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We had had a normal evening at home. I, my four daughter-in laws, my five sons and my daughter. We'd eaten and then gone to sleep. I was the one who woke first. I lay alone in my room and started getting irritated that maybe my daughter-in-laws were burning chillies on the stove. I started shouted and swearing at them. I went to the kitchen where I saw the stove was cold. By this time all my sons and daughter-in-laws had been woken up by my shouting. Smoke started to fill everywhere. Outside people were running and shouting 'bhago, bhago'. ("Run, run".) We found out from people around that there had been a leak from carbide. We couldn't see anything, we were coughing and kept having loose motions. My grandson was one years old then. I put him on my chest to protect him as much as possible. But his face swelled to twice its size, his eyes were puffed tight. We were really scarred. My daughter-in-law was pregnant then. I could not tell her how deformed her son had become. We thought we were going to die. I kept praying 'Allah miah hame bacha lijiye, Allah miah hame bacha lijiye.' ("Dear God, please save us, dear Lord, please save us.") Pretty soon I felt weak and within half an hour I began to pass out. My daughter-in-laws put water on me and tried to get me dressed. They managed to put me in a petticoat. By now, there was so much smoke in the house that we couldn't even see the pots. Two of my sons had gone to see what had happened. The smaller one was sent back with a message that we should go towards DIG bungalow because there was no gas there. My eyes were now so swollen that I couldn't see out of them. So about an hour after I first felt the gas, we left the house, my daughter-in-laws held me by the hands. The streets were full of corpses. The skins of people were full of blisters. Nobody could be recognised. We made it to DIG bungalow and then went and sat outside the factory. Many people were there in the same state that we were in. We all just thought of saving ourselves. We stayed there all night and in the morning some doctors came and gave us some red medicine. The military trucks came and took us to 'bara sau pachas' ("1250") to the camp. My daughter who lived near the station sat outside her house with her 20 day old son. She sat there not moving whilst someone came and stole her silver anklet. My son died one month later. Look at the state of me now. I can't do anything. There has been so much sickness from the gas. I also no longer wear saris. A relative of mine who was wearing a sari got thrown onto a pyre. She was just unconscious. She woke up and ran. Since then no woman in my family wears a sari. We figure that if something else happens to us we should at least be sent off in the proper way (Zubeda Bi is muslim and would wish to be buried). Otherwise people might think we were Hindus and cremate us. |