Smith in Bhopal
Smith is a photographer. Willing is an anthropologist.
Willing is mainly interested in the way in which Smith behaves in challenging environments and difficult situations.
What follows are the remains of a short story written by Willing between 12 – 30 November 2010. His story, which includes photographs by Smith, was almost entirely destroyed by Smith during a confrontation with Willing in spring 2011.
Disaster
On 3 December 1984 – hours before the release of Band Aid’s hit single Do they know it’s Christmas? – a lethal gas cloud containing 47 tonnes of Methyl Icocyanate (MIC) leaked from Tank E110 at Union Carbide’s UCIL plant in Bhopal. The leak resulted in what Judge John F. Keenan (Baxi, 2010:23) subsequently called the world’s ‘largest peacetime disaster’. It is estimated (bhopal.net: 2012) that around 15,000 – 20,000 people died in the immediate aftermath of the gas leak at the UCIL plant. According to the Bhopal Medical Appeal (2011), since then approximately 100,000 Bhopalis have experienced the effects of chronic gas damage. According to various sources (including Greenpeace, the Bhopal Medical Appeal, the Sambhavna Clinic and Chingari Trust), as a result of the failure of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical (which purchased Union Carbide in 2001) to accept responsibility for the pollution of the water supply for 16 communities in the immediate vicinity of the factory site, or to decontaminate those areas, ‘more than 30,000 people’ have suffered, and continue to suffer, the effects of lethally contaminated drinking water. This means that since 1984, at least 150,000 people have been negatively affected by Union Carbide’s commercial operations in Bhopal.
Grass roots activists, including the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (bhopal.net: 2011), presently continue to exert pressure on Dow Chemical, as well as the Indian state, with a view to: increasing levels of financial compensation for those effected by all aspects of the disaster; improving health care initiatives in Bhopal; the extradition of Union Carbide’s then CEO, Warren Anderson (currently a resident of Bridgehampton, USA); and the implementation of the ‘polluter must pay’ principle whereby, according to Principle 16 of the United Nations’ 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the party responsible for producing pollution – in this case, Union Carbide – is held responsible for alleviating damage done by pollution to the environment. (1)
Tourism
10 November 2009. Babular Gaur (Dinkar & Kaur, 2009), State Minister for Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Relief and Rehabilitation, announces a plan to open the UCIL (Union Carbide India Ltd.) factory gates for sightseeing and disaster tourism.
Gaur states: ‘This is to help people get rid of the misconception that chemical waste is still harmful and that the chemicals are polluting the water in nearby localities.’ (p. 29)
Gaur cites as evidence a letter from the Indian Ministry of Defence’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Gwalior. The letter states that nothing alarming has been detected in samples that have been tested for toxicity in the DRDO lab.
Gaur states: ‘All samples – excavated waste, lime sludge, naphtol tar, reactor residue, semi-processed pesticide and Sevin tar – have low mammalian toxicity, according to experiments done on animals.’ (p. 29)
According to DRDO director, R. Vijayaraghavan (Dinkar & Kaur, 2009): ‘A 70kg man will not die if he takes 200gm of the waste orally or eats 100gm of Sevin tar. In fact the toxicity is less than that of table salt.’ (p. 29)
The winning proposal for the Bhopal disaster memorial which should be erected at the UCIL site in due course, includes plans for:
a) A walking plaza.
b) Cast-iron figures of victims.
c) Viewing towers.
d) Bazaars.
According to S.R. Mohanty (Dinkar & Kaur, 2009), Principal Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Government: ‘This will dispel the myth that there are toxins left at the site.’ (p. 29)
Disaster Tourism Event: the production of routes and objects (1)
Although Smith and I believe that a disaster memorial is a persuasive idea, we believe that the scope of the winning proposal is limited and that this will eventually undermine the project’s commercial potential, which is enormous.
Choosing only to identify the disaster with a specific place – the UCIL plant in Bhopal – is a grave mistake. If the disaster were instead more broadly defined; that is, in terms of all of the spaces and places that it has continued to occupy since 12.05am, 3 December 1984, then it will become clear that there are innumerable places and spaces in Bhopal, and beyond, that are ripe for exploitation by both the Indian and American commemoration and disaster tourism industries.
