short story

The tiny scrap of paper that Chief Financial Officer Sriram has slid over the surface of the table to his boss said: $ 16 m, 3 paise. Mayur Lodha glanced at the chit, tapped his finger on it, frowning deeply. Then he looked up and smiled at the ‘five important men’ seated opposite side of the oblong table.
     "Agreed," he said, and nodded to Sriram, who looked like he had suddenly taken ill. His Chairman was agreeing to every demand. Not good.
     The five important men looked at each other nodding solemnly. Somebody from the 30-odd people who were seated behind the five big men began to clap, but ceased as Gopi Krishna turned and glowered at him. In negotiations as tricky as this, applause would disturb the due gravitas.
     "Thank you. Very well, then," said Som Dutta, the de-facto leader of the opposition. "It is agreed that the stack height will be increased to 164 feet. Moving to the next point," continued Som, "we want outlet water to be brought down to ambient temperature before it is let out into Periyar."
     "That possible?" Mayur asked the man sitting to his right.
     "Well," hesitated Ganesh Ram, the Chief Executive Officer, "It will mean a second cooling tower, which could cost another...hmmm....another $ 4-5 million. But—"
     Mayur cut in. "Leave the cost aside. Is there space to put up a second cooling tower?"
     "Yes"
     "Very well, then. I agree", said Mayur.
     The CFO reached out for a glass of water. He had never seen Mayur like this before. The Chairman of Lodha Energy Industries Ltd, and the founder of the multi-billion dollar Lodha group of companies was, if anything, an extraordinarily gritty bargainer, a man who would use all his might to defend a cent. Here, he was almost being pusillanimous. That too, against a bunch like this!
     The five men on the other side of the table were, well, ‘easy’. Each of them represented an activist group. They had been protesting for nearly a year, demanding immediate cessation of construction of the coal-fired power plant that Lodha Energy was building in the middle of the densely-forested Silent Valley, but everybody knew that such a demand was a negotiating stance—they would come around to some settlement. Alongside, they had also gone to the Court, but the judge counselled talks first, and come to him only if they failed. The federal and provincial governments were looking at the whole episode with a worried eye, fearing an encore of another recent incident, when similar protests against a polluting copper smelter plant had resulted in the police shooting 13 people dead.
     Lodha Energy’s negotiators knew four of the five men very well—thanks to the dossiers that their communications department had produced. They knew their strengths and weaknesses, their idiosyncrasies, secret desires, friends and mistresses, and they had discussed it thread-bare before sitting for talks.
     Ajit and Nagaraj could be bought, and Mayur was an expert at buying men. Politically inclined Som Dutt was not particularly difficult to deal with, he could be brought around with suitable crumbs. Only Gopi Krishna was a bit of an unknown commodity, but they could always figure out a way of dealing with him.
     And now they were at the negotiating table. The Lodha group of companies, led by its 47-year-old charismatic, flamboyant Chairman, was a past master in such talks and Sriram had anticipated hard bargain at the give-and-take. And yet, Mayur Lodha was agreeing to every demand of them like a fool. It would make his – Sriram’s – job more difficult. The bankers looked at loan requests for coal-fired power projects with furrowed foreheads and wrinkled noses, for even if it was good business, the pressure not to lend to fossil fuel plants was getting to them. In the particular case of Lodha Energy’s Vandiperiyar project, the company had to use its political clout, and reams of (purchased) expert opinion to convince the bankers that the power plants was worthy of financial support. And now, this man Mayur was making it even more difficult by agreeing to the demands of these harmless bunch of environmental activists, putting further pressure on the margins. But then, he was the boss.
     Sriram sighed. He stole a glance at Ganesh Ram; the CEO sitting with his face buried in his palms.
     And so, the negotiations went on. Three men on this side of the table, and in the rows of chairs behind them six officials of Lodha Energy each with a file on his lap or under the armpit; five principal negotiators on the other side, with their 30-odd supporters. Over the next couple of hours, the talks went on, and Mayur Lodha accepted every demand of the greens. The discussions had made the project a hundred million dollars more expensive than the initial estimate.
     Finally, the Chairman stood up and spoke. "Gentlemen, as you see I have agreed to every one of your demands even overruling my own officials and making my project much costlier. I hope you will let the rest of the project be completed smoothly and quickly. Now, I am going to ask each of you to tell me, in this open house, that you are happy with the outcome of the negotiations."
     One by one, four of the five men said they were happy with the deal and stood up to shake hands with Mayur. When his turn came, Gopi Krishna shook his head.
