Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [147]
Dilip and Padmini built a hut, planted soy, lentils, vegetables and fruit trees. Little by little they dug out an irrigation system. Like all the farmers in the area, they bought “medicines” from traveling salesmen to protect their crops from insects, especially from the weevils that liked to attack potatoes. These door-to-door salesmen did not, of course, offer Sevin. Instead they had pyrethrum-based pesticides, which had the advantage of being both cheap and generally effective, except when it came to soya bean caterpillars, which were a real nightmare.
One day in the autumn of 1998, Dilip and Padmini received a visit from a pesticide salesman they had never seen before. He was wearing a blue linen coverall with a badge on it. Padmini, who thanks to Sister Felicity had learned to read, had no difficulty in making out the name on the badge. It was that of one of the giants of the world’s chemical industry.
“I’m a Monsanto rep,” he declared, “and I’ve come to give you a present.”
With these words, the man took out of his motorized three-wheeler a small bagful of black seeds that he proceeded to place in Dilip’s hands. “These soya seeds have been specially modified,” he explained. “They contain proteins that enable them to defend themselves against all kinds of insects, including caterpillars …” Seeing that his audience was wide-eyed with interest, the man seized his opportunity: “I can also offer you sweet pepper seeds that are immunized against plant lice, alfalfa seeds treated against diseases affecting cows, sweet potatoes that …”
Their benefactor had brought the Indian peasant couple a whole catalog of miraculous products. All the same, there was nothing charitable about his visit. It was the result of a marketing campaign thought up some thirteen thousand miles away, in California, where Monsanto, leader in the latest biotechnical revolution, had its headquarters. Thirty years after Eduardo Muñoz and his Sevin, it was Monsanto’s turn to take an interest in the Indian market.
Padmini took the bag of seeds and went and placed them on the small altar with its image of the god Jagannath she had set up in the entrance to the hut, just next to a tulsi tree. Dilip and she would wait for the end of the monsoon to plant the little black granules. Of course, neither of them was aware that these marvelous little seeds had been genetically engineered not to reproduce. The soya beans they harvested would not supply the seeds for another crop. As to the health risks this transgenic engineering might represent, neither the Monsanto sales representative nor his new customers would even begin to think about them. Wasn’t India the perfect place for a new generation of sorcerer’s apprentices to conduct their experiments? If everything the salesman had told them was true, Padmini and Dilip were quite sure that their lives were going to change forever. They could burn incense to thank their god, for the future belonged to them.
What Became of Them
WARREN ANDERSON—Chairman of Union Carbide at the time of the tragedy, he left the company in 1986 and retired to Vero Beach, Florida. Following complaints filed against him by the victims’ organizations and an Interpol warrant, he moved from his last home address and his whereabouts are not publicly known.
SHYAM BABU—The restaurateur who had promised to “feed the whole city” and who supplied the wood for the cremations, still presides over the till in his restaurant. His business has expanded with the opening of a four-story hotel above the Agarwa Poori Bhandar. At thirty rupees a room, Shyam Babu’s rates are still unbeatable.
SAJDA BANO—The widow of Mohammed Ashraf, the beautiful factory’s first victim, is yet to receive compensation for her husband’s death. She is fighting to collect what is still due to her for the death of her eldest son Arshad. Soeb, the younger son, is suffering from serious neurological and other