from 2 december to the new year

So our blogging has simply gotten more and more sporadic and inadequate over the last month. Its one of those situations where you don’t do it for a few days and then it just spirals and suddenly its been nearly a month and some epic, dare I say life-changing shit has gone on and then been covered up with a few weeks worth of quotidian dabbling leaving a vast and daunting gap to be recounted.

The last time we wrote was before the anniversary. We were swamped with work and yet in one of the most exciting and dynamic atmospheres with roughly 20 volunteers around Sambhavna performing various tasks, sharing meals, philosophizing over latenight chai and cigarettes and above all frantically trying to prepare for the anniversary to ensure that the media attention and public support the 25^th was generating would be utilized most tactfully in order to further the aim of justice and radical change in Bhopal. By the time the rallies of the 2^nd and 3^rd approached, Alizarin and I were extremely excited and apprehensive .

On the 1^st we went to the Chingari Trust’s annual awards where they honored more than 25 female activists from all over India who are engaged in various grassroots movements for environmental justice, many of whom were up against corporate giants like Coca Cola. Alizarin and I crouched on the stairs near the entrance to the hall with Biju (a panchakarma therapist at Sambhavna/friend/arch ping pong enemy), Nava (a Canadian volunteer stopping in for the anniversary while doing some awesome research on biofuel engineering in Orissa) and ICJB workers who walked in and out, as usual tending to constantly ringing cell phones. It was amazing to see so many women on stage showing mutual appreciation for eachother’s work and solidarity in eachother’s fights. I also got to learn more about Rashida Bi and Champa Devy Shukla’s stories. Both are activists for justice in Bhopal and founders of the Chingari trust , which provides physical therapy, hearing aids and essentially special education for hundreds of children who were born with congenital malformations or issues like cerebral palsy as a result of the water contamination in Old Bhopal. I learned that prior to the 1984 disaster, Champa Devy had been unsuspectingly washing her family’s clothes in the solar evaporation ponds behind the Union Carbide factory, where UCC routinely dumped chemical sludge. Both women lost family members and faced so much hardship because of the disaster, and yet they became liberated as union organizers and activists and are now largely the backbone of the Bhopal Survivors’ movement.

I want so badly to convey the ongoings of the torch rally on the night of the 2nd and the larger rally on the 3^rd but there is so much to say and I fear I can’t find the words at this hour to attempt a portrayal of so many things that at this point are ineffable. In the next blog I will be thoroughly describe them both, but for now I’ll just say that I was honored to get to walk in solidarity with the people of Bhopal and chant “Hum Bhopal ki nari hai! Phul nahi chingari hai!” (we are the women of Bhopal! We are not flowers, we are flames!) with them. I learned so much and was so uplifted by their determination. After seeing and focusing on the suffering that is so prominent in Bhopal, truly the site of an ongoing humanitarian crisis, it was emotionally confusing and enlightening to see such a dramatic display of the other side of the situation, the unwavering strength of the struggle for the justice deserved.

Since the anniversary, things have been very different. More laid back but still chalk full of new ideas and ever-multiplying plans for projects. We finally had a proper birthday party for the 3 november birthday people (me, Diana and vikas) at Sathyu and Rachna’s house. We’ve also gone to chowk with Diana and Rachna and ordered fancy suits, gone on walks around neighboring bastis, and talked to the guy who fixed Alizarin's shoes who collected newspaper clippings of uncommon animals (like a chicken with four legs. We brought him a clipping of a dog with 2 legs that walks like a person the other day.)

Then Joey arrived mid-December and we left our home away from home for the south. We started with a 2-day train to Thiruvananthapuram (Trivendrum), the capital of Kerala. By the time we got off, we were in dire need of some stretching out.