Animal's People and Environmental Heroes!

For over three weeks now, I have been rooting for Indra Sinha to win the Man Booker award for his disturbing but compelling "Animal's people". So Friday the 18th was a big day and as soon as I got off the plane from Jakarta, I checked news on my phone only to be disappointed , one of the best told stories about the Bhopal disaster, that makes you angry, really angry, did not make it.
But before I hit my usual watering hole in Bangkok to drown my sorrow, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me in the latest issue of Time magazine on Environmental heroes of the planet, to find my cook at the apartment, boss at work, and good buddy Von Hernandez featured in the activist heroes section. A Goldman award winner, Von like Indra, has experienced anger empathetically. The garbage mountains of Manila ,the lives of the poor folks amongst them and the ill advised plan of greedy politicians to set up dioxin spouting incinerators, made him angry enough to lead a campaign that concluded with the first ever national ban on waste incineration in the Philippines. I have been to Smoky Valley, the garbage mountains of Manila, to assist Von and Greenpeace in 2000 and I remember feeling the same anger that I feel every time I am with my friends in Bhopal or Vapi.
Indra may not have won the Booker, but his book is a must read, and a good buy especially from the UK Amazon website because each copy bought from here, earns 1 euro for Bhopal Medical Appeal. And all of you are invited for dinner where my excellent cook and environmental hero will dish out Mediterranean fare.
(Von's photo courtesy Anna)