On the ‘night of the gas’, we know that few people died at the factory. Thus, there is no reason why memorialisations of the disaster in Bhopal should always be identified with – and situated at – the UCIL site itself. Note that, unlike visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau, 44 years earlier, Bhopali gas victims did not travel many miles to meet their gas. Their gas travelled to them; and the path that their gas took was determined not by any complex administrative procedures (which is not to say that such things were entirely superfluous) but by the direction of the wind, which nudged, shoved and harassed the gas through the streets of Bhopal. Thus, it was in the streets and alleys that the disaster was – to begin with, at least – most visibly played out, and not at the site of the factory. That is to say, those streets and alleys in and around the various districts of, for example, Chola, Bafna Colony, Rasalda Colony and Railway Station No. 1. (2)
But let us not even restrict the disaster to the streets and alleys of Bhopal or, incidentally, to sentimental descriptions of the sudden deaths of small children. Because, clearly, it is in everyone’s cultural and commercial interests to identify and thereafter exploit each detail, every conceivable trace of the disaster, however tangential and banal they might at first appear.
So, for example, the arrest, release and subsequent drafting, re-drafting and revision of documents relating to the many charges (including culpable homicide) which, since 1984, have been brought against Union Carbide’s former Chief Executive Officer, Warren Anderson (as well as various applications that have been, and continue to be, filed for Mr Anderson’s extradition to India from Bridgehampton USA) - could not have been, or continue to be, enacted without a stellar cast of indifferent supporting objects: including cars, planes, cushions, ball point pens, restaurant receipts, door handles, golf caddies, telephones and fast food cartons.
Likewise, the notorious Bhopal Act – with which the Indian government enshrined in law the ‘judicial incompetence’ of those affected by the disaster, thus preventing them from acting autonomously against Union Carbide – remains steeped in materiality. And, while the Act itself is substantively immaterial, in that its legislative and social identity cannot seriously be reduced to, for example, the specific location at which it might have originated, or a tea cup that was nursed by a government appointed lawyer during one of many interminable conversations held about it, note that its materiality (including doodles) does at least allow us to objectify it in a multiplicity of economically and symbolically productive ways. (3)
In short, seemingly intangible events like these may be transformed into discrete commodities by aggressively defining them in relation to those objects through which such events were, in part, originally constituted. Suffice to say that we are in no doubt that each one of our objects will supersede even the considerable seductive capacities of the original 1970s soft furnishings at the Stasi Museum’s memorable coffee bar in Ruschestrasse, Berlin.
Appreciate that the aim of this project is not simply to make available a set of already existing disaster objects and images – to reveal what is already apparently there – but to generate novel ‘evidence’ in innovative and sometimes euphemistic ways. And the base material for this ‘evidence’ could consist of anything: from gold bangles and oblong sun traps to the feelings of revulsion that Smith experienced at a UCIL solar pond, on the perimeter of Blue Moon Colony, when Sidak – his guide, friend and fixer – stepped into a pile of excrement that Smith believed was animal but which was actually not.
The point is that everything can and must be reduced to the disaster; everything can and must be used to re-define and re-articulate it, from white tigers to what Georgio Agamben (1978) suggestively calls ‘eternal moments of dumb promiscuity among strangers in lifts and buses’ (p. 16). Note, however, that although everything is subjugated to it, including ourselves, this does not then mean that each thing, each photographic and linguistic gesture, smell and space will scream ‘disaster’. On the contrary, much, if not most of what happens today in Bhopal, and certainly Bridgehampton, is not ostensibly related to the disaster at all: for example, two stray dogs on Hamidia Road, four blades of grass at Shimla Hills, one rocking boat on Upper Lake, three joggers on Ocean Road. It is simply the case that, for Smith and I, everything is a prop. Or, at least, everything is destined to be one. And our story – perhaps hallucination is a better word? – will be told through many different props: things in cases, sumptuous, evocative photographs, colourful ethnographies, and walking tours (to name but a few), all of which will of course bear traces of the Ur-event - that thing upon which our story will in future only appear to have been built, and in relation to which it will become simultaneously closer and more distant.
But let us not forget the factory.
Realize, Messrs. Gaur and Mohanty, that the old UCIL plant potentially offers the visitor something that Auschwitz never can: chemically motivated symptoms of physiological distress (coughing, a burning sensation on one’s upper lip, respiratory difficulties etc). And whilst it’s true that one can peruse, with one’s eyes only, empty canisters of Zyklon B, the lethal gas pellets used at Auschwitz, it is regrettably the case that one cannot actually taste Zyklon B. One cannot ingest it, one cannot be properly consumed by it in the same way that one is physically consumed by the panoply of heavy metals that are not only still present in the soil at the UCIL plant but which continue to pollute the water shelf beneath it.
