by Annie Murray
As we move towards the centre of Bhopal, for a moment I remember Sunita holding out her hand as a map: Bhopal is almost in the middle.
Trucks, a few cars, black-and-yellow auto rickshaws . . . At the edges, thin, sleepy-looking men on bicycles, some laden with milk churns or a pile of buckets or textiles strapped on the back, press down on pedals with feet protected only by plastic push-on shoes. We glimpse the lake, through trees, looking wide as a sea; swallows and house martins wheel through the air, while people, cows, goats and dogs mingle with the traffic. Gradually the volume of it increases: the noise of hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes, the endless beeping of horns and roar of trucks. I peel the scarf from round my neck – it’s getting warmer.
In the brightening light we turn into a side street, dusty and scruffy, and for a moment I wonder why we are stopping outside a small, grey Hindu temple. But on the other side, somehow unexpectedly in this little street, is our hotel. Most likely built in the eighties, I think, looking up at its tall oblong, with a glass-fronted foyer. It’s functional and in the right part of town – just what we need. Inside there are shiny stone floors, glass and metal, grey and black – nothing soft or colourful.
We are shown to the fourth floor, to a narrow room with a double bed and tiny bath cubicle attached. Pat goes to the window and flings it open, letting in the sound of traffic and blaring horns from the main road a short distance away.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ she says, as I throw my rucksack on the bed. She starts laughing.
‘What?’
At the window, I am confronted with so many things to take in that I hardly know where to look. The back of the hotel faces over the rear of the blocks along on the main road – a chaotic array of buildings, stained brown and yellowish-white, a telephone tower in the middle: some with rectangular windows, others with curved tops. The space between those and our hotel is taken up by a mess of half-built structures, some with metal struts sticking out of the roof which announce the intention of building higher. On one, work is already in progress, a man squatting over a pile of bricks. Thin trees have forced their way up from any corner where they have managed to find a toehold. On the ground, in the shade of the buildings, lie heaps of pallets, tumbled like jackstraws, and curving sheets of rusted corrugated iron, weeds forcing up around them. A stray white cat weaves between the scrubby plants; and for some reason, squeezed into the narrow alley amongst everything else, is a big shiny blue-and-silver coach.
I take in the sight, grinning. ‘We’ve arrived. I like this place. Shall we go and find a cup of tea somewhere?’
This first day we spend getting used to things. We go out to see the city or at least the part of it where we are staying, just off the Hamidia Road in the old Muslim heart of Bhopal. The name is familiar, because there is a Hamidia hospital. On the night of the gas leak in 1984, its corridors were overwhelmed with people trying to get help, lying dead or dying in numbers far greater than the staff could cope with. Over the following months, many of the babies born in Hamidia hospital were handicapped and malformed in ways not seen before, the state of some so horrific that people could hardly bear to speak of it.
But we are not here to visit the hospital. Today we are tourists. We set off along crazy-busy Hamidia Road. The stone-slabbed pavements are hemmed in by a phalanx of hundreds and hundreds of parked motor scooters, the scruffy buildings along the road house shops and workshops, all with signs in blaring colours advertising retail wonders. ‘Alpana Talkies,’ a cinema announces. Everywhere is so busy – shops, fruit stalls, cinemas, traffic and more traffic, mostly auto rickshaws and motorcycles – that you hardly know where to begin looking.
We are in the heart of an area of mosques, of markets, of commerce. Side streets give us glimpses of minarets and domes. Small shops spill their displays out across the pavement: one moment heaps of coiled ropes, the next, office chairs and desks, plastic buckets, galvanized buckets, iron bedsteads, tables, shoes, a mountain of safety matches in bright yellow boxes, a slight man sitting cross-legged on top. The white light of welding sparks arc across the dark interiors of workshops; oil seeps across a pavement, its stink adding to the fumes from the traffic, the smell of rotting papaya skins as we pass a stall . . . And all around us, the racket of hammering, banging, shouting, beeping horns. Seeing the men squatting in their oily workshops, I wish for a moment that Ian was here to see. He’d be fascinated.
