Toxic clouds of 1984

In early December 1984, a poisoned cloud spewing from a factory lacking in safety mechanisms killed, maimed and choked tens of thousands. Twenty-five years on, the legacy of that fateful night is playing out in the tortured souls and bodies of the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster. In this issue, Indra Sinha, in a story written for Himal to commemorate the disaster, resurrects Animal, that creature on all fours – at once angry, funny and hopeful.

As we had read in Sinha's award-winning novel Animal's People (2007), Animal's fictional city of Khaufpur was devastated by a terrible catastrophe around the time he was born, and is still not recovered. We learned how the poor and sick of the city are treated like dirt by those in power, and Animal, who is at the bottom of the heap, has by and large resigned from the human race. In this edition of his travels to Bhopal, site of the world's worst industrial disaster, Animal continues to be boundless, refusing to accept the restraint of human law, custom or convention. He is his own creature – the only one of his species there is, according to him; like any human teenager, however, he has all the normal terrible urges and feelings, but little hope of indulging them.

To complement Animal's indomitable spirit in this issue, artist Venantius J Pinto gives life to his ferocity, seemingly riding on the River Styx in a netherworld of frustration and despair. Yet somewhere lurks the ability to perceive and derive strength from rejection and the denial of compassion.