Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
> I'd rather spend money on books.

That's our Martha.
  

    
Cynthia, thank you for your kindly words. You are a gent.

If this interview has been chaotic, frequently unintelligible and
sometimes infuriating, it's no more so than the book itself. I should
know. I had to write the bloody thing.

At a point of maximum frustration, I expressed my feelings in a short
section titled "The Author Speaks" which my editor, rightly, cut from
the text. It should never ever see the light of day, so here it is.



The Orfer Speaks



This tale does not follow the chronology of that vulgar and
hypocritical fiction, real life, and, reader dear, an instant's
reflection will show you why. Such a telling would be naive,
disingenuous, unable to reflect the way things intermesh and
cross-fructify in the imagination. In any case, to quote a phrase,
'Quod scripsi scripsi'. It does not matter to me in what order you take
the bits and pieces of this bookÊÐ read the thing backwards for all I
care. Or throw it down in digust, use its pages to line the hamster
cage or hang them from a nail in the smallest room in the house. Do as
you please and I must do likewise. If a Coder can be God in his
creation then I can and will be supreme Guv'nor of my own tale. If I
wish to digress, wander, obliquate, deflex, then I will do it. I am the
Bear thy author. I have the power to subject you to a sentence three
pages long, without remission or parole. I can pack it with subordinate
clauses, or worse, phrases so densely accumulated that you will have
to mount expeditions to search for the empowering verb. I can bar your
progress with passages from an (allegedly genuine) medieval Sanskrit
text about flying machines, not even decently transliterated into roman
script, but scribed in such squiggly shit as shall make your eyes
water. I can ransack my shelves for dictionaries of the Aka, Sema,
Kuvi, Milang, Gojri and Toda tongues and drop into my narrative erudite
asides (how extraordinarily happy that 'gatta-prika' should signify
'dung-worm' to the Kuvi tribals of central India and that there is no
word for 'adultery' among the Todas) and by fraudulently passing myself
off as an expert in the worldly wisdom of sixteen obscure peoples,
pygmicize your poor intellect. There is no escape from my vengeance. If
you burn this book, or if it finds a home amongst slimy sardine cans,
cabbage stalks, tea leaves, soggy aspirin packs and tissues gummy with
nameless fluids in the foetid reeking enclosure of your household
garbage sack, why, even then my revenge is complete because you will
have thrown away $25 or whatever it is that Viking Penguin decide to
rush you for it. And if you return it to the library or to the friend
from whom you borrowed it, you will still have wasted your time. If you
have stolen it from a bookshop, slipped it under a jumper a la Jarly's
'hacked' chicken when no-one was looking, then your criminal risk was
all for nothing. Reader, you cannot win, you really have no option but
to continue. But having made these threats I also make you a promise.
Play fair with me, stay the course and I shall do my best to reward
you. Take what you find, if you encounter confusion then endure it, all
will become clear. And if at the last word of the very last page you
feel bilked, well, tough shit.
  

    
indra 
I love your use of language
and I loved the chaos here, the unexpected, the humour, the bathos, o
the everything.
thank you again
  

    
Just saw a post by Geno back in <36> that said

   > Fido suffers from poor leadership

Hey, Geno...you oughtta read my interview with Tom Jennings...lessee, it's
at

   http://www.well.com/user/jonl/works/tjennings.html

His vision for Fido was anarchic, so the idea of any kind of leadership in
there is kinda strange. From the interview:

FidoNet is more importantly a social mechanism. It was pretty obvious from
the start that it was going to be a social monster, almost more so
than a technical thing. And it had to do with the original environment of
bulletin boards, which were around for quite a while by the time I got
around to doing Fido. Every bulletin board was completely different, run
by some cantankerous person who ran their board the way that they
saw fit, period. So FidoNet had to fit in that environment. 

>>>beginnin der quoten<<

FidoNet is more importantly a social mechanism. It was pretty obvious from
the start that it was going to be a social monster, almost more so than a
technical thing. And it had to do with the original environment of
bulletin boards, which were around for quite a while by the time I got
around to doing Fido. Every bulletin board was completely different, run
by some cantankerous person who ran their board the way that they saw fit,
period. So FidoNet had to fit in that environment.

