Episode 6: We’re Not Flowers – We’re Fire

EPISODE 6: WE’RE NOT FLOWERS; WE’RE FIRE

 

ACT I

0:00

Apoorva: When it comes to the tragedy, there are women like my aunt, who have stored away the memories of that night in the attic of their mind. Sometimes they rummage through it when someone like me comes along to ask. Sometimes they feel compelled to go through it to remind themselves that they were there, that it happened. They can’t bear the thought of throwing those memories away, but ultimately they matter little in their day-to-day lives. Arguably, they mattered little as soon as the shock of the tragedy had subsided.

     Once the media circus was over, the hospitals had emptied out, and the roads had been cleaned up, it seemed everyone returned to their lives. My aunt finished college and defied norms to get a prestigious job as the only female manager in a steel factory in a different city. My neighbor became a professor; her sister-in-law started a business. They all got married, they had healthy children, and their lives continued. 

Molly: Down the hill, four kilometers away across from the factory, a different story unfolded. These women were not allowed to forget the tragedy. No matter how many times the roads were cleaned, the physical factory stood before them to remind them of what happened. They lost their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, children that night, and no matter how much time passed, the fact remained that all they had left of so many of their loved ones was memories. 

Abida Bi: I saw Bhopal go free. I don’t know how old I am. I don’t know how to count, but I know that I saw the day Bhopal was freed in 1947. We were freed from one tragedy only to stumble onto this one. 

[music]

Apoorva: Abida Bi is referencing India’s independence from the British in 1947. She is probably in her 80s, and she, like so many others, held onto their memories and one of two things happened: either they felt empowered to make change or they felt the stigma of being a gas survivor– a gas victim, as they’re called in Bhopal. Women like Hazra Bi became activists. They stepped into roles they had never been allowed to be in before, roles that they didn’t even realize existed, all because someone needed to. 

Hazra Bi:  “Burqa wearing, purdah honoring, that was the woman I used to be. But when we were surviving the night of the tragedy, there was no time for a burqa. There was no time for a purdah. Should I have saved my children, or taken care of the dead bodies, or put on a burqa? 

 

INTRO

03:03

[music]

Molly: This is the story of the Bhopal gas tragedy, of the men, women, and children who survived it, and the decades-long struggle for justice, compensation, and the right to clean drinking water.

Apoorva: This is the story of the Bhopalis who were shaped but not defined by the disaster, of hope, of resilience, and of memory. I’m Apoorva Dixit.

Molly: This is They Knew Which Way to Run. Please note that this podcast contains depictions of death and loss that some people may find disturbing. I’m Molly Mulroy.

Apoorva: And I’m Apoorva Dixit.

—

Molly: Episode 6: We’re Not Flowers; We’re Fire

 

ACT II

04:07

Molly: In previous episodes, we finished telling you the story of Rasheeda Bi and the other 100 women who continued to fight almost 30 years for the right to a living wage as gas tragedy survivors. But that was only one branch of their activism.

Apoorva: In fact, the group of activists continued to grow larger and broader, fighting for justice on a number of topics and protesting generally Union Carbide, and eventually Dow Chemical’s, expansion.

Rasheeda Bi: In February 2001, when Union Carbide and Dow Chemical signed their merger, we took 300 women to Mumbai. In Bombay, we painted Dow’s entire office red and said that this is Bhopal’s blood. If they’re buying Union Carbide, then they also have to buy its responsibilities to us. 

Apoorva: When corporations acquire companies, it is common practice for them to not acquire their legal liability. So as far as Dow Chemical is concerned, they have nothing to do with Bhopal. They cannot be sued, and there is no appealing to them… so there is literally no corporation left to take responsibility for the Gas Tragedy and the current abandoned factory.

Rasheeda: In Dec 2001, we gathered brooms and got dirt from the factory that again we took to Bombay to their headquarters, to ask them to clean up the mess they left. There, we were told everything would get done, and when we got back, we learned we were banned from getting within 100 meters of the headquarters. 

     Then we took our “Jhado Maro Dow Ko” (“Hit Dow with Brooms”) campaign to Africa. That’s the name we’ve given the campaign that demands Dow clean up the factory that still stands here. If they don’t, the women of Bhopal will show their anger by hitting them with brooms. And it is not just Bhopal but the women of the world. First, we went to Johannesburg, then to Switzerland, then Italy, Russia, France, Paris, Japan, everywhere. We did events throughout Europe.

