To all the pages I've read before

I have been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction of late. This book easily falls into that category, even though it takes place deep within our world a few years ago, for this is a story about the effects of the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster. And really if anything is a post-apocalyptic world it is this.And it is excellent.Sinha cultivates the disgraced soil, the soil that leaches disease into food and water of everyone in the book, to produce a bounty of characters that are well worth a novel each. Each of his characters are tormented by that night nearly 30 yrs ago and the effects have distilled a sense of helplessness in each of them. Well it should have. But these are people that have nothing, so they have nothing to lose; thus, they are some of the most powerful people on earth. Animal, the main character and voice - literally, as he records the story into a micro cassette recorder - of the story, is viscous in his disdain for humanity. He calls himself Animal as everyone has forgotten his real name and holler Animal to him as his spine is bent and he is forced to walk on all fours due to being poisoned by the Bhopal gas. For many lesser characters this would be a point where one would seek sympathy. Thankfully, Animal never does. He does not see himself as quite human enough to deserve sympathy and his character and voice are all the better for it. The book presents his own internal civil war: is he animal or human. And until the very end I was unsure quite which way he would turn. That is really the marvel of this book. I had no idea where it was going and wanted to live in each characters shoes for a while. I finished it in no time and really sad it is over.I was scheduled to visit Bhopal when I was in India but a serious case of food poisoning prevented me from venturing more then 20M from the bathroom, let alone on an eight hour train ride. I can not tell you how much I regret that now. Nor how very insignificant a week long bout of food poisoning is to those who deal with the after effects of the apocalypse everyday.This really should be on your to read radar, just saying....