Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [61]
“It will pass over it …” the engineer repeated several times, catching his breath. A vision of horror passed before his eyes. “My God,” he thought, “so the cloud would hit the bustees.”
The vigorous games of tennis Warren Woomer played every morning before going to his office reflected his ebullient morale. The Bhopal plant’s top man had every reason to be satisfied. After a mediocre first year, the production and sales of Sevin had taken off. In 1981, they reached 2,704 tons: half the factory’s capacity but 30 percent more than Eduardo Muñoz’s most optimistic predictions. Despite this success, however, the beautiful plant had some problems. The most serious arose from the alpha-naphthol production unit. The installation designed by Indian engineers had never, despite several modifications, been able to supply a product that was pure enough. They had therefore to resign themselves to importing alpha naphthol directly from Institute in the United States. In the end this fiasco would cost Carbide $8 million, 40 percent of the original budget for the entire construction.
There had been an earlier misfortune. In 1978 a fire had devastated part of the unit. The gigantic column of black smoke that hid the sun before raining down foul-smelling particles on roofs and terraces had been Carbide’s first gloomy signature in the sky over Bhopal. Seeing this incredible spectacle from his house, a young journalist by the name of Rajkumar Keswani rushed to the scene of the disaster, only to find that the area had already been cordoned off by hundreds of policemen. No one was allowed near.
Nevertheless, four years after this accident, Carbide’s star continued to shine in the firmament over the City of the Begums. The guest house’s panoramic restaurant overlooking the town had become the favorite meeting place of the political establishment and local society. Those who dined there would never forget the extravagant spectacles that formed the after-dinner entertainment, like the water ballet in the swimming pool that the wife of the managing director of Carbide’s Indian subsidiary, herself an accomplished dancer and swimmer, had arranged. The initiated knew that this luxurious residence was also used for top-secret meetings. Carbide had placed a suite at the permanent disposal of the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. In Bhopal, as elsewhere, money and power made comfortable bedfellows.
24
Everlasting Roots in the Black Earth of the Kali Grounds
The word traveled from hut to shed to stall to workshop like a trail of gunpowder. The residents of the three bustees were to gather on the teahouse esplanade for a meeting of the utmost importance.
“This is it. Carbide’s taking us all on!” shouted Ganga Ram, who had never got over being rejected because of his mutilated hands.
“In your dreams, you poor fool!” said the shoemaker Iqbal, ever the pessimist. “It’s to inform us we’re going to be evicted. And this time, it’ll be for good!”
The arrival of Dalima on her crutches interrupted the exchange. With a yellow marigold in her hair and glass bangles jangling about her wrists, the young cripple had a triumphant air about her.
“It’s to tell us they’re going to install a drinking water supply with taps!” she announced.
“Why, it’s obvious,” said old Prema Bai, “they need us for the elections.”
In India, like anywhere else, it was the womenfolk who showed the most common sense.
That was when a voice from a loudspeaker rent the sky.
“People of Orya Bustee, Jai Prakash and Chola, hurry up!” it commanded.
The residents of the bustees rushed from the alleyways toward the teahouse esplanade. Sister Felicity, who was in the process of giving several children polio vaccinations, paused.
“It’s like being at home in Scotland when a storm breaks,” she told Padmini. “All the sheep