     We went all over the world, wherever they had a CEO to give them a broom and make them understand the gravity of our situation. You are spreading poison not only in Bhopal but the world over. We were never given justice but maybe we can prevent the next Bhopal by alerting people of the cost of a Dow factory. Wherever they want to put a factory, we ask if they have taken responsibility for Bhopal. And if they have not, then they have no right to continue putting down factories. 

Molly: What Rasheeda Bi and Champa Devi are protesting is larger than Dow Chemical. It is the global phenomenon of environmental racism. The World Economic Forum defines environmental racism as “a form of systemic racism whereby communities of color are disproportionately burdened with health hazards through policies and practices that force them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste… As a result, these communities suffer greater rates of health problems attendant on hazardous pollutants.” 

     Sounds familiar, right? Clearly, we’ve been talking implicitly about this the whole series, but it’s important to name it.

Apoorva: In our last episode, we heard from Children Against Dow Carbide about their trip to West Virginia to meet residents of what’s known as Chemical Valley. One important thing that we did not mention were the demographics of the region.

Molly: Unsurprisingly, the population of Chemical Valley is majority Black. Throughout the history of the United States, the worst pollution, environmental destruction, and industrial disasters have often fallen on the shoulders of the country’s Black and Indigenous residents. 

Apoorva: Zooming out further, globalization has allowed corporations to use majority Brown and Black developing countries as, essentially, their landfills. This is how the story of Bhopal began: when an American corporation headquartered in Connecticut needed somewhere to dump lethal chemical stocks it had developed for World War II. Chemicals like methyl isocyanate that Union Carbide plants in European countries, all majority white developed countries, were not even allowed to work with because their governments had banned them, given how dangerous these chemicals were. 

Molly: The concept of environmental racism is also relevant when considering the different communities within Bhopal. Religion, caste, class: all of these factors influenced the way people experienced the consequences of the tragedy.

Apoorva: The Union Carbide factory was built among the slums of Bhopal, where the city’s poorest residents, majority Muslim or lower-caste Hindu, had formed a community. That community was then made into a permanent settlement when the government gave the residents property deeds, despite the government’s knowledge of the dangers that the factory posed. And when disaster did inevitably strike, that community bore the brunt of it. 

     Meanwhile, the wealthier residents, many of them upper-caste Hindu, had a different experience of the disaster. Middle and upper-class Bhopalis lived at a higher elevation, and in houses with good ventilation, better insulating them from the gas leak in the first place. Then, literacy, education, and legal documentation made it easier to actually receive compensation from the courts. And the long-term pollution of Bhopal’s drinking water isn’t as much of an issue for the wealthier residents who all have water filters installed in their households. 

Molly: The reason environmental racism exists is that it saves corporations money. Because the victims of these disasters are invisible to so much of the world, the people responsible are able to get away with ignoring the problem completely. And when the government is more interested in protecting corporations than its citizens, there’s no one left to clean up the mess. 

     Which leaves the survivors no choice but to stand up and clean it themselves.

Apoorva: In 2004, Rasheeda Bi and Champa Devi were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco for their part in fighting for the environment. They used the money they earned to give back to the Bhopal community.

Rasheeda: First, by establishing a center for treating gas and water-affected children who are being born disabled. Second, we want to establish an award for uneducated women who know and fight against corporate injustices. We will give them Rs. 50,000, and we will unite with their fight so that we can all win together for the world. Third, we wanted to give skills training to women who have too many mouths to feed and not enough hands to earn money. So we wanted to help them. 

Apoorva: The center that Rasheeda Bi and Champa Devi established is now called the Chingari Rehab Center, and it serves all of the children of gas- and water-affected people. I mentioned it in an earlier episode when I introduced Rasheeda Bi. They have state-of-the-art equipment for each type of disability, like sound booths for diagnosing and treating deaf children, as well as teachers and therapists who specialize in disabilities and could, for example, teach how to read in braille, and be sensitive to the needs of mentally impaired children. Art that the students had drawn hung all over the walls, and the day I went, the whole school was busy in an intense game of water and color throwing as part of Holi celebrations. It was a beautiful sight. 

[music]

 

ACT III

13:06

Molly: Another activist who is critical to the Bhopal story is Abdul Jabbar. He was one of Bhopal’s most famous activists, and the only one Apoorva’s dad had heard of growing up. He led BGPMUS, the old guard NGO we introduced in Episode 4. He was a fairly soft-spoken and curt man, short, with a mustache. But what Apoorva found when she visited his office wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. Here’s what she told me after she met Abdul Jabbar for the first time in 2017.