Mr Gaur, Mr Mohanty, pollution is not a liability. On the contrary, it is a commercial and educational opportunity and to churlishly deny its existence is to deny its economic and cultural potential, which is infinite. Whilst attractions of a similar nature might attempt to simulate experiences of physical and emotional distress – the Imperial War Museum’s execrable ‘Blitz Experience’ for example, where visitors can huddle together in a fiberglass ‘bomb shelter’ and experience a mock ‘air raid’ – Smith and I believe that the anodyne and infantile nature of such events will rarely, if ever, satisfy the visitor’s quest for authenticity. How different would be the visitor’s experience at the UCIL site, where the ingestion of chemicals will furnish the intrepid tourist not with an insipid pseudo-trace of the past, but with an authentic shadow agony: an indexical, embodied and gloriously toxic connection.
Routes and Objects (2): Railway Station No. 1 - DB City Mall via Ocean Rd.
Smith does not use a regular camera bag because, according to Smith, ‘Proper camera bags are too conspicuous’. Instead, Smith has, in the past, used plastic shopping bags produced by well-known brands including Tesco (1997), Lidl (2002), Debenhams (2004), Gap (2004), Wal-Mart (2008), Waitrose (2009) and Primark (2010).
Today, however, she is using a smart blue American rucksack.
Smith has two detachable camera backs, each of which is loaded with colour film rated at 50 ASA. Once Smith has shot all of the film in the first back (twelve frames) she will quickly replace it with the second without having to worry about re-loading ‘mid-mission’, as she calls it. She keeps the second, substitute, back in one of her American rucksack’s three zip-up pockets. (Sometimes Smith forgets which one of the three pockets contains the substitute back.)
Although shooting time will inevitably be wasted loading film, once all of the shots in the second back have been exhausted, Smith tries to make sure that re-loading takes place in between what she calls shooting chapters, although this is not always possible.
Smith (2010) defines the term shooting chapter as follows: ‘A shooting chapter is a discrete photographic event, of which there may be several during any one mission’ (p. 21). Smith defines the term mission as follows:
‘A mission might consist of a journey from, for example, Railway Station No.1 to DB City shopping mall in MP Nagar. Photographing the area around Station No.1 would constitute one shooting chapter. Another shooting chapter might, for example, involve the taking of photographs outside the Swastika Investment Management Company on Berasia Road.’ (p. 22)
A shooting chapter can usually be indentified with a specific physical location, although this isn’t always the case. A mission can comprise any number of shooting chapters. According to Smith: ‘Shooting chapters consist of one or more shooting paragraphs’ (p. 22).
Smith defines the term shooting paragraph as follows:
‘A shooting paragraph corresponds to the particular position that one might assume at any given point during a shooting chapter. For example, (Fig. 1), which was taken in the vicinity of Railway Station No.1 would constitute one shooting paragraph while (Fig. 2), which was taken approximately twelve meters to the right of the place where (Fig. 3) was taken, would constitute a different shooting paragraph. However, two photographs taken from the same position and, possibly, of the same thing will necessarily belong to the same shooting paragraph. In this instance they would, for example, be referred to as Chapter 3, Paragraph 1a and Chapter 3, Paragraph 1b (Figs. 1 & 3).’ (p. 23)
Each shooting paragraph consists of one or more shooting sentences. A shooting sentence might look exactly the same as a shooting paragraph but, as the above example illustrates, this is not always the case. Smith defines the term shooting sentence as follows: ‘A shooting sentence is equivalent to a particular photograph and is composed of shooting words’ (p. 24). Smith defines the term shooting words as follows: ‘Shooting words are the formal elements of which a particular photograph is comprised (Figs. 4 - 6).’ (p. 27)
Perhaps it is worth noting that the number of shooting sentences is, in the last instance, contingent on the amount of film available during any given mission. The same might also be true of shooting paragraphs, although not necessarily shooting words. Also, given that Smith is routinely compelled to mix flash with daylight, the number of shooting sentences that she is able to produce during any one mission is, likewise, contingent on the available power in each of the two battery packs that she takes with her on a mission. Although Smith has been told that each of her battery packs is good for two rolls of film, experience tells her that this is not necessarily the case. In fact she has actually shot up to five – perhaps even six – rolls of film using a single battery pack. There undoubtedly exists a formula for working out exactly how many rolls of film can be used per battery pack (something that would take into account such things as the relationship between focal length and shutter speed etc.), but she has no idea what this is.
