Our tour guide through the hardest hit areas of the town, the poorest areas of the city where the hovels and shanties of the factory workers were only blocks away from their employment, is Animal of the title. Animal is a minor celebrity with visiting journalists who come to a do their biennial "what ever happened to the people of Kaufpur" looking for a story. Not only is he a good bit of local colour with his name and his attitude, he's also a great photo opportunity.
You see his name is derived from the fact that his spine is so crooked and bent that he has to go around on his hands and knees – like an animal. He's been told that he came into the world the night of the explosion and that his mother lost her life because of it. He was found in a basket and raised at an orphanage. His own earliest memories are of pain – of lying in bed as his body was racked with fever and his spine contorting.
When a journalist leaves Animal with a tape recorder and blank tapes for him to record his story the first he thing he does is sell the recorder. However, that only means he has to find another one when he finds he does have something to say about his life, the people he knows, and the events of one particular season.
The poor of Kaufpur have so little and have had so much taken away, that they are naturally suspicious of anything offered for free. So when an American doctor comes to town and opens a free clinic in the poorest part of the town, suspicions are raised that she is actually working in tandem with the bosses of the 'Kampani' who are on trial
Somehow they are going to use the health records created by the doctor from her patient list to disavow themselves of any responsibility of wrong doing when it comes to the illnesses of those in town. So, in spite of desperately needing the services offered by the doctor they boycott the clinic to protest the underhanded nature of the bosses.
Indra Sinha has performed a virtual miracle with Animal's People. He has written a story about the survivors of a Bhopal -type incident without once making them out to be victims. In fact, as Animal articulates to the new doctor, what he really hates is when foreign journalists or do-gooders come around and look at him with the kind of face they'd normally reserve for a stray cat.
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