Apoorva [phone interview]: It’s in the middle of Old Bhopal, and everybody in the area – if you just ask for him, everybody will know where his office is. Because you can’t find it easily. Google Maps will get you to the area, but it will not get you to the building. But as we were walking up, you could talk to anybody on the street, and they’d be like, “Oh, Mr. Jabbar? Yeah, just turn right there and go into that alley right there.”

     So anyway, we make it to his office, and it’s essentially this house. Each room is set up with a different vocational training camp of sorts; one room has all these computers. They’re from the ‘90s or 2000’s. They’re huge, So one room, they’re teaching folks how to type; another room is set up with sewing machines, and you can see a lot of women repairing clothing or sewing new clothing that they sell to make money. Then finally I came to Mr. Jabbar’s office, which is just piled high with paperwork. You can see him in the back corner of the room, dimly lit by his computer. But most of the room is just decked in files and newspapers, and all kinds of paper. And it’s also pretty obvious that he’s spent more than one night in this room, because it’s attached to a bathroom. And you can tell that it’s more than just an office. People have lived here when they needed to. 

Molly: In 1986 Jabbar and BGPMUS started bi-weekly Saturday meetings at Bhopal’s Yaadgaar-i-Shahjahani Park, a memorial that marks India’s fight against British rule. Here’s Apoorva describing one of those meetings to me the day after she went.

Apoorva [phone interview]: It’s a huge park. At one of the gates to the park, they’re all assembled in a semi-circle. All of the men are sitting on the steps, and all of the women are sitting on the ground in front of the steps. And they’re all facing this little wall that just keeps the bushes in. And right behind them, they have set up this sign that declares their name. There’s only maybe 20 or 30 people. Which is more than I was expecting, to be honest. We came late, so I’m sure there were more that walked away before we got there. And the moment he walks in, he tells two of the guys in the corner, “I tell you every time, you should put the sign higher!” So they’re quick at work, fixing up the sign.

     And in the distance you can see that they’ve kind of made an unofficial garbage dump site, right outside the walls of this park. And he points it out. He makes a passing comment about how terrible it is that they’ve started dumping their trash right there. They’re ruining the beauty of this historic park where they’ve been meeting for so many years. And then he goes into more official business. He tells them that they have two ongoing court cases. Then, he goes into telling them that December 3 is coming up – that’s the anniversary of the tragedy. It will be the 34th anniversary of the tragedy. And he’s talking about how they’re going to have to collect funds. He refuses to take foreign funding, so most of the funding is local. Most of the funding is by the gas victims themselves. They all contribute 20, 30, or however many rupees they can. Keep in mind that 70 rupees is equal to one dollar.

And then, he ends with his sermon. And he essentially pumps them up, and reminds them that they’re fighting the good fight. He knows that people will tell them that it’s over, and it’s time to move on. But that they shouldn’t let those people get to them, and that they should maintain faith that there is – justice has still not been won. There’s still a lot to be done. He recounts a story of how he was in the hospital a few months ago, and the doctor told him that it was time to retire. The doctor told him, “Mr. Jabbar, this is when you go home, and relax, after a lifetime of fighting.” But instead, he left the hospital and came immediately to this meeting. So the people in front of him, that he was addressing, he said they fuel him, and he fuels them, and that they must keep going on.

     But essentially he ended on a high note, that their fight is righteous and they need to keep going. And then, as everybody stood up and was about to disperse, one of the women goes, “But what about our chants?” And Mr. Jabbar laughs, and he goes, okay, sure, let’s do a few. And so he chanted, “The new era…” and everybody else would respond, “Is coming!” And they did this a couple of times, and you could tell that they’ve done this for decades. And that’s how the meeting ended.

Apoorva: Just like Rasheeda Bi and Sathu Satirangi, Abdul Jabbar dedicated his life to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy survivors. Along with leading mass protests and providing skills training, his NGO filed hundreds of court cases. You may remember us mentioning that there were multiple rounds of compensation. Abdul Jabbar and BGPMUS were among the reasons why; they won the gas survivors a second and third round of increased compensation. 

     Abdul Jabbar passed away in late 2019 due to vision and lung complications as a result of inhaling methyl isocyanate during the gas tragedy. He was awarded one of India’s highest honors, the Padma Shri, a few months after his passing, for his work for the Indian people throughout his lifetime.