Ethnographic Colour: another valuable unit of production (1)
At 10.45pm on 21 September 2010 Smith (2010) writes:
'Outside the ethnographic museum at Shimla Hills a young man in a raggedy yellow jumper approaches me.
'Rohal: "Is anyone speaking in English with you since you are being in Bhopal?"
'Smith: "No, not many."
'He says he’s an English teacher but that doesn’t matter much because he’s "honoured" to meet me.
'Rohal: "I wanted to meet you for a very long time."
'We shake hands and I smile and am as charming as I can be, which is quite charming actually. Then he says that he’ll only be in a photograph if he can be in a photograph with me. He says that he doesn’t want me to take a photograph of him by himself. He says that maybe the auto-rickshaw driver could take a picture of me and him together?
'Smith: "What about your girlfriend? Couldn’t she take it?"
'Nisha’s spotty and has tattoos on her hands and wrists. She’s pretty and her sari is threadbare. But she holds the camera like it was a cement mixer.
'Smith: "Step closer."
'Rohal gives me his hand. I think about putting my arm around his shoulders but we hold hands instead. Afterwards Rohal asks me what I’m going to do next. Have I been to the museum? Would I like to have tea with him at a restaurant? He doesn’t mention Nisha.
'Smith: "I’ve got to get back. Things to do."
'I don’t want to talk to Rohal anymore, but if Nisha wanted to go then I would.
'When I get back I’m surprised to find that the remains of the blue tea cup are still on the floor, by the bin, at the foot of my bed in room 72 at the Arch Manor Hotel, and that I’m still furious with him. The way that he picked up the dismembered jug, which had once been firmly attached to a flimsy black plastic arm, that suddenly came off in my hand, causing me to drop the cup as I skipped to avoid the jug that was falling in the direction of my foot. The way that he tried to re-attach the handle of the jug just by pushing it back on …’
'Ashok (telephone): "You come now?"
'Although I say I’ll be down in five minutes I know it’ll be more like ten. But if I say that then I’m afraid he’ll go home and I’d like him to stay.
'There are three men in the lobby: Ashok, Sanjay and someone I’ve never met before.
'Anil: "I am Anil. I speak bad English but I am just like you."
'Incredibly, Anil hugs me, but he’s so much shorter than I am and his bald head compresses itself against my chest which is broad because I swim. Anil’s wearing a pink and orange striped linen shirt. He’s immaculate, pressed, refreshed, brown and well. And I am very happy to be driven away from here on the back of Ashok’s motorbike, through the streets of MP Nagar, past the dull dogs and empty metal billboard, then around DB City shopping mall which is built on an island in the middle of a road and which is impossible to reach either on foot or by car, bike or auto-rickshaw, but which is still teaming with scrubbed up people, each one holding an ice cream – I exaggerate – and parading cheerfully – I don’t see their faces – under a giant banner that says: "Here is the beginning of the rest of your life". We drive by booming elephant shrines; in and out the smell of gasoline and shit; that smell, the image of which sticks to me and is worse than, although nowhere near as bad as, the smell of the factory which clings to the back of my throat and burns my upper lip but which – I’m told – eventually washes off.' (pp. 46-48)
Routes and Objects (3): Sonali Regency Hotel – Hamidia Rd. via Radha Talkies Rd.
There are certain things that Smith typically does before embarking on a mission. This morning she did them after breakfast, in her room, at the Sonali Regency Hotel on Radha Talkies Road.
This is what she did:
a) Cleaned lens with lens cloth.
b) Loaded film into camera backs.
c) Checked battery levels in light meter.
d) Transferred box – or boxes - of film from camera bag to rucksack. (Smith does use a ‘proper’ camera bag, purchased from a professional camera store, to carry her equipment between continents, but never uses it on a specific mission. When on a mission the camera bag always remains in Smith’s hotel room).
e) Packed notebook and pen.
f) Put lens cloth in right hand trouser pocket.
g) Put on brown Carhartt baseball cap.