We wander about for some time, mesmerized, growing exhausted. It takes energy just to get along, dodging people, having to move into the road when the pavement is blocked by a stall, a motorbike, a crowd, having to watch your feet while trying to look about you. It’s growing hotter and our senses are quickly saturated. I look at Pat, wondering how she feels about it all. She looks fine – gazing about her, drinking it all in.
‘Cup of tea?’ I say.
‘Where will we find one?’ Now I can see she is bewildered. ‘I’ve never been anywhere like this . . . Well, maybe Sparkhill. Not really, though. It’s like Sparkhill on steroids!’
At this point we discover the Manohar Dairy – a shop that looks nothing much from outside, but which inside is a wonderland of steel surfaces, tables and what seems an almost endless menu. To one side is a whole section with glass cabinets displaying vast quantities of sweets and cakes. On the other, a canteen-style restaurant with a list of possibilities so extensive that I feel too tired to choose. The waiters wear bright yellow polo shirts and a lot of the tables are occupied by people slurping tea and speedily eating morning snacks.
‘Shall we start with toast and tea?’ I say to Pat. ‘We can come back for something else later.’
‘Yes, good idea.’ She gazes around her in wonder. ‘Look at all those cakes! It’s amazing.’
‘It does take a while to acclimatize,’ I say.
‘Yes.’ She looks solemn for a moment. ‘I certainly feel like a foreigner. I’ve never been so aware of being white. Good lesson, I suppose. But I’m glad you’ve been here before. I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Just as the waiter comes up to take our order, she suddenly beams at me. ‘You know, I’m tired out and I have no idea what’s going on – but this is great!’
And the waiter is met by her lovely smile. Soon afterwards, braced by toast and our first cup of chai, thick, hot and sugary, we are fortified for more of our jet-lagged day.
Even though we’re tired, we can’t stop exploring. It’s a pleasantly warm day, not too hot, and we are dressed in jeans, long shirts over T-shirts, trainers. With some food inside us we are comfortable to walk for hours, tying the shirts round our waists as the heat builds. We pass through a market, stalls laden with papayas, guavas and pomegranates, with stacks of snow-white eggs, tomatoes, aubergines and the long-tailed green trails of spring onions. We ride in an auto rickshaw to the lake, an experience which reduces Pat to hysterical laughter.
‘It’s like being in a video game!’ she squeals, clinging to the metal door frame. The roaring little vehicle, like a motorbike with two back seats and a roof, swerves deftly through the traffic, between cars and cows, motorbikes and pedestrians who seem to have taken it into their heads to wait in the most perilous-looking spots possible in the middle of the road. Buses, bicycles and scooters come flying skilfully at us from a variety of directions, seldom the one you would expect. ‘D’you remember that game, Asteroids? Where all those things are just coming at you all the time?’ Pat laughs and laughs. I grin, enjoying seeing her so lit up. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this!’
We spend the whole journey with our heads hunched down trying to see out, to take everything in as we weave through the narrow streets of busy shops, cross a flyover and peel off down a bumpy, tree-lined road beside the lake where it is suddenly much quieter. Boat Club, we are told.
And we stroll back, amid the milling holidaymakers and food vendors and offers of pony-rides and rickshaws. The lake, lit by the sun, is dotted with boats. Flocks of geese and ducks bob about with the pleasure boats: a fountain sho
ots up rainbow spray before it falls back into the steel grey water. Huge letters alongside the water spell, ‘WELCOME TO THE CITY OF LAKES’. And its life echoes distantly across the water.
Later, in the glow of late afternoon, we find ourselves in the compound of the city’s biggest mosque, the Taj-ul-Masajid. Approaching it, we see its terracotta walls mirrored in a pool along one of the outer walls, a beautiful image, perfect as glass despite the filthiness of the water.
Inside, in the spacious compound at the heart of the mosque buildings, people mill about, many seeming to use the place as a passage through to somewhere else. Along a path leading to the mosque itself, we stop to watch a heated game of cricket played by a group of boys, mostly aged about twelve or thirteen, all in white, lacey caps. Seeing us stopping to watch, some of the fielders standing round the edges crowd round us.
