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.
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.
5 comments:
Nice....
it seems to follow the style of short stories written by archer, forsythe etc...
My major complaint is with the last sentence. Its too direct. And considering the emotions that ppl still associate with the bhopal incident, i guess you should have tried a more subtle way of writing it.
Hey...
Read ur blog thru a comment u left on mine...liked your posts in the short story style. Good work!
Nice piece of writing..would be nicer without the last line!
Good adaptation
Good adaptation
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