famida , 40, a resident of Bhopal's Jayaprakash Nagar was "anything but dead' for 14-odd years after the disastrous methyl iso cyanate ( mic ) gas leak in Bhopal in 1984. Two of her family members choked to death while running for their lives. She was left alive, but barely in a state to live a normal life. Blinding eye-burns and severe breathlessness, apart from the trauma of being forced to undergo an abortion, left her confined to her home.

Now, as she walks some 500 metres twice a week to an ayurvedic clinic administering treatment to the gas victims, she dreams of a life free of her illness. She was treated with panchakarma (literally, five steps), an ayurvedic treatment for flushing out toxic remains in her body, along with herbal oil massages. "It's a kind of second life they are giving me,' she says, referring to Sambhavana Clinic