‘Selfie? Selfie, ma’am?’
‘OK,’ I give in. ‘Selfie’ apparently just means, Please take our photo, selfie or not. Grinning, they strike up a variety of poses, arms draped round each other’s shoulders, fingers arranged in ‘cool’ V signs. Then they are keen to see the pictures and cluster round me, giggling. For a moment I feel like a teacher again.
‘OK, bye-bye,’ I say, and they go back to their game, apparently satisfied.
By the time we have managed to get back to the area where we are staying we are both completely exhausted. We collapse into the Manohar Dairy and eat plates of rice spiced with ginger and chillies, drink sweet lime sodas and tea.
‘We might just as well eat here every time,’ Pat says, looking round with apparent fondness already. The place is only just round the corner from where we are staying. She yawns. ‘What time did you say he was coming tomorrow – the interpreter guy?’
‘Ten, I think.’
‘Right. That’s good. I’d better text Fred and then I’m off to sleep. I shan’t need any rocking tonight, I can tell you.’
‘No, nor me.’
When it comes to it, though, I don’t sleep well. We are sharing the rather firm double bed and Pat seems to drop off quickly. But I lie awake in the dark, hearing the distant mayhem of the Hamidia Road, and have a kind of dark night of the soul. I remember now, not having travelled for a long time, that it sometimes has this effect on me – at first, anyway. Lying in a bed in a strange place where no one knows you, or has any idea where you are; the life of a strange city going on all around you, the expanding realization that you are a little random dot on the face of the earth.
So I lie on my back, wondering what in fact the hell I am doing here. I’m glad I didn’t come on my own now. It’s nice to have Pat’s gently breathing form beside me. But I’m full of doubts. Tomorrow we are going to start seeing and meeting people who have been involved in the chemical leak, the poisoning of their lives by the water. Many will have lost a lot of members of their families, or are enduring terrible physical afflictions. And there are people who have worked there for years, living each day and every injustice that has been visited upon them. And then there is me, walking into this with some vague idea of being able to help somewhere along the line, even if only by raising money. I feel stupid. One photo in a magazine and here I am rocking up. For what?
On my last visit to the cemetery before I left, I tidied Paul’s grave as usual, laid some roses on it, told him in a whisper that I love him – will always love him. Leaving even for just ten days made me feel horribly guilty and I got Ian to promise he would go, regularly, to see our boy. But – and this makes a big difference – not too far away, in a grave where there is already a gravestone for ‘Tom Stefani, b.1926, d.1959, beloved son of Lorenzo and Ida Stefani’, there is a little temporary sign beside it, as we wait for them to add Dorrie’s name to the stone, where we buried her ashes. ‘Doreen Stefani, 1929–2015’. And I went and knelt by it.
‘Hello, Dorrie.’ I stopped as tears ran down my cheeks. They come more easily now, at any time, as if some rusted-up mechanism in me has been freed and I can finally begin to move it. ‘Well, we’re off to India tomorrow – Pat and me. You never met Pat but you’d like her. She’s sort of quiet and you have to get to know her. But she’s got a lot to her. And I admire her. She’s one of those volcano women – you know, waiting to burst out.’
I squatted down and tidied round Tom Stefani’s grave. Now that Dorrie’s here, and it feels as if she can see everything that’s going on anyway, I can tell her anything and everything.
‘I miss you, Dorrie. Miss you like mad. I don’t suppose you realize quite how much you meant to me. Or maybe you did. You’d never have said really, would you? I miss you just being there – us chatting.’ I look across the wide space of the cemetery, the tranquil rows of gravestones. ‘Anyway, what you told me, about Ian’s dad and everything . . . He hasn’t been too good lately, in himself. But he’s getting a bit of help now as well. We went through a really bad patch after Paul – I can see now just how bad. When he left, I didn’t really know if he was coming back, even if I didn’t admit it to myself. I never said anything to you then because I didn’t want you to worry. But he’s back now – he really is. Properly back. And I think I am too. I know things’ll never be the same but . . . Anyway, we’re trying . . . So what I was going to say is, I will tell him. In a bit. When I get back and when I think he’s going to be able to deal with it. I promise.’