J: A very anarchic environment. 

T: Yes, explicitly anarchic. Most people just ran them for their own
reasons, and they were just separated by large distances of time and
space, so they remained locally oriented. I just ran across old interviews
and old documentation from '83 - '84, and we were saying it then. It was
just'c9 people didn't hear it, it just went in one ear and out the other.
They think 'Oh, anarchism, that means throwing rocks at the cops!' Well
sometimes, I suppose, but that's mostly a cop's definition of it.

>>>enden der quoten<<<

Sorry to drop in so late with this....
  

    
The ancient Goths of Germany had a wise custom of debating everything
of importance to their state, twice; that is,---once drunk, and once
sober:---Drunk---that their councils might not want vigour;---and
sober---that they might not want discretion...

It must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full
as well in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but
it is not every author that can try the experiment as the Goths and
Vandals did it...

My way is this :--

In all nice and ticklish discussions--(of which, heaven knows, there
are but too many in my book),--where I find I cannot take a step
without either their worships or their reverences on my back--I write
one-half full,--and t'other fasting; or write it all full,--and correct
it fasting;--or write it fasting,--and correct it full, for they all
come to the same thing...

Now when I write full,--I write as if I was never to write fasting
again as long as I live;--that is, I write free from the cares as well
as the terrors of the world.--I count not the numbers of my scars,--nor
does my fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to antedate
my stabs.----In a word, my pen takes its course; and I write on as much
from the fulness of my heart, as my stomach.----

But when, an't please your honours, I indite fasting, 'tis a different
history.----I pay the world all possible attention and respect,--and
have as great a share (while it lasts) of that under-strapping virtue
of discretion as the best of you.

So that betwixt both, I write a careless kind of a civil, nonsensical,
good-humoured Shandean book, which will do all your hearts good----

----And your heads too,--provided you understand it.

(From "Tristram Shandy" Book VI, Ch 17, by Laurence Sterne, 1761)
  

    
Indra, I've really enjoyed this interview.  I'm sure I'll enjoy the rest
of the book, even though I'm too much of a cheapskate to buy it.  (I don't
eat at Girasole either).

Thanks for doing this.  And thanks to your characters as well.
  

    
Ah go on with you. I'll make a deal with you. Buy the book and I'll
stand you a meal for two at Girasole. 
  

    
Next time you're in Philadelphia?
Okay, it's a deal.
  

    
Nah, I meant you and Pamela. I've just fixed it up. Call David at
Girasole (985 4659) and check it out! :)
  

    
Oh my goodness.
  

    
Indra just called me at work-- from England-- and told me to check  to the
conference.

Okay Indra, but why?
  

    
Well, I can't wait to experience some of that obnoxious service.
  

    
Thanks Indra.  We have reservations for Monday.  I'll be sure to report
back, and I'll pick up your book the same day.
  

    
<cackle> 

Can't wait to hear your restaurant review. Please do let us all know.
Meanwhile you now have to purchase the book - lord love you - I don't
which will prove the less digestible! :)
  

    

I want to thank Cynthia for this:

>I'd like to thank lizabeth for launching this interview. She agreed to do
>this on very short notice, setting aside paying work to read Indra's book
>and prepare for this. I know you put a lot of effort into this, lizabeth,
>and I appreciate all the groundwork you have laid here. I understand this
>has not been the interview you expected to be a part of and you've really
>been a trouper. Thank you.
  

    
It is almost 15 years since sudeep’s dying  machine recorded the
people victimized by the worst industrial disaster. True the entire
world wept that day. but honestly how many of you are aware of the
disaster today….as you are reading this. Believe us, we are witness to
Union Carbide’s relentless efforts to bury the memory of the disaster.
With the 15th anniversary of the hiroshima of the Chemical industry
falling on  December 3, 1999 the survivors have launched the struggle
of memory against forgetting. Please do not see these postings as
personal challenges in political awareness. We would like to know what
chances we have vis a vis Union Carbide.

