Eidetically bad memory

      

Blinkist and Balance are two useful things on my phone - which is normally used as an e-reader. I woke up this morning to an audiobook Winners take all by Anand Giridharadas. I won't elaborate on the book, beyond that it is well-written and emotive.  Just had a revelation that I am better off meditating whilst in bed, rather than reading about the current state of the world or any coming apocalypse, aka the news.

So, after the usual morning necessities for the kids, I sat down to my writing. As described above, my mood already was pretty down in the dumps. Then I read the news, as I am a creature of habit- once, years ago I felt good reading the news, so now I read it every few hours even if it makes me miserable. The first iteration was the usual nonsense about idiots, idiots in power, depressing things about things I care about, and topics falling under the 'who gives a fig' category.

My brain collapsed later this morning though, after reading this article about a gas leak in India: 10,000 people were exposed to a gas leak from an LG Chem Gas Plant, 5000 people evacuated and about 300 are critical. To anyone else, that might not make a blip on their emotional radars; we are experiencing a global pandemic, after all! Not to me. My brain-damage is masochistically eidetic - in that it retains painful details of things that upset me. The above news, sad as it is, led to images of the Bhopal disaster of 1984. These are the images in my memory, painfully embossed and frustratingly clear. For context, I no longer remember my dad without seeing his death-mask smile, as I saw him last after flying back home to say goodbye. So I avoid thinking about him at all. Sometimes you cannot avoid painful things; one news makes the association between dormant/damaged neurons that seem to sleep whenever nice things happen and awaken to make me hurt till the bed seems the only available respite.

So, the images in my head are in order as follows:

1. Union Carbide Bhopal Gas Tragedy

           

Five Past Midnight in Bhopal is the best book to know about this tragedy. Interestingly, the most accurate Indian biographies were written by foreigners; Lapierre is a personal favorite. A simplified history: Methyl isocyanate gas leak in the dead of night of 2nd December 1984; 3787 immediate deaths and 16,000 subsequent deaths sue to delayed exposure; at least 558,125 non-fatal but permanent disabilities. Consequences: seven Indian nationals were imprisoned for a maximum of two years and paid a fine of about $2000. Warren Anderson died of old-age in a nursing home at 91. The baby in the picture in my head would have been around my age now, had she survived.

2. Vultures of the humankind/ Warren Anderson/ Union Carbide

The thing I remember about this man was that he died at a nursing home. I also remembered an article quoting his wife as to how he was "haunted" by Bhopal and how he didn't get paid as much as modern CEOs back then and how unfair the whole thing is! You entitled, psychopathic b****! Union Carbide is doing fine too. Now under a different banner- Dow Chemicals. I got a LinkedIn recommendation to connect with the current CEO because of my mentioning Bhopal somewhere else online. Oh, the irony!

Emotions should ameliorate with time. Time heals all feelings as well as wounds. Because of my brain, my emotions are nauseatingly fresh, especially Anger. Each time I think about this parasite dying in his bed, even if he did suffer, no amount of suffering would excuse what he enabled. Sure, others enabled along with him. But he was the head vulture. The US would've seemed like a great place to be before some years mainly because it was a 'young' country. People made and stuck to fair laws, unless someone killed you and so it was technically possible to become something if you tried hard enough and stayed alive. Not anymore. There is no place on earth without inequality, and it isn't fair to expect it from a country that says "survivor takes it all, then changes the laws to make survival harder". My anger drains me physically, so let's move on. 

3. Kevin Carter

Vultures bring to mind this image. It won Kevin Carter his Pulitzer. He must've hated that, since soon afterwards he committed suicide. That makes him human, in a good way. I like him, infinitely better than Anderson! His is the only case where I approve of someone committing suicide, because how does one go on from here? Pulitzer be damned!

4. Children - what are they learning?

I am not sure I should expose a happy, inquisitive child to such images, but I wanted her to know. If something affects me deeply, and I know I am not wrong to feel this way, why would I not expose those facts to my child? I am not sure how long I shall be around to influence my child well. Even normally healthy people aren't around forever anyway. I wouldn't want her to grow up to enable one of the vultures herself. Life goes on. Even if some life doesn't deem worthy of living! I am cyclically depressing myself into and out of my mood, so here it ends!