The festive season, which for most of us here, begins with and continues until the New Year, is in full swing. Customarily enough Indian charities have had their annual Diwali dinners. It always fills the heart with warmth to see the diaspora uses this occasion to help the needy back home or anywhere else in the world.
This is always a nostalgic time of year. It amazingly brings out the traditional Indian spirit among even the youngsters. University students who seldom wear anything other than hipster jeans and a T-shirt, suddenly appear attired in traditional Indian outfits at the Puja Bari for Durga Puja and during pushpanjali. It is refreshing to note that some of these teenagers actually know the sanskrit shlokas and recite them along with the pujaris. Some keep a strict nine-day fast during Navaratri.
On Diwali London skies are lit up with extravagant firework displays. A young university student told me the other day, how, on Diwali, during a lecture another Indian classmate told her she should sit with him at the same table on the day because "its Diwali and I'm an Indian."
The spirit and values among most young Indians here are so well entrenched that it comes as a shock when you meet some of their highly westernised counterparts in India. And it is not as though these kids are caught in any time warp. They celebrate and enjoy Christmas with as much aplomb as any Briton. Having a traditional turkey dinner on Christmas is common in Indian homes.
Yet this year, along with Diwali came the devastating BBC report that said thousands people are still at risk of poisoning even 20 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy. It has left many, specially people like me who has witnessed that disaster, with a heavy heart. I remember that tragic night of December 3, 1984, when people were ruthlessly engulfed by MIC leaked from Union Carbide, in the stealth of a cold night. We were enjoying our Christmas holidays when the entire city was turned into a house of doom, overnight.
The cry for help sent old and young, school and university students rushing to hospitals and the affected areas to lend a helping hand, in any small way they could. I remember first year medical students from cities near Bhopal, like Indore, rushed because the city did not have enough doctors to tackle this gigantic human tragedy.
{{/usCountry}}The cry for help sent old and young, school and university students rushing to hospitals and the affected areas to lend a helping hand, in any small way they could. I remember first year medical students from cities near Bhopal, like Indore, rushed because the city did not have enough doctors to tackle this gigantic human tragedy.
{{/usCountry}}College and school buildings were turned into makeshift hospitals. Young as we were, a group of us would wait around, eager to help. Hospital grounds were littered with victims, some gasping, trying to hold on to life but helplessly losing it with every breath. Never have I seen as many people die. It is heart-wrenching to learn that even after all these years thousands of tonnes of toxic waste are still stored inadequately nearby, poisoning the town's water supply, which Union Carbide India Limited was supposed to clean up.
The BBC study found that levels of contamination in water from a nearby well was 500 times higher than the maximum limits recommended by the World Health Organization. The local people who drink this water are exposing themselves to a substantial chemical hazard associated, over time, with liver and kidney damage.
It is an even greater tragedy, that after 20 years of several researches, books on the tragedy, people are still victims. Today when countries can unite together to attack a country to rid it of its 'dictator', one wonders why they cannot unite to save people from such an appalling human tragedy that is still claiming lives after two decades.
Basere se dur, we still feel the pang, for we are Indians, even if basere se dur.