“India is Full of Colour” - Meeting with Dominic Lapierre

It’s little past half past one when Dominique Lapierre strides into the coffee shop at the Trident and heads straight for the buffet. “I am going to eat,” declares the starved author who has just completed a signing spree at a couple of Chennai bookshops.
On the move, promoting his latest book co-written with Javier Moro, It was five past midnight in Bhopal, the journalist and writer(Freedom at Midnight, City of Joy) is unfazed by the heat and dust. “What attracts me to India is its history, its beauty and the quality of people I meet,” he says, “Even the pirate publishers that I have come across...” That is said deadpan, for Dominique has just picked up a Tamil version of Freedom at Midnight, an unauthorised one at that. He continues, “But above all, it’s the humble people, who are so resilient and so full of courage - they should be an example to the world.”
It is this courage he has sought to capture in his book that maps the Union Carbide tragedy that took place on 2nd December 1984 - from the journey of Ratna Nadar and his family, from the hills of Orissa to the slums of Bhopal and then, into the arms of disaster. It’s the story of a pesticide, Sevin, and how it came to be manufactured in Bhopal using a deadly gas called methyl isocyanate. It’s also the story of the more than 16,000 people killed in Bhopal by a toxic leak of this very gas. Calling Bhopal the ‘City of Begums’, Dominique says, “It deserves something better than this tragedy. It should be a place for visitors to go, because it’s so beautiful.”
“It was very difficult to research the book in the beginning,” he says, “Then as usual, it snowballs. Someone tells you to meet someone else... and then... We met about a thousand people to write this book.” But from the Union Carbide side, however, there was silence. “Union Carbide wouldn’t see us,” says Dominique, “They refused to answer our phone calls, they did not reply to our faxes. They were not keen that anyone write a book on the crime they committed.”
With over 15 lakh copies being sold in Europe and 40,000 copies of the Indian imprint already in reader’s hands, It was five minutes past midnight in Bhopal is a book that’s bringing acclaim to its authors. So does Dominique enjoy being a celebrity? “I am not a celebrity,” insists Dominique who says, “Being well-known is a good thing because it facilitates the work I do. But apart from that, I don’t want to be classified as a celebrity.”
The next project is in the pipeline, he admits, but is reluctant to talk about it. We are told that it is once again about people in ‘very extreme and extraordinary circumstances’, but whether it’s set in India or elsewhere is something Dominique is loath to reveal.
For a person hooked to the warm climes(“I’ll not be writing a book on the Eskimos!”), and who hopes to retire someplace close to Cochin in Kerala, India is never too far from his dreams. “Some countries are black and white,” declares the author, “But India is full of colour.”