September 8, 2001. It was on this day, 20 years ago, I disembarked in Bhopal from a train on a journey that would lead me to wherever I am today.
I love writing down the date and the place I got them on my books. Believing that some day in the future when I flip open the page and that mention of when and where will bring back fond memories. And it does.
September 8, 2001. Bhopal. An important day in my life. It was on this day, 20 years ago, I disembarked in Bhopal from a train on a journey that would lead me to wherever I am today.
On my first day in Bhopal, I along with two other boys – Aklanta Kalita from Guwahati and Kumar Kaustabh from Daltonganj (now Medininagar) – holed up in a ramshackle hotel right opposite Bharat Talkies near the Bhopal Railway Station. That night we went for a stroll in the nearby market and I bought this book chronicling the infamous Bhopal Gas Tragedy that struck the city some 17 years ago.
I wanted to know more about about the city in which I was to spend the next 2 years of my life and didn’t know of any other book about Bhopal other than the recently-published Five past Midnight in Bhopal.
So 20 years later from that day, I am sitting with a laptop on my lap and my year-old daughter by my side writing this with Five past Midnight on the table before me, reminiscing about how eventful the last two decades have been for me.
A couple of days later, I would meet the girl who has been with me all these 20 years. First as a friend, then girlfriend, wife and mother of our two kids.
