But never that which makes us the same In our place of being untouchables, God can touch us… For some of us, touching God requires that we come to a place of social desperation. ‘Plith luv me’ On a flight recently, I was moved to tears reading the following advertorial from an agency serving people in Bhopal India. About 25 years ago a chemical factory in the area leaked poisonous gas killing thousands in a night of horror. Raju is one of the children born after this disaster.
“Raju can barely talk. The few words he gets out are hard to decipher. ‘thista,’ he cries and his sister knows that he has been hurt again. Thick-tongued syllables burst from the depth of him. ‘No me!’ Each word is laden with unspoken significances. ‘No me!’ means I won’t put up with it! Bullies have thrown stones at him and have hurt him. Poor Raju. He’s a pathetically easy target.
Twelve years old with the mental age of a toddler. He shambles. He’s bald. His hair began to fall when he was three. He has webbed fingers and webbed toes. His mother is at her wits end. She’s obliged to be out working all day. Her forty or fifty pence a day is not enough for food and rent. She is worried about Raju’s speech and took him to a government hospital. The doctor prodded in his mouth, ‘so what’s the problem? Got tongue, hasn’t he?’
There is something going on that no one in Bhopal will talk about. It’s an epidemic of unnatural births. Thousands of children are being malformed, or with brain damage. Blind, lame, limbs twisted or missing, deaf, mute, hare lipped, cleft palate, cerebral palsy, tumours where there should be eyes. These are the living children of Bhopal. The stillborn often cannot be recognised as human.”
8
8
Bhopal Medical Appeal. The Guardian 20th June 2009. www.bhopal.org
29