The Muffin's......

The day began at exactly 7:01 AM, when I woke up to shut the first alarm. Obviously, I went back to sleep, my last thought being that the alarm would ring again at exactly 7:14 AM. (My alarm is set to ring every 13 minutes). Needless to say, I was up again at 7:14, only to tell myself that I'll actually be waking up at 7:27. Now I know it isn't exactly quantum physics, but I've always been secretly proud of myself for being able to calculate so quickly even in the state of deepest sleep. The small things in life really do make me happy. Well anyway, after adding 13 five times over, I finally woke up at 8:06. I'd be marked 'late' in office if I reached after 8:40. And I knew that if I had to reach office at 8:40, then I just had to leave home at 8:40. No, that isn't a typo. The clock in office is 5 minutes slow, my watch is 5 minutes fast, and office is 10 minutes away. So there.

Now, I don't have breakfast before leaving, I shave only on Mondays, and in an extremely rare show of responsibility, I had ironed my shirt the previous night, by mistake. (I was thinking about, ahem, someone, and absent-mindedly ended up ironing my shirt). Thank God for small miracles, since the time saved on ironing my shirt meant that I was able to get ready in time. I was feeling quite happy with myself, right until I reached the door to put on my shoes. For a moment I thought that I had brought home the wrong pair the previous day. My shoes were black, but these were brown! It took me a full second to realize that that was impossible, since I don't take off my shoes in office. I spared a moment to admire the perfect layer of dried mud on my shoes, before I began cleaning them. It took me 90 precious seconds to clean them up. 90 out of the 600 that it took me to reach office. That's 15% of the total time required. Which meant that I had to ride 15% faster if I had to make it on time. Of course, even in that haste, I still had enough time to yet again feel proud of myself for the neat calculation. But that was for only about 3 seconds because, as I mounted my mode of transport, I thought of what my only friend in the world, my trusty motorcycle, would have to suffer, just because I was irresponsible. The traffic, the bumpy-at-some-places and slippery-at-others route to my office, and most of all, my weight. All of it at 60 kph. Damn. But then, what are friends for? I cranked it up a notch on the road, the wind making the seven-and-a-half hair on my head fly like nobody's business. It was only on the last stretch of the route to office that I realized that if I had to choose between being 2 minutes late to office, and dying a gruesome death on the road, I would have actually chosen the former.

I hurried up to my office, and as I beeped my access card and looked at the digital clock at reception, I heaved a sigh of relief. 8:40. Alls well that ends well. Then reality began to sink in. It wasn't the end, but only the beginning of a day in office. As I walked to my seat, I spied a quick glance at the reason that I was able to make it to office on time. That precious split-second would be enough to last me another 24 hours. Or so I told myself.

As I settled into my seat, I thought about what I had to do the remainder of the day. Now to be honest, I don't really think I am good at my job. But then that is exactly what makes it a challenge. It has something to do with mortgage loans, which is a far cry from my days as an engineering student. But then, if I wasn't inventing an alternative to the internal combustion engine, then I wasn't much use as a mechanical engineer anyway. (Incidentally, I had come up with a conceptual alternative to the IC engine. More on that some other day.) I do find quite amusing, the idea of a mechanical engineering graduate, working in the mortgage banking sector, intending to be a filmmaker some day. And after I think of this, I spend a few quiet moments feeling sorry for my super-parents, who unfortunately have had to suffer me and my whims & fancies. Now that's what I call unfair.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of ginger-flavoured tea, title commitments, appraisals, credit reports and some other mortgage-related stuff. As I left office, I realized that I had forgotten to have breakfast, and since I don't have lunch anyway, it meant that all I'd had all day was, well, tea and water. (Yes, I'm one of those who takes the term 'chai-pani' a bit too seriously...)

While riding back, I thought of the packet of Knorr soup, the eggs, and the Capsico Red Pepper Sauce at home. Yum. I spent a lazy evening, thinking and watching a bit of TV, until midnight, when I decided that it was time for me to don my chef's hat. And right enough, eating the tasty soup that I whipped up, and watching the France-Italy do-or-die Euro 2008 match that night was a nice experience. Well, France losing did prove to be a bit of a spoiler, but what the hell. After the World Cup final loss, I don't think a French defeat can hurt me that much anymore. As I finally switched off the TV, I suddenly felt like a bike ride. There was a slight drizzle that night. The idea of a bike ride, in the rain, with music in my ears appeals to me like very few other things do.

As I set off on my bike, I started thinking of all the things that I love to do, and all the people I love. The chill in the night and the warmth in my heart combined to bring me to state of much-needed equilibrium, if only for a few minutes. 25 immensely enjoyable minutes later, I was back home, finally in the mood to end my day. It was 2:30 AM. 4 hours and 31 minutes for the alarm to ring for the first time, again. I settled into bed and said a silent prayer for the people I love, and the people I don't know.

So, I have just described one of the most pointless days in the history of mankind. Life's a piece of delicious black forest pastry, eh?

