on the road

a few weeks ago I mentioned in passing my work on Bhopal - the Union Carbide disaster site of 1984 in central India. As I became more immersed in the technicalities of site assessment and cleanup, the intricate environmental justice tangle emerged as much more complex in India's post colonial environment than most articles were letting on. Having adopted a framework of analysis based on that of the U.S. environmental justice movement, it became apparent that I was far from understanding the implications of cleanup and the present dynamic of stakeholder interplay.

in short, this case is MESS-y.

I needed a better feel for the pulse of the Bhopal justice movement - on the ground. not so simple. in a crushing e-mail rejection of my offer to volunteer at the survivors clinic, I learned that the revolutionary leader for victims advocacy in Bhopal has tremendous suspicions of Cherokee's very purely intentioned but perhaps overly ambitious offer to assist with site assessment and eventual cleanup. by affiliation, I was blacklisted. he quickly terminated what was once an amicable e-mail relationship, and my Bhopal prospects were finished. in the next few days my alternate contacts wavered between promising, and dismal with travel plans roller coasting - on...off...on...off...so it goes.

Friday afternoon i got a green light,

and that's how i came to spend the second half of my birthday...en route to Indjaaa.

mmm, birthday dinner.

Having traveled with my brother Mohammad for the past 2 summers, it was now Ahmad's turn to begin some globe-trotting - i'm quickly acclimatizing to a 16-year-old brand of humor...

while making every effort not to adopt it as my own!