Animal's People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
“I used to be human once. So I’m told. I don’t remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being.”
Animal’s People is set against the backdrop of one of the world’s worst industrial accidents as a model that took place in Bhopal, India in 1984 and was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize.
On the night of December 2 and 3, 1984 at the U.S. owned Union Carbide pesticide plant, over thirty tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly toxic gas used in the production of a pesticide called Sevin which is Union Carbide’s brand name for carbaryl, which spread over the town of Bhopal, immediately killing thousands of citizens and continues to haunt the populace today as the company was never forced to clean up their mess.
The story is narrated by a nineteen year old Indian boy, only known as Animal, whose faithful companion is a dog named Jara and lives in the fictional city of Khaufpur. He was born a few days before that night “which no one in Khaufpur wants to remember, but nobody can forget.”
Animal is an orphan as the gas killed his parents. He was brought up in an orphanage run by a French nun known as Ma Franci. The nun used to be able to speak Hindi and English but after the incident, she has forgotten all languages except her own.
Animal makes his living by doing all sorts of scams throughout the city. The factory gases have affected his body so he can only walk on all fours, as an Animal. He spots three college-aged girls and practices one of his routines by having Jara play dead while he goes on a spiel about suffering from starvation to which one of the girls does something he does not foresee.
She asks, “Did you teach him?” Animal says that for five rupees he can get the dog to sing the national anthem. She counters with, “Is begging fun?” Animal replies, “Is it fun to be hungry? No, so then don’t mock me.” This is where he meets Nisha who changes his life. It is Nisha who teaches Animal how to read. He also learns to speak the language of Ma Francie.
Animal becomes infatuated with Nisha but he feels a bit of jealousy when he’s introduced to Zafar, an activist who has been leading the fight against the Amrikan Kampani (American company) . At the same time, a young American woman named Dr. Elli appears in Khaufpur and announces that she is going to open a clinic and it will be free to anyone who wishes to come.
After spending her own fortune and going through a lot of government red tape, the idealist Dr. Elli opens her clinic only to be puzzled why nobody shows up. Unfortunately, Zafar believes the clinic is another one of the Kampany’s plans to divert being held responsible for an incident that happened almost twenty years ago. Dr. Elli realizes that people want treatment but they all refuse to come to the clinic. She expresses her exasperation to Animal, “These people have nothing. Why do they turn down a genuine and good offer of help? I don’t get it.”
Animal says he understands because they’re his people - Animal’s people. The story explores government corruption and multinational corporations exploitation of labor and resources. It is a novel that sheds light on the injustices of the world and how it affects the life of the ordinary everyday citizens who have no money or power to fight back. In this day and age of for profit enterprises, it takes a book like this to point out that there are more important things than money. ~Ernie Hoyt