     "No, Mr Lodha," he said. "I’m not happy yet. There is one crucial factor that we have overlooked."

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room turned tense. Before the negotiations had started, Lodha Energy’s communications department had produced a dossier on each of the protest leaders; the thinnest of them was that on Gopi. He was a bit of a mystery and Mayur had felt a sense of discomfort as he read the dossier on him, as though he was reading up on a ghost that he would soon meet. All they knew was that he was a Ph.D in climatology from MIT and had chucked a lucrative job at the World Bank to become an activist.
     All eyes turned to Gopi Krishna. Presently, the man spoke. "You have, thus far, taken care of pollution from the plant—thank you very much. But there is a bigger problem from coal power plants – carbon dioxide emissions. I want to know what you propose to do about it."
     Mayur slumped into his chair. He had been hoping that his interlocutors would overlook this point, but this Gopi Krishna was evidently a trouble maker. "If you are concerned about CO2 emissions," he started slowly, almost in an undertone, "we can think of increasing the stack height further."
     Gopi drew in breath noisily. "Mr Lodha," he said, "I do know that you know damn well that stack height has nothing to do with CO2 emissions. You burn coal, you produce CO2, and it will get into the atmosphere anyway, stack or no stack. I want to know what you intend to do about it."
     "Well," said Mayur, with a tone of finality in his voice, "there is nothing that I can do about it. This is a coal-fired plant and there is bound to be carbon dioxide emissions. There is always a trade-off, isn’t there? You want cheap electricity to millions of people in this country or no?"
     Gopi, who had been expecting this line of argument, was ready with his riposte. "Yes, I do want cheap electricity for the millions of poor in the country, but I also want to protect millions and millions of others from the effects of climate change. And, I don’t agree that there is nothing that you can do about CO2 emissions. There is something, and you should do it."
     "Which is?"
     "Well, I’m sure you know what it is yourselves, but if you want me to spell it out for you, here it is: you must add a carbon capture and sequestration system to the project."
     The effect of Gopi’s words was electric. The six company officials sitting at the back rows howled in protest. CFO Sriram was almost hysterical. "No way! NO WAY!" he thundered, wanting to send a strong message as much to his own Chairman as to those on the other side.
     Gopi’s demand was for the inclusion of a system that would capture all the CO2 coming out of the boilers and bury the gas underground, permanently. CCS was still an emerging technology and also quite costly. People on both sides of the table knew that very well.
     "A CCS component will ruin the project," yelled Sriram. At the tariffs we will sell the power we will not be able to absorb the cost of CCS." He looked at the CEO meaningfully, asking him to pitch in.
     "Leave the costs aside for the moment," Ganesh Ram said. "Even if we wanted to, we can’t include a CCS component in the project because there is no space to store the CO2. We just can’t do it. To bury the gas we need an underground storage space, like an abandoned mine or a depleted oil reservoir. In Silent Valley there is no such underground storage."
     "You could dig an underground cavern," said Gopi coolly.
     Ganesh Ram exploded. "Look at that! Dig an underground cavern, yeah? You have any idea what you are saying? Do you have any clue as to how much it would cost?"
     "In that case," said Gopi Krishna icily, "move the project elsewhere, or scrap it altogether. I will not let the project go on unless you also do a CCS."
     A great calm fell upon the negotiation room. None spoke for a quarter of a minute. At length, Mayur Lodha cleared his throat and spoke with an air of a person who has had enough. "Gentlemen, listen carefully. Lodha Energy Industries is building India’s first ‘advanced ultra supercritical’ coal-fired power plant. I’m not sure you understand what it is, but simply, it means that when the two units, 800 MW each, go on stream, they will extract more energy out of the same amount of coal than any other coal plant in the world. The electricity the two plants will produce will energise the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, providing thousands of jobs to common people while at the same time earning profits for the company. Our units will become reference plants for many power companies. And you guys are protesting! However, I am not blind to the imperatives of our environment. I wanted to amply demonstrate that and that is why I have agreed to everyone of your demands. These two power plants will not cause any pollution whatsoever." Mayur Lodha paused and gave Gopi a stern look. Gopi looked back at him unruffled. Mayur continued, with a renewed strength in his voice. "But I can’t – I repeat, can’t – agree to the unreasonable demand of our friend, Dr Gopi Krishna. There is no question of adding a CCS component to the project. However, as a gesture of goodwill I make this counter offer. The Lodha group will grow enough forests to offset the carbon emissions from this plant." His tone changed to a plea. "Please do take this offer and desist from any activity that will delay the project further."
