A night of dismay, despair and devastation turned the night of divine care Another remembrance, another day of memory recall, of that dreadful night, 2-3 December 1984, exactly 30 years back, when Bhopal turned a host city where an angel of death passed through from one end to the other, where hapless, innocent people, left their homely comfort in a chilly night, in search of a place to hide, where, in between their hot pursuit, they breathed in the deadly MIC gas, unknowing of its potency to melt their diaphragm within minutes and thence, many fell down, literally gassed to death and the ones following, trampled them too in their desperation to go a bit more. Bhopal suddenly woke up; roads were crammed of vehicles of those leaving to rush off to faraway places. A complete jam, created by the teeming, milieu of crowd, anywhere and everywhere, as literally as one sees in some horror movie, not knowing what really happened. The whole night went off likewise and many travelled on their two and four wheelers and whatever vehicle came in handy, some even went up to the distant Budhni and Hoshangabad. At around 5 am, someone pushed my door bell, and with little hesitation, as it was unusual for such a knock, but when the door was opened, my stocky, mustached brother-in-law in a banian and lungi was in front that surprised me a lot and his travel-weariness shell-shocked me further. He asked all of us to come out to leave soon. I asked in utter dismay ‘what happened’? ‘Don’t you know anything?’ was his counter question. In fact, that Good Samaritan was engaged the whole night to bring out in his car as much as possible most of his close relatives then living in a thickly populated old and new Bhopal city intersection. Since the roads were all filled with people and vehicles, he couldn’t reach us before 5 am, though he wanted to pick us up too early. In brief, when I was told what had really happened, I too went to see a bit of the atmosphere outside and then politely expressed thanks for his gesture of taking all the trouble to come to our place but since nothing happened thus far, we hoped things would come to normalcy. And he went away, a bit dissatisfied on our disinclination to accompany him. My wife and little daughter Jessy, then at age 4, were given so sound and comfortable a sleep that dreadful night when we closed all windows of our ground floor flat to save from the chilly December winter. In fact, we were then little aware of the reason how even a little bit of the deadly, toxic effect of MIC gas entered our bed room, as later on it was disclosed scientifically that the MIC gas leaked out of the Union Carbide factory spread in the atmosphere and all those who were exposed were the ones sleeping on the nearby railway platforms, in various slums in the vicinity and those who kept their windows open while sleeping and the ones who, in the commotion, heckle and buckle woke up, came out and then ran, were the mostly affected in their endeavor to get saved. In that process, the gas they breathed in proved deadly, as their eyes and nose got blurred and chocked, the sooner the poisonous gas damaged their diaphragm, they couldn’t breathe further and thus fell down. Again, later on, when we met an old neighbor of ours, whom we were knowing in a different colony, told that they reached up to our main door to wake us up in their pursuit to run, but soon they felt like someone telling ‘they are not here, they have gone’, then we went away. I got surprised. Had they knocked out door then, we too would have waked up and ran, as my wife was too anxious to live a bit more, though, unfortunately, within another ten years, she too left us for her heavenly abode. Reminiscing that incident of December 2-3 night 30 years back, what I could perceive is that a kind of divine care was the very idea of keeping the windows of our flat so tightly closed and then the sound sleep that we all got, though, my wife and child normally wake up on hearing small sounds, particularly that night when many people in our colony woke up and ran to distant places for safety, but we were unaware of anything. And the one who came up to our doorstep was also mystically chased out, not to disturb us. Looking back, what I could personally discern spiritually from this single episode is that the LORD God protects His people, as surely as He promised in Psalm 91:10 “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near to your dwelling”. Yes, it is an everlasting promise. In the Holy Book, out of the ten incidents of plagues that followed one after the other in Egypt, prior to the final Exodus of Israelites under Moses and Aaron from the iron grip of Pharaoh, the last one was the plague to kill all the first bones in every house-hold, right from the Pharaoh’s to the lowliest of the menial one’s in Egypt. Whereas, in the land of Goshen, the Israelites were living safe and sound under the protective wings of the LORD. Before the last plague, the LORD God through Moses advised the Israelites to celebrate the Pass-over; the detailed instructions thereof are seen in Exodus Chapter 12. The central character of the Pass-over was a Lamb, unblemished; to be slained and Israelites had to take some portion of its blood to be put on their door posts. It was a symbol for their safety when the angel of death passes through Egypt that deadly night. All of Israelites did it literally as Moses advised them and they all were saved while in Egypt, right from Pharaoh’s house to every Egyptian’s house, there were loud cries and wailing over the death of their first borns. When I co-relate this incident, I do not know what good the Lord God found in me that I and many others like me in Bhopal could withstand the onslaughts of the lethal MIC gas tragedy that took away thousands and tens of thousands of people in one night, I am reassured that it was not of any of my own goodness, as I was a wretched, useless sinner, living a disobedient life of my own choice and passion, yet, by my earlier single decision on my own volition to surrender my life to the “Spring of Life”, Jesus, the Lamb of God, that was slained on the Cross of Calvary two millenniums ago. I firmly believed that the Blood of the Lamb sealed me and family, kept us under His protective wings, as surely as He promised in His Words, “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near to your dwelling” 30 long years have passed by since then. My late wife, though depart us, leaving me and daughter alone two decades back, yet, the power of the Holy Spirit still works to lead and guide us through in this treacherous journey of pilgrimage. While Bhopal celebrate another remembrance day of the Gas tragedy, when the latest scientific studies and reports indicate that even the third generation children born in Bhopal too have the deadly effect of the lethal MIC gas, what keeps us floating all through in the midst of the same air, water and other contamination, is nothing but only a divine shield i.e. the power of the Word of God, which is alive and active. I am sure of all those who left for ever from this world that night, the righteous one’s souls really rest in peace in His presence to resurrect one day to live in His eternal Kingdom. Amen
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 07:44:32 +0000
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