Printable page
Email a friendPersonal destinies
UNUSUALLY for me, Western infatuation with Oriental mysticism is an immediate turn-off, smacking of the Beatles and the Maharishi and hardly anything to do with the troubles of the 21st century. However, I found this book fascinating from start to finish.
It tells the story of the quests for enlightenment by three people whose destinies meet and cross in India.
It takes for its jumping-off point the terrible night of December 3 1984, when a Union Carbide pesticide plant released 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas into the atmosphere, killing approximately 3,800 people in the heart of the city of Bhopal in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Anyone picking it up expecting to read an impassioned denunciation of the evils of chemical neo-colonialism will be disappointed.
This is a story of personal self-realisation, which even includes the head of the murderous corporation which killed so many people Warren Anderson.
"May he one day find peace," says one of the protagonists.
I was reminded of Ernesto Cardinale's declaration that to take the riches away from the rich would be an act of love, because their wealth oppresses them also. Only thus can they find peace.
KARL DALLAS