     Mayur’s offer had a ring of sincerity. Such an ability to change tones from unrelenting toughness to almost plangent innocence had helped the industrialist in several negotiations, but it didn’t do the trick here.
     "Sorry, Mr Lodha," said Gopi austerely. "Your group of companies has a history of massive deforestation in the North East, to feed your timber and paper businesses. In every case you have failed to keep your word on afforestation. Besides, you will never be able to grow as much of forests as is required to completely offset all the CO2 emissions from this plant. Using forests as carbon sink is wide open to measurement manipulation and I have no confidence in your intentions. I’m sorry, I don’t believe in your afforestation bullshit. You must do a CCS here."
     Mayur shook his head in exasperation. "I’m surprised, Dr Krishna. You didn’t doubt my sincerity when I accepted your colleagues’ anti-pollution demands, but all of a sudden, you develop a disbelief in me when I offer afforestation." Mayur Lodha looked crestfallen. "I guess," he contined, "you just want to be a troublesome gadfly. You are not interested in any meaningful settlement."
     Gopi Krishna looked at Mayur and let his lips break into a smug smile that was so unctuous and pseudo that it lowered the temperature of the feet of the three men facing him.
     "Look, Mr Lodha," he began slowly. In a flash, the pseudo smile snapped off his lips and he turned deadly serious. "Don’t try to be too clever by half. You are not the only smart one here. Just as you got your people prepare dossiers on each of us, I have also been keeping myself updated on you. I know that you agreed to all our anti-pollution demands because they are financially backed by the American Coal Council. I knew you met the Council’s CEO, Betsy Monseu, last week. The Council is keen on your plant coming up, because it wants to show the world that ‘advanced ultra super critical plants’ can be located right in the middle of dense forests without a fear of pollution. "So, I am not surprised that you agreed to my colleagues’ demands. But the Council won’t cover CCS costs, so you won’t agree for CCS. Nor will you do adequate afforestation—your environmental track record doesn’t inspire confidence. Lodha Energy’s other coal power plants pollute and emit like there is no tomorrow and your other companies have shaven the sides of several mountains in the North East for the wood. No, Mr Lodha, I’m not letting you get away this time. You include CCS, or the Vandiperiyar coal power plant doesn’t come up." Gopi ended his little speech thumping his palm on the table twice.
     Everybody in the room now looked at Mayur, to see how he was going to respond to such a virulent attack. Mayur’s expression visibly hardened and a cruel snarl developed on his lips. "Well, Dr Krishna," he said in a menacing tone. "You may pretend to be James Bond as much as you like, but take this from me, I am not going to accept your demand. Let me see how you stop my project."
     Gopi Krishna raised his hand and began to speak, but Som Dutt cut in.
     "I think we need to take a break here because we would like to analyse Dr Krishna’s demand and your counter offer," he said.
     The meeting adjourned.

"Please explain your point to us, Dr Krishna," said Ajit.
     Gopi looked at the dozens of enquiring faces staring at him. His four co-negotiators sat huddled around him. He sensed impatience in them. This is how pathetic awareness about global warming is, thought Gopi. These guys are ‘environmentalists’, they’d plumb for environment protection with all their heart, but talk about climate change, greenhouse gases, global warming—well, the best reaction they come up with is to stifle their yawn. Climate evangelists have a hard job on their hands. He drew in a deep breath and began. "Let me explain," he said, more like a professor addressing a new class. "When you burn coal or fuels like petrol or diesel, the carbon present in them mixes with the oxygen in the air and becomes carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide rises up and forms a sort of a blanket in the atmosphere. This blanket of CO2 – well, there are other gases too, but for the sake of simplicity, let us stick to CO2 this blanket of CO2 causes the temperature of the Earth to rise. It—"
     Ajit interrupted him to ask how.
     "Well, let me explain this way. When you throw a beam of light from an electric torch onto your hand, the lit part becomes warm, right?"
     "Yes."
     "Likewise, when the sun’s rays hit the Earth’s surface, part of the light energy is converted into heat energy. Some of this heat energy is absorbed by the earth and the oceans, and some of it is radiated back into space. Okay? Are you with me?
     "Yes," said several voices.
     "Now, this blanket of CO2 and other greenhouse gases prevent the heat from going off into space. They trap the heat and the earth gets warmer. I’m simplifying things for your sake, but this is the basic concept of global warming. You know how much of heat energy is trapped like this?"
