April 01, 2026

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India's MR. CLEAN

THE WATER SUPPLY in the village of Bichhri, Rajasthan, was so polluted that a vile, dark liquid laden with sulphuric acid came up from wells as deep as 40 metres. Villagers believed that the five factories which regularly dumped chemicals into the ground were to blame. The factory owners insisted they weren't. The result was a legal stalemate. When advocate M. C. Mehta produced a chemical analysis tying the pollutants directly to the factories, lawyers for the owners still resisted. Mehta listened to them argue at length before the Supreme Court, biding his time. Then he struck. Shuffling a small stack of papers on the table in front of him, he picked up a bottle filled with amber liquid and silently raised it with his left hand for everyone in the courtroom to see. “What is that Mr. Mehta?” asked the presiding judge, apparently annoyed. “Is it rum?” “No, your Lordship,” Mehta said, ignoring the titter of laughter from his colleagues. “This is the water thousands of people are drinking.” Mehta pressed on. “Your Lordship,” he said, “I will drop the case if my friend who is arguing will drink only one drop of this water.” Stunned, the lawyer refused, and Mehta, at last, allowed himself a smile: “Well, if you cannot drink it, then how can you ask the people to drink it?” That moment of courtroom theatrics a decade ago led to a far-reaching

TRAPPED IN THE DESERT

IT BEGAN INNOCENTLY enough, that hot June night in 1959, when I turned off U.S. 91 in the middle of California's Mojave Desert, and headed the old black coupé down a gravel road. I was only 18, and I didn't understand how a moment of thoughtlessness in the mid-summer desert can lead you, step by irrevocable step, to disasterAn aged prospector had told us-- my 16-year-old school friend Jim Twomey and me--that the road led to derelict Rasor Ranch, on the edge of an area called the Devil's Playground. Desert `ghost settlements' fascinated me, and so did the prospector's report of rattlesnakes there. As a budding zoology major, I collected animal specimens to help pay for such wandering vacations as thisWe had a couple of days' food in the car, and there was supposed to be a good well at Rasor. Still, I'd never have turned off the highway with only two pints of water in our canteens if I hadn't been so tired. It was almost midnight. We'd driven more than 640 kilometres from San Francisco; then we'd bird-watched most of a sunscorched afternoonTurning off the highway at a halfburied tyre, the prospector had told us about, I drove down the moonlit gravel road. After a long way--I didn't notice just how long--we hit a little finger of sand that had drifted across the road. I gunned the car, and we ploughed over it, then over three more driftsAfter the fourth, our headlights showed no firm gravel road, only pale, undulating sand. For a few feet, the car gained momentum. Then its spinning wheels began to dig down. We shuddered to a halt200 FEET OF SAND Obviously, I'd taken a wrong turn. We got out and paced the distance back to the road: 200 feet. Jim wanted to sleep and dig out next morning"No," I said. "Let's get out now. It'll only take a few minutes." An hour later, we hadn't moved an inch. The rear wheels had dug deeper, that was all. Then, searching for rocks in the moonlight, we stumbled onto the remains of an old railroad track. The steel had been salvaged, but a few ties remained. We found nine in various degrees of preservationUsing one as a firm base, we jacked up the car and laid a double strip of ties, starting at the front wheels and extending out behind. Then I eased the car backward. It moved slowly but steadily: two feet--six feet--10 feet. Then one wheel slipped off a tie and the car stoppedAll through that long, frustrating night we jacked up the car, rearranged the ties, reversed a few feet until the inevitable slip. I figured we'd come at least 20 km from the highway, perhaps 30. But what really mattered was that 200 feet of sand between the car and the gravel road. By five o'clock in the morning, we'd covered perhaps