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Bhopal sticks to their skin. Was it necessary to lay down in front of them those saris printed with newspaper clippings relating this night of December 1984 when a deadly gas escaped from the Union Carbide chemical plant and crept over the city?

They unfolded the saris, appropriated it, draped themselves in it, then some looked at me while others preferred to turn around, their backs to me, offering just their silhouette as a still image. Some are tireless fighters. They claim compensation for the 3,500 who died the night of the disaster and for the 200,000 patients adding up over the years. They take to the streets to demand that the authorities clean up the site that keep polluting. They also suffer, but they don’t say much about it because they have to move forward despite the imprint of time, physical suffering, ragged skin, short breath, exhausted eyes.

Whether directly or indirectly affected, their dignity moved me. They remain women, and that is also what those coloured embroidery bordering the saris tell to slightly thumb the nose of the violence on them and their loved ones. So yes, I had to lay down these saris in front of them. They wear them in defiance and I like them to be beautiful in this fight. – Florence Traullé, journalist