     "How much?"
     "As much energy as can be produced by four atom bombs of the type that was dropped on Hiroshima, every single second. Yes, four Hiroshima type atom bombs worth of energy every single second, or 125 million atom bombs every year. That much heat energy is prevented from going away."
     "Oh, c’mon. If that is true we should all be roasted dead by now," said Som. Several others nodded. What Gopi was saying didn’t ring right.
     Gopi willed himself to be patient and continued. "We are still alive because the oceans are absorbing 97 per cent of the heat. As a result, the oceans are warming, and that makes them expand and rise and start swallowing swathes of land. Besides, because of the ingestion of carbon dioxide, they become acidic, which harms marine life. As the earth warms, the air is hotter and therefore it picks up more water from the oceans and carries it over land. The result is, you have terrible storms. The impact of global warming is catastrophic, particularly so for India. You see, if the Himalayan glacial system is affected northern India will have, alternately, floods and droughts. Peninsular India is monsoon dependent and will see failure of monsoons and sudden, unpredictable storms. Millions of people will be affected, you will see a lot more of farmers suicides due to crop loss, floods—"
     "STOP!" cried Som Dutt. "Dr Krishna, do you really expect us to believe all this nonsense?"
     "Nonsense? Man, all this is scientific fact. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change—"
     "Oh, please, Dr Krishna. As you were speaking, I was googling up on climate change. Here, see? It says climate change is far from being proven and there are a lot of sceptics. In any case, one power plant here is not going to matter one way or the other."
     Gopi sighed. "Please understand, Mr Dutt, every coal-fired power plant contributes to global warming. We should not—"
     "Rubbish!" cut in Som again. "Look, Dr Krishna, we are in serious business here. As that man Mayur Lodha says, we do need the power plant to come up. If he is taking care of the pollution, we are satisfied. After all, our people here will get jobs."
     There was silence. Then the usually silent Nagaraj Kamarkar spoke. "I’m sorry to say this to your face, Dr Krishna, but I think you are paid by the Adanis to stop the Lodha Energy project."
     Gopi was looking at Nagaraj but through the corner of his eye he could see several nodding heads.
     "I think this man Mayur Lodha is reasonable," said Ajit. "This morning we made a lot of progress in our talks. We won the negotiations. Now, if you raise some vague issue—carbon dioxide, global warming and all such nonsense—you will only undo all the achievements we made in the talks."
     "Even if you are right, Dr Krishna," Som picked up the thread, "we are interested in progress hereand-now; we are less concerned about avoiding some vague negative thing that may affect somebody somewhere in the world sometime in the future. Sorry."
     It was plain to Gopi that he was making no friends in the room. Perhaps it was inevitable. Few are far sighted enough as to accept sacrifice of immediate welfare in order to avoid something negative in the future. Fewer realise that the future is right here and the disastrous effects of climate change are already in evidence. Gopi threw his head back, closed his eyes and spoke to his hostile audience. "Very well. I will fight this war alone. No matter what, unless Lodha Energy can stop any emission of carbon dioxide, I will see to it that the power plant does not come up." He left the room.

Mayur Lodha instructed his secretary not to let in visitors or connect calls, and turned to the man sitting in front of him. "Okay, Madhu. Tell me, what was the urgency—what have you found out?"
     Madhu’s face seemed to glow with excitement. "Sir, you will not believe this. But I have got something explosive for you."
     "Go on."
     "Last evening Gopi and I were having drinks, I sensed an opportunity to prise his mouth about what he intended to do. Guess what? He told me clearly that," Madhu paused, for effect, "he told me that once your plants became operational, he would blow up the Vandiperiyar dam. He specifically said, ‘when the dam breaks, the damn power plant has no chance of surviving.’
     The Vandiperiyar dam was some 10 km East of the project site, and indeed, the rushing waters would wipe the power plant clean.
     Madhu expected Mayur to react with shock, but to his surprise, Mayur, looked amused.
     The Lodha group Chairman exclaimed ‘What!’ with a bemused glint in his eye and then threw his head back and laughed. "Blow up the Vandiperiyar dam, eh? Did he really say that? Ha ha ha," he sniggered, "how does he proposed to carry out the feat? Does he have any idea how thick the wall is? Let me tell you—the thinnest part of the dam wall is 7 metres thick. Does this fool Krishna have any idea how well guarded the dam is?"
     "Sir," said Madhu, obsequiously, "Gopi said he would blow it up with compressed air cylinders."
