Remembering
Till I got to Bristol, I had no idea how deep the wound of the two world wars were in the western world. In the last 2 something months, I’ve come to appreciate that and know how much the people here have been shaped by the war.
Every town, every village remembers its soldiers. And a war memorial/cenotaph wherever space can be made.
An event on a comparable scale happened in India. Though, it has gone largely unnoticed and hurriedly, perhaps guiltily, forgotten. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
I was 2 years old and in Madras when that happened, so I cannot really claim to be affected by it in any way. But I do know of what happened and to whom, from reading reports and stories in the last few years. This year is the 25th anniversary of that event, and a few people are doing all they can to see that, if not justice, at-least recognition and remembrance is given to the victims of the accident.
With them I shall say “I’m a Bhopali“.
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December 7th, 2009 at 10:56 am
it is heartening to see someone else on the blogworld talk of the issue in such light. apart from getting the cold shoulder over social networking sites, i almost gave up hope in finding ppl who would want to step out of their comfortable ignorance to remember the disaster, irrespective of whether they were there or not.
apart from a dramatized reading of a related play and a discussion at Oxford bookstore, here’s my two bits’ worth of contribution to marking 25 years since the tragedy: http://desicritics.org/2009/12/03/204247.php
December 7th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
What’s interesting is that remembering Bhopal is being labeled “arm chair philosophizing” and the effort entirely pointless. Yeah, we do have people being insensitive and cynical amongst us.