I don’t think I’ll ever forget this name. not because it sounds funny. I won’t forget it because it is the name of a town in India where thousands of people died due to gas leakage from a pesticide plant in 1984. In one night, thousands woke up choking to death. A nightmare which I can’t even imagine. A shame so big that I don’t even know what to do with this information now.
It is a dramatic moment when I suddenly become aware of tragedies like Bhopal, like those moments when a cloud covers the sun and shadow takes over. The sudden disappearance of the light has an inexplicable effect on one’s psyche; a little shock of immense despair. Until you figure out the light will come back. The despair in stories like Bhopal that sinks into my consciousness though does not recede so fast. Images, numbers, pleas, pain keep vibrating within my existence. From now on I know about Bhopal and this information changes me. Changes me profoundly. Bhopal settled in my conscience along with other unclaimed crimes of humanity.
When I imagine that this could happen to me, to my family, to my life, I get a little numb with the enormity of it all. Can you imagine for yourself? One night you wake up to be gassed to death, life long illness, witnessing your children to die, excruciating recognition of i-n-j-u-s-t-i-c-e.
“but this is to what we owe our comfortable lifestyle”
“oh you mean industry?”
“yes of course. Look we are warm, comfortable, we have hot water, lots of food, iPods, we travel anywhere we want…”
We are actually quite successful to put a distance between our safe lives and the tragedy. It is not THEM who are responsible. We are all creating this system one way or another unfortunately. Industry exists because of the way we live, the houses we live in, the cars we drive, the food we buy, our computers, our cooking pots, tooth brush, hairpin, plastic bag, napkins, clothes, books, shoes, carpets, toys, toilette paper…
How can we hold awareness and acknowledgment instead of ignorance and denial and base our choices and decisions in this awareness? We are responsible as we are creating the system, the reality together; it is not separate from the way we are, from the way we live. The quicker we realize this, the better we respond to the crisis we are facing.
I am not trying just to make a living anymore. I am not deluding myself. At least I opened myself to see more, more of tragedy and more of beauty, more destruction and more creation, more despair and more HOPE. I know if I don’t embrace the dark side, it will keep growing, taking over the light.
One of my remedies along with awareness and acknowledgment is consuming less, much much less. Which is pretty scary initially if one is coming from a scarcity mindset which the whole system is based on. Life is abundant and generous, our minds are not. Another remedy is doing one less thing and letting go of a frantic way of being (even if you are trying to save the world (!)). Sometimes when I become suddenly aware of the busyness in my mind and how I might be projecting that into the world, I try to slow down, I breathe or if I am on a crowded street with cars and too much CO2, I sing. Whatever brings back my awareness of the present moment…the world definitely needs less doing, less intervention, less manipulation. The Earth would heal itself if we were to do less.
Neruda says it beautifully in his poem “keeping quiet” (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language, 
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.
The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.
What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.
Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.
now I will keep quiet for Bhopal...
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