[music] 

 

ACT IV

20:40

Apoorva: I spent a lot of time thinking about the counterfactual, the alternate universe where the tragedy did not happen. Would Bhopal be different today? This is a question I asked at the end of almost all of my interviews, and the answer varied pretty dramatically. 

Abida Bi: We wouldn’t be sick. We’re all so sick for so long. There is no correct medicine in all of these gas-related hospitals. There’s no one there to properly treat you. Now we just live pill to pill. And if the medicine runs out, then sickness, sickness, sickness. We are slaves to the medicine to live a normal life, to just walk around. 

Molly: While some survivors like Abida Bi thought about what their health might be like, others like Bano Bi spoke of their unrealized aspirations.

 Bano Bi: Before the gas tragedy, my kids studied at Railwaybal Temple. Every Sunday, we would go out as a family. We would laugh and have a good time. We used to think that we would really educate our kids. They studied at Railwaybal Temple. But after everything, our hearts’ desires never made it out of our hearts. Our kids weren’t able to get educated. Our son just ended up in construction. He’d even gone to Railwaybal Temple, so he knew how to read. It was very good education there. Teachers used to call us and tell us they were doing well. It would make us so proud to hear they’d done well in their exams. We had high hopes one would be a doctor, or one would be a daroga – police chief. We had such big dreams for them. Even the three that studied, they failed out of 8th grade.

Molly: Here’s a conversation Apoorva and I had while she was still in India about her findings. 

Apoorva [phone interview]: In the interviews that I’ve been doing at what I’m going to call the Police-Line Apartments, because that’s what they call them. One of the girls I talked to, who’s our age, I asked her a question that I ask everyone:  Do you think Bhopal would be different today if the tragedy had not happened? In the higher income neighborhoods, across the board, people said no. 

Molly [phone interview]: Really!?!

Apoorva [phone interview]: Yes! Which was shocking to me, too. This was a tragedy that killed tens of thousands of people – you don’t think it affected the development of the city?! No, almost across the board, people were like, “Today everything is back to normal. People died but that’s about the only thing that changed.” However, when you talk to the income class that was more affected by the tragedy, they will tell you that yes, Bhopal was very much affected.

Apoorva [interview]: You think Bhopal would be different today if not for the tragedy?

Ranu: Yes. Of those that died, there might be a lot more talented people today if they had not died … They would have helped develop the city. 

Apoorva [interview]: Is there any advantage to remembering this tragedy?

Ranu: Of course, those who left us should be remembered. That way, this will never happen again. 

Apoorva: The person you just heard from is Ranu. She’s a college graduate, and she lives in the Police-Line Apartments, which is government-subsidized housing a few blocks away from Judge Colony, my neighborhood. We’re about to hear from her sister, Jyoti, who is in college now. Their father is a construction worker, and they both work part-time jobs to supplement their household income. The sisters had a pretty different take on the tragedy than what I heard in the higher income neighborhoods. 

Apoorva [interview]: You think they should teach about the Tragedy in school?

Jyoti: Yes. People should know what happened, and how it happened. See, they didn’t teach my generation. So maybe the next generation simply will not know at all. Our dad told us everything. If that never happened, maybe we would not even know what happened.

Apoorva: What’s interesting is Jyoti and Ranu’s dad is like my dad and my neighbors in that he lived on the same hill as them the night of the tragedy, Idgah Hill, so he is not as gas-affected as the activists in J. P. Nagar. And yet, he had passed on a much greater consciousness of the tragedy to his daughters, who are about the same age as me. The poor of Bhopal, regardless of geography, often carry the memory of the tragedy. 

Laxmi Thakkur: Bhopal today without the Tragedy would be good. It would be fine. It’s been so long. What are they doing with that money in the Reserve Bank, milking it? They made this whole Polytechnic Roundabout. On whose money? Use your own money, don’t use our money!

Apoorva: In fact, this was a sentiment I heard often, that the gas money made Bhopal rich. A lot of the compensation money never made it to the survivors, and instead was used to line the pockets of politicians and fund their pet projects of contructiving lavish roundabouts, highways and other infrastructure in the wealthier neighborhoods while ignoring the poor ones. 

Molly: What do you think, Apoorva? You think it would be different if the tragedy never happened?

