went ahead in 2001 making Dow Chemical one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Union Carbide is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical. However, Dow Chemical does not feel responsible to make any payments for all the suffering because as the corporation says it did not own Union Carbide in 1984.

I happened to visit Indra’s website as I was researching on a completely different topic.

Mind you, before I had started preparing for my talk, many years ago, I had been blissfully ignorant about the Bhopal tragedy. Definitely not a good thing; this was in part with my being tied-up with my education  the type that allowed me to shut out everything and become a bookworm, until one day I lay eyes on the cover of a magazine that showed images of suffering in Bhopal.

Without wasting time, I had reached out for the issue and read the story from start to the end. Fortunately, I had not got called in to see the physician as I had been waiting for until I was done. I was relieved to have found something to talk about. Still I wasn’t 100% sure.

Why would my American classmates care about what happened miles away? What did it have to do with them? Especially since the culprit was an Indian company called Union Carbide had plagued me. So I kept going through more newspapers and magazines, but nothing moved me.

There were only a couple of days left, and I was still not certain as to what I was going to present. Meanwhile my classmates seemed to have their talk under control. Some were even boasting about it. We were to present something along the lines of the impact of science on humans.

Thus far, I had faired well in the written tests, but a talk was different. I was certain that Martin, my German-American classmate would make us all seem unprepared. He always knew everything, spoke clearly and loudly; whereas I was soft-spoken and timid. Furthermore the others too seemed so confident. Was it any wonder that I was intimidated?

By the time Martin had finished his talk and everyone applauded, I was again unsure. When it was my turn, I stood up, looked at the quarter page notes I had prepared. But quickly put the piece of paper in my pocket, because it was getting difficult for me to get everyone’s attention while reading. Martin had managed to read out his talk, I couldn’t; because, my hands were shaking. Besides I did not want to. I was afraid the paper would fall down and I would embarrass myself further. But would I remember anything, the numbers and the other facts?

One of the disturbing questions was why would such a factory be situated in the heart of the city? Did people and livestock in Bhopal not matter? None of us goes to bed at night, expecting to brutally wake up with hell breaking loose, that too due to negligence of others. Some say the Bhopal tragedy occurred due to cost-cutting, others say it was sabotage. Regardless, people in Bhopal are still suffering and still need help.

By the time I got back to my seat, I could barely make eye contact with everyone. But I knew everyone was staring at me. I thought I had ruined my chances of a decent grade. I felt I had not done well. I had been somewhat informal in my style of presentation. I did not have the few pages of my talk prepared as Martin had. I only had a slip of paper that I had quickly hidden and instead spoke from my heart about my country of birth that I had left for what I then believed was love and higher education. I had never in my life expected to speak about India in front of an audience in the west, or feel so moved by the suffering of people.

According to my professor, my passion had come through loud and clear and that had made the difference. It turned out that in spite of my shaking hands and voice, I received an A, and after class quite a few students came over to talk to me about Bhopal and India in general.

Since then, I have tried for most part to do what I feel passionate about, and not just because it needs to be done.