Q.1. The disaster in Bhopal was an accident. Right ?

A.1. Wrong. The disaster in Bhopal was neither sudden nor unexpected.
All evidence suggests that it was in the making for about four years
before December ‘84. In fact, by locating such a hazardous factory in
the middle of populous settlements, Union Carbide set the bomb ticking
way back in 1969.  Further, in the design and construction of the
factory the corporation went by far inferior standards of material
quality and operational control in comparison to its factory in
Institute, West Virginia. 

The immediate causes of the disaster are linked to the cost cutting
measures set in motion following decisions taken at the Danbury
headquarters of the corporation. Economy measures approved and
monitored by the company included use of substandard construction
material, sacking workers, cutting down safety measures and turning off
vital safety systems. The refrigeration unit, essential to keep Methyl
Isocyanate at near-zero temperatures was shut off to save about 50
dollars a day !

Workers paid the cost of the company’s economy measures with their
life and health. In December 1981, one worker was killed and two
seriously injured by a phosgene leak. One month later in January ’82
there was another leak of phosgene when 24 workers needed
hospitalization. There were three more toxic leaks and injuries in the
same year. Instead of making the workplace safer, the management
harassed and sacked union leaders who brought up issues of health and
safety of the workers and the communities in the neighbourhood. 

Well before the disaster the company’s attention was drawn to the
grave risk posed by the factory on the surrounding population by a
three part report in a local weekly with such headlines as “ Bhopal on
the brink of a major disaster” and “Help. Please save this city”. These
went unheeded by the management. When a local lawyer sent a letter to
the manager of the factory about the possibility of “poisonous
chemicals used in the factory leaking on to the neighboring communities
and killing people” the official told him that the “allegation that
the persons living in the various communities remain under constant
threat and danger, is absolutely baseless”. In August ’84, nearly three
months prior to the disaster, in response to the concerns of  the
general secretary of the workers union about “uncontrolled “ levels of 
pollution  in the MIC and other plants, the same manager asked him to
“refrain from making vague complaints which have no basis”.  

At least two years prior to the disaster senior officials of Union
Carbide were well aware of “61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the
dangerous Phosgene/ Methyl Isocyanate units”. This was part of a
confidential report on a safety audit of the factory  carried out by a
team of experts from the US headquarters that listed ten major concerns
regarding the safety of the factory. Two months before the disaster an
internal report on the Institute,W. Virginia  plant warned that “a
runway reaction could occur in the MIC unit storage tanks, and that
planned response would not be timely or effective enough to prevent
catastrophic failure of the tanks” This report too was kept away from
the personnel in the Bhopal factory.

On the night of the disaster, water being used for washing the lines,
entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves.  The entrance
of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off
an exothermic run-away reaction and consequently the release of the
lethal gas mixture.  The safety systems,  which in any case were not
designed for such a run-away situation, were non-functioning and under
repair. Lest the neighbourhood community be ‘unduly alarmed,’ the siren
in the factory had been switched off.  Poison clouds from Carbide
factory enveloped an arc over 40 square kilometres before the residents
could run away from its deadly hold. 




. 
  

    
Sathyu-bhai (literally "brother Sathyu") is my friend Sathyu from
Bhopal, with whom I worked to start the free Sambhavna Clinic, which he
now runs. He has worked with Union Carbide's gas victims since the day
after the disaster. 

I have been hoping he would come here and join in this discussion.

The episode to which Sathyu alludes - "Sudeep's dying tape" - is a
story which he told me and which I told in Cybergypsies. The excerpt
will form the next posting.

You have to imagine night in the dark alleys of Bhopal, which in
places are only three or four feet wide. Here and there, kerosene lamps
shed a brown light. Midnight, and then...
  

