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I was just eight days old and still in the hospital when the gas leaked. My father who was with me then, told me, doctors put me in a glass box, but I still got gas in my eyes and through my breath. My father also got hit by the gas. My mother and elder sister and brother were at home. They did not run away, all night they stayed under a thick quilt. My mother went out to see what the commotion was all about and she got quite badly affected. She coughs all the time and gets fever often. Her body aches and she has pain in her hands and legs. My father has pain in his stomach. After the gas I they kept me in the hospital for about 15 days then all of us went to our village. I study in fifth grade. Early this year I had gone to my grandmothers place. We had gone for two months but then my uncle broke his leg in an accident so we had to stay longer. When I came back they won't take me back at school. I liked going to school. I used to study Science, Hindi, Social Science and English. Most of all I liked studying science because you learn about how the body works and how things work. When I grow up I want to become a science teacher or a doctor. Most of all I want to become a good man. I like playing cricket. I think the Indian team is the best in the world and Sachin Tendulkar is the very best. Azharuddin and, Nayan Mongia and Saurav Ganguly are pretty good too. When I play cricket I cant make many runs because I get breathless when I run and my chest hurts. I would like to watch cricket on TV but I cant because my eyes hurt and get filled with tears when I watch TV. My eyes hurt when I read. My friends too have all kinds of health problems. I have many friends but there are about ten with whom I am closest. We live right across the Carbide factory. So many people in our community are sick. So many have died. And people are still dying after they have been sick for a long time. People cant breathe properly, they often have fever, aches and pain in their stomach. Men and women have become weak. Lot of people can not go to work. I do not know who is the owner of the factory. One of my neighbours told me they used to make poisons to kill insects in the factory. I think no body should make poisons. Why kill insects, or rats or any other living thing. They have their life and we have our own. Why kill? The poisons from the factory have come into our drinking water wells. There is poison all around. Some people in my neighbourhood remind me that I stayed alive even though I was so small while so many people died. They make it sound like I brought on all this on the people. That makes me really sad.
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