[music]

Apoorva: That was one of my original questions when I first started this research. From what I gathered of the city, it was up and coming. And I wondered if the Tragedy had changed that at all. Like how had the trajectory of both people and the city changed? I was convinced it was a dramatic departure from what it was supposed to be, so I was pretty shocked when people told me, “Oh, it would be about the same.” I also thought about how I would be different today. Would my dad have decided to stay in Bhopal if the city had developed more? How many people like my dad might have stuck around? 

Molly: And it’s interesting, too, that you weren’t even born until 10 years after the Tragedy. But if it hadn’t have happened, your life would have been so drastically different, probably. We certainly wouldn’t have met in Mrs. Bradley’s class in 7th grade, for sure, if you grew up in India. Maybe your interests would be totally different, too. Maybe you wouldn’t be interested in all these things we’re talking about in this podcast – activism, feminism, justice … 

Apoorva: Yea… maybe…

Molly: Eh, you’d probably still be interested in it. [laughs]

Apoorva: Yeah… [laughs]

 

ACT V

28:35

Apoorva: Like so many of the other survivor-activists, Raisa Bi didn’t have any particular interest in politics or activism before the Tragedy. Afterwards, she felt she didn’t have a choice. 

Raisa Bi: I used to go to Jabbar bhai’s rallies back in the day before Sathu bhaiya’s. I got arrested back then. No one was allowed to leave all day. Finally, they released us in the evening, and my in-laws were furious. They asked me what kind of rallies am I going to that keep me out of the house all day? Who’s going to cook? Who’s going to feed the family? My kids used to cry, too.

Molly: Someone needed to demand their right. Someone needed to feed their families. Someone needed to figure out how to move forward. And women like Raisa Bi realized it had to be them. 

Raisa Bi: Sure, we fought. We got jailed. We went to each politician’s home and we would surround them. We would get arrested, and even at jail, people would come and chant slogans outside to get them to release us. Finally, the cops would put us on a bus to drop us back home, far away from the protest. But the moment they would drop us off, we would just get on another bus and head back to the protest. 

Apoorva: Other women felt ostracized because they or their daughters were born infertile or disabled. In a society that often defines the value of a woman by her ability to bear children, their inability to have children or to have healthy children became a tragedy in and of itself. I heard stories of women being sent home after they were married, because they were unable to get pregnant, as Bano Bi recalls here. 

[music]

Bano Bi: This is not called living. This is called mar mar ke jeena – to barely survive. What is this kind of life? Even the girls that got married outside of Bhopal, they’re still suffering. Chatarpur, Jhansi, Manwe. Their kids are deformed. Some kids don’t even have hands, others don’t even have tongues. All the kids have deformities. And even the daughters themselves who should be fertile are barren. So many daughters have been returned to Bhopal. Their in-laws said, “Go back to Bhopal.” Thousands of them are now back. And they’re suffering with their disabled kids. 

Molly: These women have found strength in their pain. They have found purpose. 

Ansuiya Bai: If someone asked me why I go, if they asked what I am gaining, I say there’s nothing to gain. Think about all that we have lost. I’m not fighting for myself. I’m fighting for those who can’t.

Guddu Bi:  People tell me all the time that nothing will happen. They ask me why I’m going. But I believe something will happen. As long as I can breathe, I will go. As long as I have this strength, I will go. My strength comes from my pain. I have lost so many people. My parents, my kids, my family was separated. It gives me tears. It gives me strength. Today, I sit alone. But I fight for them. I remember my daughter who always used to go with me. I do it in her memory. She was water-affected. I fight for everyone. Everyone in Bhopal who has suffered like me is my sibling. We all are the same and I fight for them. I might die fighting but I will always fight.

Apoorva: They gained skills, gained knowledge, and cultivated a passion that they’re now passing onto their kids.

Nasreen: So much! I’d never been to the collector’s.  I didn’t used to go anywhere. I used to go to school and then back to the house. But now I’ve been to Delhi, Bombay, everywhere. I’ve heard people’s stories, so I felt so much happiness that I can understand other people’s pain and also empower them. I had never seen the collector’s office, but now I know where the collector’s office is. Going with the movement, I learned which paperwork is needed, where it is submitted, what the Public Works Dept is supposed to do, how to file a complaint if it’s not doing those things. I have learned so much. I also help people out if they need something done. They seek me out if they need something done because they know I know.

Raisa Bi: I will teach my kids how to fight. I’ll teach them why we fight. I already take them. I want them to fight for their rights. If I die, I want them to get their rights. 

Apoorva: Sarita and Safreen are the new generation of protestors who first started activism holding their parents’ hands. 