On its erection, the metal pop-up canopy makes a clacking sound which, despite making Smith a little nervous, invariably provides her with an imperceptibly slight sexual thrill. In the middle of the canopy – at the base of which is a square, ground glass viewing screen – there is an oval shaped pop-out, split-screen magnifier, designed to enable the photographer (Smith) to focus on a discrete and significantly enlarged section of the image. When the horizontal line that bisects the split-screen is no longer split then the object across which the line runs should, depending on the reliability of the camera’s, and Smith’s, optical technologies, be in focus. On this occasion – during the production of this shooting sentence – Smith is not focusing on any object in particular: a dog, car, flower, person etc. If she could, Smith would focus on one of hundreds of thousands of grains of dust that are in the immediate vicinity of the camera’s lens; but unfortunately, although this may be theoretically possible, Smith lacks the patience and ingenuity to do so. So Smith throws her baseball cap on the ground, half a meter in front of the lens, and focuses on that instead. When she is satisfied that the cap is in focus Smith retrieves it and puts it back on her head. Finally, Smith re-examines the scene through the lens before eventually producing a shooting sentence.
It is worth noting that each time this procedure occurs; that is, each time Smith puts the cap back on her head and then attempts to look through the viewfinder at the scene in question, the cap’s peak invariably collides with the camera, thus briefly preventing Smith from enjoying the uninterrupted view that she desires. Suffice to say that this spectacle – the performative and ritualistic aspects of this particular shooting chapter, paragraph and sentence – presents the typical passerby, of whom there are many on Hamidia Road – with an extremely curious and amusing picture, the impact of which, to repeat, Smith is, for the time being, entirely unaware of.
Having spent ten days walking the streets of Bhopal with Smith, I must say that here, in this city, the pursuit of amateur photography does not appear to be hugely popular. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, if amateur photography is a popular pursuit amongst the many Bhopalis who make frequent use of the street – as a site of employment and /or leisure and / or travel and / or accommodation – then it is not something that is pursued in public. In fact, I cannot recall one occasion when I have seen anyone in Bhopal using any kind of camera, including one found in a mobile phone; something that would of course be very common in most Western cities.
That said, it may be the case, as I have hinted, that amateur photographic activities are pursued, behind closed doors. Regrettably, this is not something that I am in a position to verify, although the form that these activities might take is something that Smith and I have discussed.
I can, however, confirm the existence of a relatively small but thriving professional photographic portrait industry in Bhopal. On Hamidia Road, for example, Smith and I are pleased to report the presence of two commercial studios. Outside of each are posted examples of the types of images one might expect to be able to purchase – of oneself and / or one’s family – should one ever decide to enter either studio. It’s worth noting – and it should come as no surprise to learn – that out of 27 pictures, including beaming children with building bricks, ersatz Bollywood teen queens in red, yellow or blue leather twin sets and men in silk shirts on motorbikes, all but two of those on display would appear to have been taken indoors. That is, in a photographic studio, presumably one located at the back of each of the premises in question. (4)
Bearing these things in mind – the relative absence of a visible amateur photographic culture in Bhopal and the hegemony of the high street photographic aesthetic, one might argue that street photography in Bhopal – unlike London or New York – should most definitely be regarded as a most unusual activity. In addition, the performance of a street photography in Bhopal involving a medium format camera, a relatively large flash gun (the use value of which would probably not at first be immediately obvious to most people on Hamidia Road), a light meter and a brown baseball cap would, I suppose, in this context at least, constitute an extremely unusual – even unclassifiable – event.
Routes and Objects (4): Hoshangabad Rd. - Union Carbide Rd. (plus one contradiction)
At 6.30am on 23 September 2010 Smith (2010) writes:
'There must be seven or eight of them standing round me. When I’m done I pass him the camera but I’m jealous because his fucking teeth are a lot whiter than mine. Jesus. The shutter’s primed and the flash is ready to go. But he doesn’t know which bit to look through or what to press. So I slide my hand down his right wrist and say: "Press this". Then I show him how to focus by turning the lens barrel to the left and then to the right and all the time I’m saying things about what this means. And I’m touching him and I think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t’, so I let go, walk away, then turn around but, before I can speak, the flash goes off. Then three kids ask me to photograph them posing like gangsters. They don’t use the word ‘gangsters’. Or maybe they do, in Urdu or Hindi. I wouldn’t know; I don’t speak Urdu or Hindi. The truth is I’d rather not be doing any of this and I wonder what would happen if I didn’t? One day I’ll try it, just to see. Anyway, the point is I’m here to photograph the gas. Not them.
