the bastis

I recently went for the first time into the water contamination affected bastis (a 'basti' is a very poor area) on the other side of the Union Carbide factory. This is something I should have done soon after arrival here in Bhopal, but preparations for the padyatra blocked most opportunities back in January and February. Plus, I didn't really have anyone to take me. Now, because of going on the padyatra, there are people that know who I am in pretty much every basti over there. Without company, it can be very intimidating to just waltz in to places like this and take photos of people. I decided to accompany some of the padyatris home after Wednesday's weekly meeting at Alu Factory. Sathyu had asked me to go into Arif Nagar (a basti near the factory) to take a particular set of photographs, which provided the initial impetus for my visit.

I ended up following Lila Bai (who you have already met in earlier posts and who you see above) and Bano Bi, one of the women who was knocked unconscious when the police attacked in Delhi, if you remember that story. From Alu Factory we crossed Union Carbide Road and entered a narrow lane through an area known as "Chola," which lies immediately to the east of the factory premises. After winding through there for a while, we eventually reached Atal Ayubh Nagar, which hugs the northern perimeter of the factory. I took the above photo in Atal Ayubh Nagar.

As I might have explained before, the Bhopal disaster is not just a gas leak that happened in 1984, it is a continuing disaster that continues to kill many people each month. And it began before 1984, before the gas leak. I'm am talking about water contamination. In addition to solar evaporation ponds in which Union Carbide overtly dumped bulk amounts of different toxic wastes while the plant was in operation, there are tons of extremely toxic chemicals that were simply abandoned in the factory after the gas leak. The factory was never and has never been cleaned up. Except for theft of construction materials, it is almost exactly the way it was left almost 22 years ago. Some of the abandoned chemicals are in bottles and cans. Most are in large cloth sacks or loose on the floor or ground. Huge oozing pools of carbaryl (brandname Sevin) tar sit baking in the sun on the ground. And mercury, too -- you know how much we worry about incredibly tiny, trace amounts of mercury in air, water, or food in the U.S.? Well, here in Bhopal at the UC factory, there are visible puddles of mercury sitting on the ground, gleaming in the sun, happy to bounce around playfully for the children who have been known to make a game of it. Union Carbide's chemicals spread deep into the soil and groundwater years before the methyl isocyanate tank burst in 1984. There is no methyl isocyanate on the premises today, by the way. MIC is extremely volatile and unstable, which is why Union Carbide's haphazard way of dealing with it caused the deadly eruption. There are plenty of other chemicals left, though, with names full of phenyls, benzyls, cyanates, chloros and naphthols. With every monsoon season, the piles of these substances get soaked and renewed plumes flow through the ground water streams underneath the neighborhoods north of the factory. The water is absolute poison, and roughly two thirds of the patients here at the clinic are here because of drinking it.

After years of fighting for it, the Bhopali activist network here got the local government to begin bringing in clean(er) water by truck, or at least to promise to do so. The black cylinder you see in the photo above is one of countless water tanks peppering the basti's. When the weather is good, the trucks usually show up. When it's not, they simply do not come, citing unpaved roads unfit for truck access. Even when everything goes perfectly, though, there is not enough tank water to go around to everybody.

In the end, people are forced to use the unsafe water. After the tank program began, pumps with water that tested as undrinkably poisonous were painted red. The paint is mostly chipped off in the pump above, but the words on the shaft warn people to stay away. It's hard to do that, though, when it's a 110 degrees and there are no alternatives.

Atal Ayubh Nagar has some of the worst rates of medical problems caused by water contamination.

This guy is pointing at the Union Carbide factory.

Here it is, from the northern perimeter. The structure on the left that is partly obscured by the tree is what is left of the methyl isocyanate gas unit.

This is Ramgopal, who you might remember from the padyatra. He and his family live in Atal Ayubh Nagar, directly adjacent to the factory premises. The above photo is from Ramgopal's tiny back yard. You can see one of the factory's structures through the trees and bushes.

I walked beyond Ramgopal's space to get a closer look. As you can see, there is nothing to keep kids or anyone else from going in and out of the factory. There is a guard who would stop me (or any adults, especially foreigners) if he were to spot me, but I don't think they bother chasing children. There has even been a little arrangement between the kids and the guards whereby the guards allow kids to come in and dismantle parts of the factory, go and sell them as scrap metal or material for new construction, and then split the money with the guards.
And we're in. Within minutes of arriving at Ramgopal's house, Bano Bi had covered her mouth and nose with cloth and was saying something about there being a gas leak. I didn't think she was being serious, especially because I knew of no gas that could leak. There was unmistakably a heavy presence of something in the air, ever so slightly irritating in my noise and throat -- something similar to what you might smell downwind from a new floorwaxing job. I just wasn't convinced it was toxic gas from the factory. Lila Bai didn't seem too concerned, and I didn't want to leave before getting some photos and spending a little time at Ramgopal's house. After a while, though, Lila Bai seemed worried, too. They were saying that in the extreme heat the chemicals lying all over the ground are basically baked into producing harmful vapors that waft over and fill the bastis. Ramgopal and his family didn't seem worried at all, as you can see in the photo below. Ramgopal has lived there for 18 years. The effects of the poisons, whether from water or air, are visible on his skin. He does tailoring work from inside his home.

By the time I had clicked this photo Bano Bi was getting frantic, so I thanked everybody, said goodbye, and followed her out of there. I still don't know what the smell was or whether or not it was harmful, but the farther we got away from the factory, the less I smelled it. When I got back to Sambhavna I told people about it and Rachna said she smells it almost every time she goes to Atal Ayubh Nagar. No one is sure what it is.

Atal Ayubh Nagar with the MIC tank towering above it.

By this time we had run into Shehzadi, who not only walked all the way to Delhi, but did the hunger strike, too. She was excited to take me on a little tour of her neighborhood, Blue Moon Colony, which you see here beyond the railroad tracks. Blue Moon Colony is also severely affected by water contamination.

After hanging out for a while at Shehzadi's, we went over to visit her sister, Nafeesa, who also came on the padyatra to Delhi.
This is Nafeesa's son and her grandchildren.

Bano Bi, Lila Bai, Nafeesa, and Munni Bi (from left to right) pause to point out the factory in relation to the different bastis as we headed back across the railroad tracks to go to Bano Bi's neighborhood, Arif Nagar. Munni Bi was also on the padyatra. She lives near Nafeesa, north of the train tracks.

Bano Bi poses with her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren in part of their home.

Bano Bi's son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren in the doorway to their home as I say goodbye and Bano Bi leads me halfway to Berasia Road, from where I can find my way back on my own. It was starting to rain.