Sarita: I couldn’t go because of my exams. My brother went, and I really wanted to go, but I couldn’t. There was a lot of pressure from the family too, to not send out the daughters. My family would say things like, it’s dangerous, it’ll spoil her, she’ll get out of control – haat se nikal jaaegi. But my parents always supported me. You need to believe in something. My dad always told me that as long as I’m right, then the world is right. And if I’m wrong, then the world is wrong. Think for yourself. 

Safreen: My mom wanted her daughters to succeed, to get ahead. She wanted us to know. She told us that we had the right to know. I used to be pretty shy. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or meet anyone. It was embarrassing. So my mom wanted me to come out of my shell. She wanted us to see the world and do something. She was really set on us learning and getting us ahead.

Molly: Vishnu Bai and Shahzadi Bi remain determined, easily falling into old protest chants that they’ve repeated countless times in their lives. 

Vishnu Bai: I will fight until my dying breath! In the coming generation, I want them to know that they should never admit defeat. This is not charity, this is justice. It’s not about money, it’s about our humanity. Either give us our loved ones back, or give us our rights. If you can give us our loved ones back, then we wouldn’t ask for anything. Nothing! 

     No matter our desperation, fulfill our demands! 

     We ask for our right, not charity!

     Bhopal’s gas affected are women: we’re not flowers, we’re fire! 

Apoorva: Champa Devi and Rasheeda Bi used the strength of their friendship to reach unimaginable heights. Sitting in the state-of-the-art school they built together, they talked about discovering the power of womanhood that fueled them and the hope they feel for the next generation of women to begin life knowing it.

Champa Devi: We were just housewives living normal lives, but something in our fate put us down this path. It’s only via this goal that has led us to this level. We wouldn’t have protested and today we wouldn’t be able to help these kids.

[music]

Rasheeda Bi: And girls should never think that her life is only in the kitchen or only to earn money. She should think that I have been given so much strength, and if I bring it out, she’ll be taken aback at the endless supply she has. If women recognize their own strength, then they are invincible, they are undefeatable, they will bring revolution and they will win this world back by revolution. I want to tell these girls to recognize how their strength can change the world. 

Champa Devi: We used to be scared to go around alone in our own country, but now we have wandered around alone all over the world.

Rasheeda Bi: To this day, I don’t know how to write, but all I know is to see my goals through, and so here we are. And we’re going to keep fighting, do not stop. Everyone lives their own lives. But life is so small living just for yourself. Try living for others, that’s a whole other fun. 

Champa Devi: Today I see the smiles of these children, and I feel my struggle was worth it.

 

OUTRO

39:30

[music]

 

Molly: You’ve been listening to They Knew Which Way to Run. Tune in next time for our finale, where we’ll talk about how, more than 35 years later, the world still has not learned the lessons this disaster has to teach us. 

Apoorva: We encourage you to check out our website at www.TheyKnewWhichWaytoRun.com, where you can learn more information about the tragedy, see photos of the survivors and make a donation to NGOs on the ground still fighting for justice today. You can also read a transcript of this episode. This podcast series is written, edited, and produced by me and Molly Mulroy. Quinn Mulroy is our sound editor and Associate Producer.

Molly: If you liked this episode, please be sure to rate, review, and follow us. All the interviews used in our podcast were conducted by Apoorva Dixit both independently and while working with Sambhavna Clinic and photographer Francesca Moore. Our head of marketing is Shreya Joshi, our transcription specialist is Avi Dixit, our copy editor is Julia Hamilton, our cover art was designed by Amey Zhang, our website designer is Ljiljana Brusic, and all of our music is composed by Derek Renfroe. 

Apoorva: Very big thank you to everyone who supported us with this podcast and the following Bhopalis for sharing their stories for this episode: Abida Bi, Hazra Bi, Rasheeda Bi, Bano Bi, Ranu, Jyoti, Laxmi Thakkur, Raisa Bi, Ansuiya Bai, Guddu Bi, Nasreen Bi, Sarita, Safreen, Vishnu Bai, and Champa Devi. Also thank you to our voice actors: Priti Manthekar, Meena Kasargod, Rachana Dixit, Preeti Arora, Shikha Rathi, Vartika Shukla, Durain Noorani, Nandini Basu, Jyoti Narayanan, and Garima Saxena.  

     I’m Apoorva Dixit.

Molly: And I’m Molly Mulroy. Thank you for listening.