'And to make up a route:
'Depart Hoshangabad Road / Obedulla Ganj Road toward Bank Colony Road. Bear left onto SR-12 / SR-86 / Chicklod Road. Pass through three roundabouts, remaining on Jahangirabad Road. Keep right to stay on SR-12 / SR-86 / Sultania Road. Pass through three roundabouts, remaining on Sultania Road. Turn left onto Old Saifia College Road. Bear left onto Berasia Road. Turn right onto Union Carbide Road. Arrive at Union Carbide Road, Bhopal 462001.' (p. 50)
Routes and Objects (5): Flanders St. - Ocean Rd. via Montauk Highway
At 12.40pm on 5 October 2010 Smith (2010) writes:
'New York City to Montauk Point, NY (plus one passenger).
'Depart Flanders St. toward Steve Flanders Square. Turn right onto Center St. He looked really great when he was crying and scraping his fingers through his hair. Take slip road left for Brooklyn Bridge toward Kennedy Airport. Take slip Rd. right for Cadman Plaza West. Turn right onto Prospect St. Turn right onto Jay St. Bear left onto Sands St. He looked better when I couldn’t see the lower half of his body which repulses me, even though he – if not his body – is as far away from me now, in this car, as the asteroids on Seneca street were from Earth (our planet) before they crash landed, finally, in Arizona, or Dakota, but more likely Arizona because that’s where things from outer space always end up. Take slip road right for 1-278 East / Brooklyn Queen’s Expressway toward Triboro Bridge. I do care about the way he looks. At exit 35 take slip road right for 1-495 East / Long Island Expressway / Queens’s Midtown Expressway toward Eastern Long Island. It’s intolerable. Take slip road right. Which is probably why his girlfriend left him and why I’m determined not to give in to a similar urge. Bear right onto Captain Daniel Roe Highway / CR-111. After I finished talking about my girlfriend I knew he was going to start crying again. "I have to go", he said, "Let me out". Take slip road left for SR-27 East / Sunrise Highway. Arrive at Montauk Point, NY.
'Montauk Point to 929 Ocean Road, Bridgehampton, NY.
'Depart SR-27 West / Montauk Highway. Bear left onto Bridgehampton / Sag Harbor Turnpike. Road name changes to Ocean Rd. Arrive at 929 Ocean Rd, Bridgehampton, NY 11932.' (p. 51)
Routes and Objects (6): Oxford St. - 929 Ocean Rd. via Memory Motel
Smith spends three hours on – or in the immediate vicinity – of Ocean Road, Bridgehampton, during which time she meets three strangers. They are all wearing grey flannel track suits and appear to be in their mid to late sixties. Smith is wearing a pair of chinos, a mauve and grey stripy t-shirt that was purchased at Next in Oxford Street, London three weeks earlier, a pair of rubber soled black Vans and a brown Carhartt baseball cap. The baseball cap is stained with anorexic fingers of sweat that are most prominent at the point where the peak meets the cap proper. Since Smith’s cap had neither been cleaned nor worn in London during the four days that she spent there en route to the USA, it is probable that all identifiable sweat stains were produced between September and October 2010 at locations in Bhopal, India and New York State, USA.
Most of the vehicular traffic on Ocean Road is commercial. Judging by the legends impressed upon the sides of lorries and trucks, much of it belongs to the local service industries: Alagran Waste Collection; Overhorst Landscaping; Bunny Wood Caterers etc.
62% of all drivers of commercial vehicles are non-white. 0% of all drivers of commercial vehicles are black. 62% of all drivers of commercial vehicles on Ocean Road between the hours of 11am - 2pm on 3 October 2010 are Hispanic.
While photographing one of the fairways at the Bridgehampton Club’s exquisitely located nine-hole golf course, Smith ponders the domestic arrangements of Bridgehampton’s many service workers. She believes that most of them probably live in the vicinity of Montauk Point which is 26 miles north of Bridgehampton, although she has no evidence to support this.
Montauk Point is the home of the Memory Motel, after which the Rolling Stones’ song 'Memory Motel', which appears on their 1976 rock faux-funk album, Black and Blue, was allegedly named.