    




Sudeep is in his pyjamas scouring his teeth. He sighs. Early shift
tomorrow, but thereÕs something on the radio he's loth to miss. The
midnight concert is a performance of the rare raga Rageshri by sarod
maestro Ustad Bahadur Khan. Sudeep is a music connoisseur, but a police
inspector's salary does not run to fancy equipment. He sets up his
battery-powered cassette recorder and positions the microphone as near
as he can get it to the radio. As the station's eerie flute motif
signals midnight, he presses the 'record' button, holding his breath,
better to hear the first notes of the sarod steal out into the quiet
night air. 

The way a classical raga works is that the instrumentalist, the sitar
or sarod virtuoso, begins a slow exploration of the scale. This is like
a meditation. It can last an hour, but for radio performances is
generally much shortened. When the performer feels that he has  wrung
what emotion he can from the notes, he nods for the tabla, the hand
drum, to join in. Rhythm now provides the focus, as both performers
improvise within a strict cycle of beats, the soloist demonstrating his
mastery of the various set pieces and ornaments demanded by tradition.
After this the music can move to a faster gait, calling for a more
instinctive performance; the instrumentalist will make shining runs,
the beat quickens again, doubles, the tabla player's fingers blurring
over his drums, the sarodist's fingers flying on the strings; the sound
becomes a continuous singing tone, in the midst of which are little
rushes and runs, like rivers of bright flame inside a fire; the raga
reaches its climax when the two instruments blur and become one, and
then it stops. But on Sudeep's tape, the sound does not stop.  

Early in the recording, the music begins to be accompanied by unusual
sounds. The sarod's deep-throated tones Ð twenty-five strings ringing
on a neck of polished steel Ð are interrupted by the thud of a door,
muffled distant shouts. The tabla, coming in, cuts through the
interference, but not for long. Within a minute, the tape is recording
cries and yells. Doors banging. Footsteps pounding in the lane outside.
Rageshri is a sombre raga, it should be heard in silence. But now,
inside the house, there is a cough, then a startled cry. A woman calls
out in alarm. A child screams. A manÕs deeper voice, very close, tries
to restore calm, disintegrates into retching. In a moment of respite,
the sarod sobs under Bahadur Khan's clever fingers. The child screams
again and the woman shrieks something unintelligible. More coughing. An
older child urgently speaking. The music is eclipsed by coughing very
close to the microphone. Outside sounds too are louder. The woman
begins to weep. The children are wailing, the music is completely
drowned. The woman cries, 'Oh mother, I'm dying.' A dry scraping sound.
Someone runs across the room. Vomiting. The door of SudeepÕs house
opens and noise rushes in, a thunder of feet and hundreds of voices all
at once. Hubbub inside too. Frantic feet, a crackle as the radio is
knocked, and then the goose-hiss of white noise. Still the tape winds
on slow spools. If it were videotape, it would see what comes creeping
in, pressing foggy fingers on the window, beating through the open door
in waves. It would see the light grow pearly and fade to white. But
the machine in Sudeep's abandoned house, its metal circuitry unaffected
by cyanide, records only the dismal groans and shrieks, gradually
diminishing, and, in the end, silence . . .

 
  

    
Some years ago Magnus and I were talking about Bhopal with the
Detonator - this was actually during our sushi lunch in Stockholm,
which I mentioned earlier.The Detonator suggested that a Union Carbide
virus be created and circulated to all the anti-virus software houses.
This would ensure that Carbide's name is listed forever among the
infectious and killer pathogens of the virtual world. The virus would
display the famous and terrible picture of the child being buried in
Bhopal, with the message, "The most shocking thing about this picture
is that the world has ignored it."
  