     Mayur Lodha, a civil engineer, suddenly turned serious. He realised that that was a workable plan. If anyone could manage to put a highly compressed air cylinder in the spillway hole and blow the ends of the cylinder with some remote-controlled device, the pressure of the expanding air could cause fissures in the wall. The waters will take care of the rest. "Oh, that is his plan, eh?" wondered Mayur aloud. "How does he propose to get the cylinders into the dam?"
     "That, I don’t know, sir. I asked but he didn’t tell. Said that was his secret."
     "Would a man like Gopi do something that would kill thousands of people?"
     "I asked him that question too, sir. He replied, it is ok to kill a few hundred people in order to save millions of others."
     Mayur pondered over the reasoning. Then he said: "Ok. I think he is either bluffing or day-dreaming. I don’t think it is easy for him to implement such a grand plan as his, but I will have the dam given extra protection. And I will have a private eye watch him round the clock."

A year passed. The Big Day came. The stage was set for the grand inauguration of the country’s finest coal-fired power project. The energy minister flew down to Vandiperiyar from Delhi to participate in it. A few hundred people had gathered at the function. A couple of colourfully-dressed little girls, bright flowers pinned to their hairs, sang an invocation song. The plant manager welcomed the gathering. The local legislator spoke in glowing terms of the project. Then Mayur Lodha spoke of the critical need for coal-fired power plants and the hurdles his company had to face in completing the project. His address drew a huge applause. The press noted every detail. Then it was the turn of the energy minister, Jairam Goyal, to speak.
     "Ladies and gentlemen, here we gather to tee-off the operations of one of the finest power plants in the world. It is a matter of pride to our country that we have an advanced ultra super critical power plant here and I congratulate Lodha Energy, particularly its Chairman Mayur Lodha, for having had the courage to bet on a new technology. This technology boasts of the highest energy efficiency and—", the Minister paused as his personal security officer clutched his arm, asking for immediate attention. "What is it?" asked the energy minister
     The PSO leaned forward and whispered something into the Minister Goyal’s ear. A horrified expression came to the Minister’s face. He hurriedly signalled Mayur to come to his side. There was a tiny discussion among the Minister, Mayur, the Minister’s security officer and a local police inspector. In seconds, the Minister and Mayur hurried down the steps of the platform and rushed to the waiting helicopter, leaving the audience bewildered.
     The police inspector took the mike. "Ladies and gentlemen, an urgent announcement. The Vandiperiyar dam has broken down and the waters will reach this place in 10 minutes. I request all of you to clear this place immediately."
     Chaos! There was no evacuation plan. People ran helter-skelter, they ran in all directions, tripped over the cables, crashed against the poles on which the pandal was built, tripped on the rope lines and pegs and fell upon one another. They shrieked in panic, screamed each other out of the way, barked instructions. Some even tried to shin up the poles to get to the top of the pandal, in a silly hope that they’d be safe there. In the resulting stampede an elderly woman and a young girl were crushed to death by the running feet of hundreds of people.
     In less than five minutes a strange roar began manifesting itself in the air. At first it was distant, like a growl of an angry dog, then it grew louder, till it began to sound like one long, unending thunder. In the next minute, those who cared to look towards the East were treated to an unforgettable sight the sight of rushing brown waters as high as a three-storey building. Objects such as buses and trees and huts were tossed up in the air. In the next seconds, the murderous waters caught the people making a vain attempt to outrun it and smashed them against the floating trees, vehicles, broken walls. The waters broke compound wall of the Vandiperiyar Thermal Power Station like a hungry boy crunching chips. The tall boiler unit, build like a box, made the mistake of standing up to the onslaught, and paid the price for it – its legs got ripped off the moorings and it began to tilt dangerously, degree by degree until it fell upon the nearby administrative office, crushing it. The chimney stack and the cooling towers met with the same fate. In moments, the newly-built Unit-1 of the power plant lay flattened to the ground.
     Mayur Lodha watched it all happen from his helicopter.
     Within two hours, the waters from the breached dam reached the Idukki reservoir downstream. Unable to take the onslaught of the sudden, heavy inflow, the Idukki dam’s walls gave away. Neryamangalam Power Station and Nedumbaserry International airport became history. By the time the waters reached the Arabian sea a thousand villages were wiped off the map. Nobody ever figured out the death toll, but official figures put it at 50,000.


     "Thanks for accepting my invitation to come to my house, Dr Krishna."
     "Always a pleasure to talk to you, Mr Lodha." Sarcasm dripped from Gopi’s voice.