The Bridgehampton Club golf course features 2,846 yards of exclusive golfing facility. The course rating is 67.8 and it has a slope rating of 122. Bridgehampton golf course opened in 1896, exactly eighty years before the release of Black and Blue. (5)
At the foot of Ocean Road – several meters before the first dune – Smith turns right and proceeds to saunter along a narrow private thoroughfare, on either side of which are a significant number of buildings built in the International Style. It is likely that some of these buildings have been designed by one or other of the following architects (Lawrence & Surchin, 2007): John Russell Pope, Cross & Cross and F. Burrall Hoffman, but neither Smith nor I have any evidence to support this. At the end of the road is a subsidiary branch of the Bridgehampton Club. Smith takes several more photographs, then turns around and begins the long walk back to 929 Ocean Road. (Fig. 24)
An expensive car is parked in the driveway. It is not a convertible, purple Bugatti Veyron. The Bugatti Veyron costs $1, 192, 057 and can potentially travel at a speed of more than 250mph, but the car in the driveway at 929 Ocean Road is not a Bugatti Veyron. Because an expensive car is parked there, however, it may be fair to assume that Mr. Anderson is inside the white clapboard house that he shares with his wife, Lillian, at 929 Ocean Road.
There are many things that Mr. Anderson could be doing at the precise moment that Smith is nervously engaged in the act of photographing the area in the immediate vicinity of Mr Anderson’s home, including:
1. Stroking an animal.
2. Remonstrating with another person.
3. Almost finishing a sentence.
Ethnographic Colour: another valuable unit of production (2) (including an outrageous fiction)
Smith instructs the several small children and young adults that have accompanied him to Bridgehampton from Blue Moon Colony in Bhopal to deposit the package of delicious rossigola (a traditional Indian confection made of pastry soaked in syrup) at Mr. Anderson’s front door. But, like Smith, the children are afraid. So, instead, Rashida places the package very carefully, so as not to spill any of its contents, at the bottom of Mr Anderson’s drive.
Smith (2010) writes:
'Rashida, who is almost ten years old and has pulmonary fibrosis, proceeds to deliver a long speech that she wrote by herself:
'Rashida: "Mr Anderson, what distresses me most is not that:
'"One of the world’s most powerful corporations is allegedly responsible for the demise of thousands of Bhopali citizens – I use the word ‘allegedly’ advisedly – or that the response to the disaster on the part of Union Carbide, Dow Chemical and the Indian government, has transformed the disaster into something that now, in retrospect, looks remarkably like a genocide. (Fig. 25)
'"Or that one of the world’s most powerful corporations and its partners have refused to clean up the site of the factory, or its densely populated surrounding areas and that they are, as a result therefore, directly responsible for the ongoing pollution of soil and groundwater with toxic chemicals including: dichlorobenzene, hexachlorobenzene, trichlorobenzene, carboryl, aldicarb, mercury, arsenic and chromium.
'"Or that exposing human beings, including unborn children – which is presently the case - to excessive amounts of dichlorobenzene, hexachlorobenzene, carboryl, aldicarb, mercury, arsenic and chromium can and does cause some or all of the following: liver cirrhosis; severely compromised blood cells, lungs, kidneys and nervous and reproductive systems; ulceration; bone defects; loss of hair; endocrinal disruption and arrested mental and physical development in children; an increase in chromosomal abnormalities; carcinogenic growths and a compromised immune system." (6)
'Rashida coughs and continues.
'Rashida: "Or that in 2010 Dow Chemical was the recipient of the Robert W. Campbell Award at the annual National Safety Council Congress & Expo in San Diego California.
'"Or that this international award recognizes a company that upholds environmental health and safety as a key business value and thus clearly links measurable achievement in environmental, health and safety performance to productivity and profitability.
'"Or that, according to Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (Dowfriends, 2012), ‘This is a proud moment for all of us. We operate a ‘safety first, production second’ mindset at Dow, and our ‘Drive to Zero’ global safety goals will always come first because it’s what’s right for our employees, our communities, our customers, our business partners and our environment.’ (7) (Fig. 26)
'"Or that Andrew N. Liveris resides in Midland, Michigan. Or that he and his wife Paula have three children, Nicholas, Alexandra and Anthony.
'"Or that the following objects have been enjoyed at various times by the Liveris children and / or children like them and that they will therefore be exhibited in a glass case next to Tank E110 at the UCIL factory site in Bhopal:
'"a) a baseball bat;
'"b) a box of Oreos;
'"c) a white sports bra;
'"d) a glass of water" (pp. 56-58)
'When Rashida has finished speaking – and despite not explaining what she does find so disappointing – she releases another gift from the bowels of Tank E110 (replica).' (Fig. 27)
Notes
1. According to the report, compiled in 2009, by the Centre for Science and Environment (New Delhi) into toxicity levels in water and soil samples from in and around the former UCIL factory site (quoted in Dinkar & Kaur, 2009): In the Arif Nagar district – 400m from the factory – the level of water contamination is 59.3 times in excess of the national safety standard; in Shiv Nagar district – 3kms from the factory site – the level of water contamination is 38.6 times in excess of the national safety standard; and inside the factory site itself the level of surface water contamination is 561 times in excess of the national safety standard (p.29).