    
10 10 10 21 21 21 31 31 31 42 42 42 52 52 52 63
63 63 73 73 73 8C 8C 8C 9C 9C 9C AD AD AD BD BD
BD CE CE CE DE DE DE EF EF EF FF FF FF 21 F9 04
01 00 00 00 00 2C 00 00 00 00 DC 00 1D 01 00 04
FE 70 08 31 06 29 65 84 1D E6 7B 0A B2 30 4C 33
36 48 E3 3C 4D B9 BC 09 A2 30 09 99 BC 8D A2 87
08 92 18 87 03 50 87 28 5C 8C 40 CB E0 F0 41 18
8C 94 02 E2 20 99 58 A0 97 C9 45 23 20 2C 42 05
30 21 48 48 18 B3 1D 82 E2 D0 2D 18 7C 89 43 22
6E 48 E8 70 2A 47 CB B4 B0 CF FF 72 53 19 02 22
3D 22 37 0C 2F 89 37 0A 0D 54 1B 13 91 92 91 15
6D 42 4F 5E 0C 0E 7A 0A 7E 9D 08 56 16 47 02 1D
91 1F 3B 8D 25 7A 89 0C 1F 2C 5F 66 16 07 9B 0D
AE 0D 73 9D 44 44 4F 09 1F 09 03 6E 04 17 06 3A
42 1F 41 98 55 89 9D 50 90 C1 47 55 A4 01 04 43
3E 4F 06 6F 08 1A 01 5C 46 18 40 37 7E 31 D9 76
8D 0F B4 24 5F A8 E1 22 89 87 5A 07 9D 89 23 0C
33 0B 15 05 1C FA 1D FC 91 1D 95 D4 84 1D 28 40
62 93 03 06 32 EC 38 A9 D4 45 98 81 6D 90 16 DC
B2 C1 A2 85 A6 16 1F F8 7C 71 83 A0 95 2B 5F FE
43 14 2C 90 33 A7 C7 81 14 0E 14 50 20 60 C1 87
8C 93 39 80 65 A8 34 20 4E 0F 02 14 04 48 29 40
A5 0B 10 4C D2 36 2C 31 40 0D 1F 01 00 DC B4 60
70 03 64 C4 97 2F 42 4E 96 6B A0 82 EA 3C 75 7F
FA F8 F8 54 62 A0 1B 89 9D 82 44 C5 C9 6D 9F 3E
7F 0D AD 50 A8 30 A0 08 D5 15 07 6B E8 F8 25 09
DF 4C 0E 02 EC 1C 58 70 6E C5 1C 7A B4 16 88 18
99 60 C5 47 57 0C 06 18 F8 30 8F 86 4D 03 23 F2
29 5E E3 04 08 06 96 C2 84 D9 F5 92 23 4A C7 C4
18 24 60 43 16 65 EF 3C 04 04 36 00 00 D0 45 F1
25 6C 3C E3 91 58 16 07 99 EC 82 2D 76 FC 11 49
04 CE 8D 94 06 12 CD FA 81 17 EF 04 B3 A5 24 6C
18 31 05 E7 91 31 32 3C 9E 2B 19 CF C0 A4 36 2C
21 59 09 AE 89 45 F7 12 26 48 74 C2 A6 E0 F0 E1
19 54 2D CE 7E EA 46 00 64 13 DA 78 22 91 B1 F4
  

    
These days you could use the web of course. Is there a Bhopal campaign
site?
  

    
Magnus, there will be, shortly. Two Bhopal sites, www.bhopal.org and
www.bhopal.net. We're setting them up now and they'll be operational I
hope inside a week. The old site which was at jamrach.com is down,
because I discovered that it was being hosted by the same IP that hosts
Union Carbide in the US.

In what I think is a move verging on the unethical (haha, what a
ridiculous thing to say in respect of Carbide) they have registered the
domain of bhopal.com to tell their version of events.

There they piously talk of their grief. The same fucking people who
have never to this day disclosed either the constituents of the gas
that leaked over Bhopal, nor the results of their animal experiments
with methyl iso-cyanate.

What you will find on bhopal.com, apart from corporate grief, is their
"sabotage" lie. They claim that the factory was sabotaged by "a
disgruntled employee". I think the facts outlined in Sathyu's earlier
post show what an abysmal state of neglect the factory was in, but even
if the sabotage allegation were true - which it is not - it is hardly
a defence. Whose responsibility is it to make sure that employees are
not disgruntled, and not in a position to sabotage plants?