     They were sitting at a tea table on the terrace of Mayur’s posh house in Bandra, Mumbai. The host took a sip of the hot green tea the maid had just brought in. The guest didn’t touch his cup. After a little of the liquid slid down his throat, Mayur spoke. "You bastard! I am a ruined man today. I suppose you are happy to hear that."
     "Delighted."
     "I thought so." He took another sip and put the cup down on the saucer. "The insurance covers hardly a third of the damage. In a few weeks, the bankers will invoke my personal guarantee, which means this house of mine will be taken away from me. They are taking my entire group to the Insolvency courts, which means they will sell my other power plants to get their money back. The whole business edifice that I built over the last three decades is falling apart, my reputation is in tatters." He lit a cigarette. "But leave that apart," he continued. "Fifty thousand people dead in one of the world’s worst catastrophes. Loss to property estimated at a hundred billion dollars. Aren’t you sad?"
     "I’m deeply pained, Mr Lodha." "Then why did you do it?"
     "Why did I do what?"
     Mayur tch’ed impatiently. "You know damn well what I am talking about. Why did you breach the dam? WHY?"
     "What makes you think I was behind it?" asked Gopi coolly.
     "I know you did it. More than why, I would like to know how you did it. The dam was heavily guarded."
     "I didn’t do it, Mr Lodha. It was you. You breached the dam." "Very funny!"
     "No. I’m serious," said Gopi. "Ok, let us talk plainly now. I know you think I did it because your spy in my camp, Madhu, told you that that was my plan. I had known for some time that the fellow was spying on me for you. I told him about this ‘grand plan’ so that he could convey it to you, mislead you. I really had no such plans - obviously, I wouldn’t do what would kill thousands. True, my intention was to destroy your power plant. Even as the construction was underway, I had rigged it with dynamites in several places. I’d have blown your power plant apart after a month or so. But my plan to break the Vandiperiyar dam was a big lie, for your benefit. I didn’t do it."
     Mayur, who had been listening intently, said, "But it is a fact that the dam broke. If not you, who broke it?"
     "As I said, you. You and greedy industrialists like you. Emissions from coal plants such as yours cause global warming. Your timber and paper plants shave the hills bald. For weeks, it had been raining heavily in the watersheds. That is another effect of global warming. Hotter air scoops more water from the oceans, so there is more water to dump on the land in the form of rain. You industrialists make matters worse by shaving the sides of the mountains clean. With no soil to hold the waters, all the rainwater flooded into the rivers and ended up in the Vandiperiyar reservoir. The century-old dam was not built for such inflows of water. The wall gave away. It was Nature’s revenge. You people underestimate the seriousness of global warming. You really had it coming. When experts like me tell you the truth, you pooh-pooh us, and continue to maul the atmosphere. The result is for you to see: 50,000 dead and a hundred billion dollar loss," Gopi shook his head sadly. "I didn’t do it, Mayur. It was YOU."
     The black half-rings below Mayur Lodha’s baggy eyes appeared to be deepening by the minute. He looked sadder. "You make it sound as though I killed the 50,000 people," he said, his voice almost a plea.
     "You did, Mayur, believe me. Maybe you should share the guilt with your fellow industrialists, but you did your bit for the damage."
     "Don’t bullshit me, Gopi," said Mayur, indignantly. "Several tens of dams have failed in the past. Do you mean to blame them all on your stupid global warming theory?"
     "No, not all of them. Construction defects are to blame for a fair number of dam failures. But the Vandiperiyar dam failure was certainly due to climate change. Rainfall in the watershed was like never before in the history and the reservoir was overwhelmed. It filled in too fast. The rising reservoir waters overtopped the dam, first eroding the crest and then the downstream slopes. 20 million tonnes of water wanting to rush through a narrow gorge. The villages on the banks had no chance of survival. All because of the rains!"
     "And you blame me for the rains?" asked Mayur incredulously.
     "YES!" thundered Gopi. "Yes, yes and a thousand times yes. You and your ilk are responsible for the heavy rains. It is plain cause and effect. Only you fail to see it, acknowledge it."
     Mayur raised himself on his toes to full height. "Oh, I see!" he said, sounding sarcastic. The next moment he plunged his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out a black object. A pistol. He aimed it at Gopi’s head.
     Gopi laughed. "You really think I’m scared of death, Mayur? Go ahead and shoot me."
     "No, Dr Krishna. You are right, you are not scared of death. But guess what? I am scared of living." Mayur Lodha reversed the pistol and shot himself.