The Reaction

It was a cold December night. Jay looked at his watch. All he could see was a blurry image of the hour hand somewhere between 9 and 10. He hadn’t realized that his inebriated brain, in collusion with his feet, had brought him back to the Plant. His thoughts floated back to what he was so desperately trying to forget. The phone call from Pallavi. He still couldn’t believe what she had said to him today. How could she marry someone else? How could she forget all those moments that they had spent together? And she had ended it on the phone! Jay usually never drank, and he did not know why he had done so today. He had heard that drinking numbs any mental pain. He knew now that it was all hogwash. He, in fact, felt worse.

The imposing structure in front of him beckoned him inside. He knew that he would get some peace inside the Plant, since the last workers would have left for the day.

His footsteps echoed through the night with quite the same emptiness that he felt inside him. Once upon a time the Plant used to be Jay’s favourite place in the world. His mind went back to his days as a young chemistry student, when he first met Pallavi. As he sat down on the ground, it suddenly struck him that his love for chemistry and his love for Pallavi had blossomed at about the same time. In fact, he had confessed his feelings for Pallavi around the same time as he had helped his company come up with a cost-effective way of making 1-napthyl-N-methylcarbamate or carbaryl, better known as the pesticide Sevin. The brilliance of it still never ceased to amaze him. Sevin was made by reacting methyl isocyanate or MIC with 1-naphtol. MIC used to be imported from USA until five years back. That was when Jay came into the picture. Jay had suggested reacting methyl amine with phosgene to form MIC. This had helped reduce the cost involved in making Sevin. It did however increase the risks involved, since they now had to deal with two deadly gases – MIC and phosgene. Phosgene was even used as a chemical warfare agent. Jay soon noticed that the management was not spending enough on ensuring the complete safety of the plant workers. Of course, he reasoned that they really couldn’t be blamed. The demand for pesticide had fallen, and the company was producing more MIC than was actually being sold. They had been operating at a loss for quite a while now. Jay did not particularly fancy the idea of abandoning a sinking ship, but he had grown tired of working non-stop, giving up precious time with Pallavi, for a loss-making organization which did not even care about its employees’ welfare. He had already received offers from companies abroad, and was just waiting to get married to Pallavi so that he could take her with him. Of course, that was all before the phone call today. He couldn’t believe that Pallavi hadn’t waited for him. And if she was really getting frustrated with his working hours, then why hadn’t she at least spoken to him about it? Just thinking about all of this filled him with intense pain, the kind he had never known before. He knew that he could not continue to live with this kind of pain. He knew that all he wanted right now was relief from the pain. All he wanted was to die.

He had a long look at the layout of the plant around him. He realized that he was now almost directly over Tank 610, which would be containing about 40 metric tones of liquefied MIC. He knew that MIC has a Threshold Limit Value / Time Weighted Average of 0.02 ppm or 20 parts per billion. Which means that the average concentration of MIC under which most people can work consistently for eight hours, day in, day out, with no harmful effects, is 20 parts per billion. Individuals would begin to experience severe irritation of the nose and throat at exposures to MIC above 21 parts per billion. Phosgene has a TLV/TWA of 100 parts per billion. Thus, in a way, MIC is deadlier than phosgene. Prolonged exposure to MIC would cause coughing, dyspnea, chest pain, eyelid edema and unconsciousness. 24 to 72 hours following exposure would see pulmonary edema, cardiac arrest and finally, death. Jay started thinking about what 40 metric tones of MIC would do to a person.

Considering how drunk he was, Jay suddenly felt surprisingly clear-headed. He knew what he wanted to do, and he knew how he had to do it. He found it fitting that the two things he loved the most in the world would be the ultimate causes of his death. Pallavi, and organic chemistry. Jay possessed intimate knowledge of the piping around Tank 610. He slowly walked to a water hose close to the tank and picked it up. He knew exactly where he had to make the connection, exactly which pressure indicator he had to remove, and exactly what would happen once he turned on the water supply. As he put the finishing touches to his handiwork, and turned on the water, he fell onto the ground in a heap. With great effort, he got himself to turn around. He was now flat on his back, with his head looking skywards. He could see the top of the exhaust tower, 35 metres above the ground. He knew that slowly, as water filled up inside Tank 610, the temperature inside the tank would increase, and once over 39.1°C, the MIC would boil, and once the pressure exceeded a particular value, the emergency valve would go off, releasing gaseous MIC into the atmosphere from the very exhaust tower that he was looking at. Also, if he had judged the management right, the reaction would be accelerated by iron from the corroding non-stainless steel pipes, which had not yet been replaced. Once into the atmosphere, he knew the gas would descend upon him, as it was 2 times heavier than air. With this knowledge of his impending fate, Jay closed his eyes. His last thoughts were the moments that he spent with Pallavi by the lake near the plant. The clarity that he had felt earlier suddenly disappeared in a haze. If he was not drunk, he would perhaps have been able to foresee the tragedy that he had just unleashed, which would plague innocent people of Bhopal for decades to come…


This is completely a work of fiction, dedicated to the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.