It was the first thought that came to her as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in whose eastern corner it sat, and the tiny garden outside with its gnarled old red hibiscus and the half-grown mango tree they had planted together, all those would be gone as well. It was the strangest feeling ever.
Her hands moved over her belly, as if by reflex. It felt swollen, taut and cold. Her hands froze in fear, a lump formed inside her throat, beads of sweat covered her temples. She frantically massaged her belly as if to look for some signs of movement, ‘wake up, ‘babu’, she kept muttering to herself’ as she continued rubbing her belly. It was hot like a furnace. Sunil had switched off the main switch, before leaving the house, so that no short circuit would occur. Her eyes and throat were on fire. Slowly, and painfully, she turned to her right and felt a sudden contraction in her womb. She let out a gasp of relief even in her agony. She waited for a few more tensed moments for a repetition of the movement, a confirmation of the fact that the life was still persisting inside her.
With a lot of effort, she pulled her heavy frame out the bed and with faltering steps, moved towards the kitchen, for a glass of water, her nose and mouth covered with the end of her sari. Although it was morning, it seemed dim and dark, as a haze seeped in through the gaps in the windows. A strange odour permeated the entire house. Sunil had shouted out, to her to stay in, and to avoid going near the windows, which luckily, they had closed the previous night before going to sleep as a chilly wind was blowing, as he rushed out towards four in the morning on hearing the blaring of sirens from the plant, leaving behind a scared, stricken and heavily pregnant Rashi. Sunil was a senior engineer at the plant.
She was panting by the time she could catch hold of the kitchen slab. Lately, during the course of regular house chores, like sweeping the floor, she would feel a little out of breath, but, this gasping for air, just because she had to walk a few steps, scared her. She stared at the circle of light that poured in through the round breach in the tiles on the roof that fell directly on top of the earthen pitcher, where she stored her drinking water and was stupefied. The familiar yellow orb that greeted her every morning was staring at her as if with blood-shot eyes.
Rashi tried to pick up sounds, that was familiar around their house during this part of the day. Though they lived in a quiet corner of JayprakashNagar, the squeals of school going children, the clanking of aluminium milk cans on bicycle wheels, Rajni didi’s voice as she argued with her husband almost every other day, next door, was an unchanging occurrence. But the only sound she got to hear was that of her own heavy breaths. It seemed as if she was living a childhood nightmare, where demons and monsters appeared to have devoured all traces of life, and burnt to ashes all that was green and blue and yellow with their fiery breath.
She pried open the back door, and for the first time, stepped out, after Sunil had left for the plant after the sound of sirens and shrieks and wails of afflicted and wounded souls. Her being still shuddered at that memory, at the incoherent ravings of insanity the forced itself upon a blissful winter night. Her yard was just the same with the flower pot with the Tulsi plant at the left, her pomegranate tree which had borne fruits for the first time that summer, the mango tree, that both of them had planted together, the grass on the porch which had dried up in winter into a pale brown, the Peepul tree in the corner, that provided shade to a better part of the yard, her pink sariwhich fluttered in the morning breeze, on the clothes line, along with Sunil’s shirt, holding onto each other, the wild roses that grew stray on her fence, all looked the same, excepting for the dense haze that had descended on them and had ascertained that, life as she knew it, would never be similar again, would never succeed in touching her deep end, ever again. This comfort of familiarity, this warmth of mundane, repetitive, routine life, the solace of waiting for Sunil, would never be hers again. She picked up the crumpled bed sheet, covered herself as best as she could, locked the front door, out of sheer habit and stepped onto the main thoroughfare.
The roads were crammed with bodies, sprawled by the drain, crouching in the middle of the lane, vomiting out vicious coloured wastes, corpses of dogs, jostling for space with that of men, women and children. There were writhing and screaming forms everywhere. Rashi’s breathlessness increased, and she felt an itching in her throat as her knees buckled. She dropped on the dust and filth, staring with a glazed look at children running about in panic, tears streaming down their faces, caked with mud and dirt, looking for their lost parents. Right at that moment realization streaked through her numbness, as she gathered herself up. She had to rush to Hamidia Hospital. She had to save her child. She needed to get as far off as possible from the vicinity of the plant.
With nobody to tell her the safe way out, she stumbled her way in and out of bodies with bloated and distended bellies, beginning to rot, attracting vultures and dogs and amongst panic-stricken, hysterical people running amock, and hideous sights of carcasses of dead cattle all over the gas affected area, she was lucky enough to be stopped by an army truck, which was headed towards Hamidia Hospital. The truck was teeming to the brim, each face an untold story of grief, pain and agony. The truck was manned by two young sepoys, who were muttering to themselves under their breath, as they covered their mouth and noses with face masks. Rashi overheard them saying that the toxic gas methyl isocyanate that had spread from the Union Carbide pesticide plant had already killed thousands and that more were about to die from the delayed effect of the gas.
Thousands were fleeing to nearby, Hoshangabad, Indore, Raisen, Ujjain, Ratlam, Sehore and even to Nagpur in cycles, taxis, auto-rickshaws, tempos, trucks. Scooters had whole families on them. A police van carrying a public announcement system, moved past their truck, announcing that the gas had settled and that it was safe to go back home. This added to more chaos and confusion as unsuspecting people were exposed to a greater danger.
Rashi’s eyes were burning and watering and she started retching and vomiting. Added to that she felt contractions in her uterus, which were increasing in frequency and getting stronger as time passed. The switchover from the comfort and security of a happy family life to this repulsive and sickening reality was so sharp and stark that it was challenging and herculean for her to let it sink in, let alone accept it.
At Bhopal’s twelve-hundred bedded, Hamidia Hospital, a macabre drama unfolded before Rashi’s eyes. Corpses by hundreds were dumped in front of the hospital and patients complaining of eye and throat irritation as well as vomiting were trying to climb up the walls and gates of an already overflowing hospital. There were not enough doctors or medicines, prepped for the occasion. The medical and the paramedics were overwhelmed and bewildered with the situation themselves. In front of hundreds of helpless parents, children were breathing their last. The floor was splattered with blood and vomit. By noon, the hospital was crammed with over twenty five thousand patients. Rashi’s contractions were becoming severe by the hour and there was nobody that she could call out for help. She hoped against hope that Sunil would be here, somewhere in this crowd.
Rashi felt herself being carried off in a semi conscious state, as her coughs were interspersed with violent contractions. A well intentioned but hyper middle aged lady was trying to help Rashi deliver. She kept screaming at Rashi to push harder. Rashi was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood in full public view and pushing with all her strength. Her coughs and contractions continued till she could bear it no more. Just before passing out, she felt the tip of her child’s head from between the junction of her legs. Then it was only darkness.
The child entered the world with almost a vulgar show of life and screamed out with as much ferocity that his little pair of lungs could afford. It squirmed and moved towards his mother’s still body in search of some warmth, until somebody came and separated the living from the dead by severing the umbilical cord. The child was not aware of the callousness of the Union Carbide officials, he was not conscious of the injustice meted out by the administration, he did not know about the savagery and the depravity that he had been born into. He only knew by instinct that he had to live. And as the child was opening his eyes to the world where he intended to live and start his personal fight for life, Sunil was seen to be entering the Hamidia hospital premises in search of his pregnant wife.