Carbide have said they know the name of the alleged saboteur. Why
haven't they hauled him up before a court of law? Silly question.
Carbide fought tooth and nail to keep this whole affair out of the law
courts. They refused to accept jurisdiction of US courts when the
survivors tried to sue them in your country. They said they would only
accept the jurisdiction of Indian courts. They won this battle. But
when an Indian court summoned their Chairman, a guy called Anderson, to
appear before it on a charge of culpable homicide, surprise surprise,
he never showed up. He said that the Indian court had no jurisdiction
over him.

The sickening fact is that the events of that night in Bhopal, the
facts, the testimony of survivors from both inside and outside the
factory, have never been heard in a court of law, never been open to
the questioning of attorneys.

Carbide talk of the settlement they made with the then Indian
government (which was horribly embarrassed by the tragedy, since it was
doing everything in its power to attract foreign capital into India) -
but that settlement - given a figure of probably 15,000 deaths
(immediately and subsequently as a direct result of inhaling the gas)
and injury to 600,000 people - amounts by my instant calculation to
about $78 per head.

Carbide paid $470 million (this is from memory). Exxon, after the
Valdez thing, paid $5 billion (where nobody died, a few hundred
American fishermen lost their livings for a year).

A large number of gas victims in Bhopal have never had a penny of
compensation from Carbide's settlement. For those who have received
anything at all, their pay-off was somewhere between $700 and $900
(Sathyu please correct me if any of these figures are wrong). Pick up a
calculator and divide $900 by 15x52 and that's what it amounts to per
week. That's right, one dollar fifteen cents.

Even in Bhopal, even in the affected communities, among whom were some
of the poorest people in the world, who had to live by hard physical
labour every day and being unable to work are now destitute, one dollar
fifteen cents a week does not go very far.

That's why, against the wishes of my US editor, (but with the full
approval, interestingly enough, of the UK editor) I insisted on
including the Bhopal story in Cybergypsies. Apart from the fact that it
was legitimate subject matter -- Sathyu came to me via the internet --
it is a story so important that it must be told wherever and whenever
possible. 

"We will never forget. We will never forgive. We will never give up."
This is what the women say in Bhopal, as they organise yet another
march, yet another demonstration, which will never be reported in the
western media.

Every month in Bhopal, another ten or twenty people die as a result of
the effects of the night of horror. The survivors have no money to
hire expensive lawyers -- Carbide's lawyer in the UK recently spent a
million pounds refurbishing his office -- they have few friends in high
places. Unless ordinary people in India and outside wake up to what
has happened and demand justice for them, they are going to continue to
suffer and die. So in the end, there is only one question to be asked
of people who learn about what has happened Bhopal:

Now you know. What the fuck are you going to do about it?
  

    
Well, I think it was very good that you included the story. If you
need any help with setting up the web sites just let me know!
  

    
We need help not just with websites but with everything. I have asked
Sathyu to post on here the address to which donations can be sent
within the US. 

All donations go towards supporting the free clinic in Bhopal are not
used for campaigning. That is why we are separating bhopal.org and
bhopal.net. .org will be devoted to the charitable work, and will carry
medical information, such as we have, .net will be the campaign site.

With the 15th anniversary almost upon us, we need to hurry to get
these up.

Sander in Amsterdam had the idea of making a site that listed all the
products on sale that use Union Carbide ingredients. Colgate Palmolive
is a major customer for example. If people have this information, they
could decide for themselves whether to buy those products.
  

    
I am and have been so moved by this interview, with all its twists and
changes. There is something happening here for all its good and rage and
puerile fights and wisdom, for all of what has gone one here - there is
something here of what we as human beings are becoming. Some kind of
evolutionary sprint has happened somewhere in computers or in the internet
that is changing us. I don't know good or bad but this interview is a
little primitive glimpse.


What the fuck can I do?  I sit here and weep at the stories of Bhopal. Of
course I had forgotten. The knowledge of Bhopal got buried under a thousand
other stories of coughing crying homeless cold hungry arm-severed
children. Honestly, I ask you what the fuck can I do that would make any
difference at all?