For the last 35 years the Birla group has been running its pulp factory at Mavoor. For the company, this is a means to profits worth millions. The poison the factory spews into the river Chaliyar, the toxic fumes it belches into the atmosphere and the heavy-metal sludge it dumps on the earth's surface have poisoned the villages around Mavoor and Vazhakkad.
Diseases devour their victims at a frightening pace.
Malformations of babies have multiplied. Cancer-death in the country is at its peak in these villages. The poesy of life has deserted the banks of Chaliyar. This has turned out to be our experiential truth of industrialisation. Man, his civilisation, and even his elemental senses will not prevail if nature and its elements are poisoned.