2. For first person accounts of the ‘night of the gas’ see ‘Ramesh’s Story’ & ‘Bano Bi’s Story’ in Hanna et al. (2005). Also, see Suketu Mehta’s ‘Bhopal lives: The night of the gas’ in the same publication. Although the disaster has motivated various responses in the fields of, for example, anthropology (Mooney, 2002), law (Fortun, 2001) and medical and environmental science (Ranjan & Sarangi, 2003), the infrequency of references to the ongoing disaster in popular western culture is remarkable, particularly given Hollywood’s apparent predilection for genocide, political corruption and environmental disaster (see any number of Holocaust movies including Sophie’s Choice (1982), Schindler’s List (1993) etc. as well as Hotel Rwanda (2004), The Killing Fields (1984) and Erin Brockovich (2000). That said, the disaster has motivated some popular representations of it including Maximillian Carson’s (2011) recent ‘blockbuster’ documentary, Bhopali; Indra Sinha’s (2007) Animal People and Dominique Lapierre & Javier Moro’s (2002) Five Past Midnight in Bhopal. For comprehensive and frequently updated coverage of the disaster, its aftermath and grass roots responses to it, see the following websites: Bhopal Medical Appeal (www.bhopal.org/); International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (bhopal.net/) and The Chingari Trust (www.chingaritrustbhopal.com/).
3. See Veena Das, 'Moral orientations to suffering: legitimation, power and healing' in Hanna et al (2005: 51-59). As a result of the passing of the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act in March 1985, the Indian Supreme Court made a judicial order on 15 February 1989, instructing the Indian government and Union Carbide to agree on compensation amounting to $470m for the victims of the gas disaster; approximately $500 for each gas-effected person. As part of the settlement, Union Carbide and its subsidiaries were to be granted immunity against any criminal or civil liability (past, present and future) arising from the Bhopal disaster. The immunity clause was subsequently revoked by the Indian Supreme Court in 1991 (Das, 53). In February 2001 Union Carbide was merged with the Dow Chemical Company and in 2002 Dow Chemical’s Chief Public Relations Officer, Kathy Hunt (quoted in Bannerjee, 2010) announced that ‘five hundred dollars was plenty good for an Indian’ (p. 7). Das (2005) writes: ‘With (the Bhopal Act), the government of India, in accordance of its parens patriae function, took upon itself the responsibility of the conduct of the case and the welfare of the victims… In normal circumstances, parens patriae refers to the inherent power and authority of a legislature to provide protection to the person and property of persons non sui juris, such as minors, insane and incompetent persons’ (p. 53). According to Das, ‘The victims of the Bhopal disaster had been assimilated to the category of non sui juris, even when in the normal course of events they would not be considered judicially incompetent, because it was evident that they did not have the resources to pursue the case themselves. However, the Act was challenged on the grounds that by its enactment, the government had constituted itself as surrogate of the victims and taken away their right to be heard’ (p. 56). It is ironic, writes Das, that ‘the people declared incompetent and irresponsible were neither the multinational nor the government, but…the sufferers themselves’ (p. 56).
4. For a useful insight into the technical and aesthetic conventions of high street photographic culture in Bhopal, visit the website of high street portraitist, Prashant Gujar, whose studio is located in the Shivaji Nagar district: prashantphotography.net/links.html .
5. bridgehamptonclub.org/.
6. Rashida is referring to Johnson, Duca, Johnson, Sahu and Jadon (2009) (Quoted in Dinkar & Kaur, 2009).
7. www.dow.com/friends/pdfs/dowfriends_21611_v2.pdf (accessed on 5.1.12).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following: Satinath Sarangi, Sanjay Verma, Bhopal Medical Appeal, Chingari Trust; Marq Smith at Journal of Visual Culture, and Susan Pui San Lok for her brilliant editorial guidance and support; Jennifer Parker-Starbuck and Year 2 drama students at University of Roehampton, who somehow made a success of turning this into a theatrical production; Clare Norton, Jonathan Skinner, MKL and Kay Dickinson.
'Smith in Bhopal' first appeared in Journal of Visual Culture (2013: 12) under the title, 'Bhopal to Bridgehampton: schema for a disaster tourism event'.