Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [48]
As for the Americans, who suddenly found themselves parachuted into the heart of India, they often felt as if they had landed on another planet. In the space of twenty-four hours, forty-four-year-old Warren Woomer and his wife Betty had traveled from their peaceful, germ-free West Virginia to the bewildering maelstrom of noises, smells and frenetic activity of the City of the Begums. For the man to whom the company would shortly entrust the command of the Bhopal factory, the adventure was “a real culture shock.”
“I knew so little about India!” he candidly would admit. “I realized we’d have to adjust our thought processes and way of life to thousand-year-old traditions. How were we going to get our turbaned Sikh employees to wear a helmet while performing dangerous procedures when even the Indian army had given up with that obligation? Before I left South Charleston, I didn’t even know what a Sikh was!”
For his young compatriot, John Luke Couvaras, who, in his enthusiasm, had likened the Bhopal venture to “a crusade,” “the experience was absolutely unique. I particularly remember the feeling of excitement,” he said, “but India never failed to endear itself to us, sometimes quite comically.”
In the beginning, employees regularly arrived late to their workstations.
“Sahib, the buffalo cows had escaped,” one of Couvaras’s workers explained. “I had to run after them to milk them.”
The American admonished the former peasant gently. “The running of our factory cannot depend on the whims of your cows,” he stated clearly.
“But after six months, everything was working to order,” admitted Couvaras.
There were plenty of other surprises in store for the young engineer, starting with the difference in attitude between Hindu and Muslim engineers. “If there was a problem, a Muslim would give you the facts straight and then acknowledge his responsibility. Whereas a Hindu would remain vague and then incriminate fate. We had to adapt ourselves to these differences. Fortunately, after a certain level of education, the goddess of chemistry intervened to put us all, Indians and Americans alike, on the same wavelength.”
19
The Lazy Poets’ Circle
My very dear engineer Young, your presence does us infinite honor. Be so good as to remove your shoes and stretch out on these cushions. Our poetry recital is due to commence in a few moments. While you’re waiting, do quench your thirst with this coconut.”
Thirty-one-year-old Hugo Young, a mechanical engineer originally from Denver, Colorado, could scarcely believe his eyes. He had suddenly found himself thousands of light-years away from his phosgene reactors, in the vast drawing room of one of Bhopal’s numerous patrician residences. About him, some twenty men of different ages were reclining on silk cushions embroidered with gold and silver, their heads resting on small brocade pillows. By buying these pillows they had acquired the right of entry into the most exclusive men’s club, the Lazy Poets’ Circle. Bhopal might be launching itself into the industrial era, but as one expatriate of the Kanawha Valley testified, it was not going to give up any of its traditions. All the adepts of the Lazy Poets’ Circle continued to observe the very particular laws and rites of their brotherhood. Those reclining were considered to be lazy poets of the first order; those seated were lazy poets of the second order; and those standing were voluntarily depriving themselves of the respect of their peers. This hierarchy of posture entitled the reclining to command the seated and the seated to command the standing. It was a subtle philosophy, which even found its expression in material things. For example, cups and bowls with thick rims were strictly prohibited so members of the Lazy Poets’ Circle would not have to open their lips any wider than necessary when drinking.
All afternoon, poets, singers and musicians followed one another at the bedsides of the lazy, charming them with couplets and aubades. In the evening, after an army of turbaned servants had served them all kinds of samosas, the brotherhood