I smoothed my hand over the earth covering her ashes, with that sudden, awful empty feeling you have of knowing the person really is not there. There is earth and flowers, a stone and loving words, but not them – ever again. I lowered my head, tears falling on the bare crumbs of soil. Then I wiped my eyes and got to my feet.
‘Look out for Pauly, won’t you, Dorrie? I’ll be back soon, love – to both of you.’
Ta-ra, bab. I could almost hear her, as if she was speaking straight to me. Just mind how you go. Don’t worry about me.
And she’s with me now as I lie in this strange bed, with her simple, kindly good sense. As I set off on some mission that I passionately know I have to fulfil. For what? A boy’s face? For the company of other women who know the horror of the words, ‘That night’?
I don’t know. And I’m scared. I have no real idea what any of this means for me – for Ian and me. But I just know I have to be here. In this particular gin joint, as Bogie would have said.
Eventually, I sleep.
Thirty-Eight
Ten o’clock finds us waiting in the hotel foyer. A worried-looking man in black trousers, a white shirt and shiny black shoes washes and polishes the long panes of glass looking over the street. From here you can see the little temple with its strings of bright marigolds dangling just inside. Another man is mopping the already shiny stone floor.
‘Oh, dear,’ Pat says, watching him. ‘We’re going to have to walk on that in a minute.’
I can see she is nervous. I certainly am. And I still feel foolish. There is something about India that I had forgotten. It makes me feel idiotic: too big, among these small-boned people, too pink, too English, as if we embody the colonial folk memory that none of us can ever quite shake off. And I feel rather like a child thrown into the company of adults who have to humour me because they really have far more pressing things to do.
Dead on time, I see a motorbike draw up in the narrow street, wheel round and stop. A slender young man hops off, dressed in black trousers and a pale blue polo shirt with a maroon puffa jacket hanging open over it. He pulls off his helmet, props the bike up and comes into the hotel. He is of medium height, his hair neatly cut. He has a thin face and lively, enquiring eyes which settle on us immediately. As we stand up, he hangs the helmet on his left wrist and comes to shake our hands.
‘Good morning, Mrs . . . Jo? I am Aasif, from the Bhopal Medical Appeal. I work on publicity and information and I will be your interpreter.’
‘I’m really grateful for this,’ I say, after the introductions, as we go outside into the warmth. I wonder, nervously, if he expects us both to squeeze on the ba
ck of the bike. ‘Only – if you’ve got other things to do, we don’t need to take up much time.’
‘It’s OK,’ Aasif says cheerfully, fetching his bike. ‘Some times are very busy, but this week is good. We are happy to show you round. You guys have been raising some money, right?’
‘Just a bit,’ Pat says quickly. It feels so little.
‘It’s good,’ he says. ‘People come, they see and learn. That is my job. Anyway –’ he points along the street – ‘come. We will go and find an auto for you.’
‘We’re not going on your bike then?’ I say, just a bit disappointed.
Aasif grins, looking suddenly impish. ‘Maybe another day. The auto rickshaws stop on the corner there by the Dairy. Today we will go to Chingari – this is the clinic for children.’
The life of the street explodes in on us. It’s rush hour, the main road full to bursting with traffic. Sunshine slants down, leaving our side of the main road in shadow. There is so much racket of engines and beeping scooters that it has become normality rather than noise.
Pat looks pleased. In this very short time she has become addicted to riding the streets in an auto rickshaw and as soon as we are on the way, her face lights up again. She gives little squeaks of excitement as we wheel off into the swirling, fume-filled, blaring street. Aasif hops on his bike and rides beside us like an escort. Soon we are turning right somehow, in the face of the oncoming barrier of traffic, and down another road. This one is lined with piles of gravel, carts laden with fruit and trinkets, goats and vendors of piles of second-hand white containers, of the sort you might buy full of plaster or Polyfilla, to use as buckets.