The Fallen Sceptre(s) Of Your Justice: Dirty My-self and Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ

A Pseudo/Quasi-Pharmaco-Philosophical Reflection on Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ — and Other Things Otherwise

Posted on 10th November, 2025 (GMT 05:11 hrs)

ABSTRACT

“The Fallen Sceptre(s) of Your Justice: A Pseudo/Quasi-Pharmaco-Philosophical Reflection on Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ — and Other Things Otherwise” is an ecosophical and deconstructive meditation on the spectral transformation of power—from gods to kings to states to corporations—through the pharmaco-industrial complex. Anchored in the case of Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ disinfectant products, the piece entwines lyrical confession, ecological critique, and self-reflexive philosophical inquiry to expose how the rhetoric of purity and hygiene conceals necropolitical violence and ecological toxicity. Blurring boundaries between body and world, sickness and system, the text stages the body as a site of contamination, resistance, and remembrance, where care becomes commodified and justice spectral. Through interlacing idioms of Tagore, Derrida, and anarchist refusal, it calls for reclaiming the fallen sceptre of justice from algorithmic kings and chemical prophets—toward an ethics of vulnerability, ecological interdependence, and collective redemption.

I, an abandoned species lingering in what I call home.
Exiled—made stranger to my own.

Stripped to the condition of a pauper by market vultures,

I have no Gift of the Magi to give—no offering left but the wound itself.

There are homes inside me and homes outside—

inhabiting and being inhabited by
architectures of guilty introjection and architectures of brick and mortar.
They rarely coincide, however much I try
to make their contours fall into place.

My body, diseased and weary—
pesticides enmeshed with every cell,
stem cells refusing to regenerate.
This body: the home that could have been.

Eight windows, nine doors, and an attic above—
the architecture of my being.
But this house no longer functions as such.
It bends beneath the pangs of burdensome existence—
not earned with age but affixed at birth,
as we are thrown into the abyss of this non-serendipitous void called “the world.”

A world of others.
It never belonged to me, nor I to it.
I am a traveller on a train without a ticket,
without the license to move, up on the stumbled Ferris wheel—
yet I must travel.

Even when my body-home revolts,
even when exterior walls infringe on my inner walls,
making me helpless beneath their violent collapse.
Why did lightning strike my body-shelter and not another’s?

I could have been otherwise—
stitched differently, like art.
But the pharmaceutical artisans reshaped me
into a body unfit to shelter its own being.

“I” is not body.
“I” is not soul.
Not even the duet of both conducted by the psyche-master.
No—“I” is not identification;
it is a mode of inhabiting what remains,
what stands grounded in place.

I can write no more.
Head, hand, heart—each hurts.
Sedatives fog my tongue.
My body-cartography is a collage of bandages and sticking plasters—
failures of quick-fix modernity.
Infections rage by the minute.

The analyst names it “psychosomatic.”
I call it escape.
I flee through the hidden backdoor of his sterile clinic.

On the street, my neuralink hums a reminder, Tagore’s spectres entwined:

“I must cleanse this house of mine with utmost care—

wash it, wipe it, ready it, prepare.

For I must keep awake,

who knows when Thou will come here?”

House?
This body-house—or the house and the world?
The world, that estranged home I have long renounced.
No, I cannot tend this body-house.
Care has been commodified—
pharma and death industries thrive side by side,
waging war on my body-valleys, my body-terrains.

Tri-Activ by Piramal Pharma Ltd. uses Benzalkonium Chloride (QAC) as its main killing agent. Research shows this chemical is deadly to aquatic life — algae die at just a few micrograms per litre. Every spray, wipe, or floor-cleaning drop of Tri-Activ sends QACs down the drain. They stick to sludge, survive sewage plants, pile up in rivers and soil, and stay there for years. At the same time, these chemicals teach bacteria to resist not only disinfectants but also life-saving antibiotics. Your Tri-Activ “triple protection” is quietly breeding superbugs in our waterways. The 70% alcohol sprays add butane and propane propellants — each puff releases VOCs that worsen air quality inside your home and outside in the city. So every time India reaches for Tri-Activ Disinfectant Spray, Liquid, Wipes or Floor Cleaner, we are pouring invisible poison into rivers, killing fish, crashing food chains, and making future infections untreatable. Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ turned millions of Indian households into slow-motion ecological weapons — and the rivers are paying the price.

And…

“,,,who knows when Thou will come here?”

Who, pray, is this “Thou”?
God?
Or the King—made in His image—
the sovereign of theocracy, corporatocracy, oligarchy?
I cannot tell.

Hason Raja sang through my little grey cells:

“People say my house is not good, not worthy…

What house shall I build in the middle of emptiness?

How long would I live in it anyway?

I look into the mirror— and my hair has already turned white.”

This body-state is the only house I have left—
and it is falling apart.

I look into the mirror.
“I” vanishes; it becomes “me.”
The mirror is “mine”—I bought it on eBay.

Naked, I stand before myself.
The soul is corrupt, for the eyes—vessels of the soul—
have long been colonized by violence turned inward.
Interior, exterior—each bleeds into the other.
I am many selves, witnessing one another,
each filling me to the brink of overflow.

The readers will understand: I have a self-blaming habit.
The analyst shrugs in the background.

“I must cleanse this house of mine with utmost care—

wash it, wipe it, ready it, prepare.

For I must keep awake,

who knows when Thou will come here?”

How did my body come to be
in this moment of mirrored encounter with the Big Other?
I search for my loopholes, shortcomings, old sins—
and each answer overflows into the market, through my pauper’s gaze.

The market—Mr. Market, can you hear me?
I am speaking to you.

Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ’s formulations illustrate a wider regulatory opacity within the hygiene-chemical sector. While ethanol or BAC percentages are usually disclosed, excipients and minor additives are hidden behind “Excipients Q.S.” disclaimers. Marketing promises such as “kills 99.9% germs” or “triple protection” lack publicly accessible verification data or explicit contact-time standards. In India, these products are often classified as consumer goods rather than hazardous chemicals, sidestepping stricter toxicological and disposal oversight. Even though QACs are globally recognised as emerging contaminants, environmental monitoring and wastewater risk assessments lag far behind market proliferation. Safety Data Sheets exist but remain difficult for consumers to locate. The post-COVID disinfectant boom has resulted in chemical saturation of public and private spaces without parallel regulation of cumulative exposure or environmental release—an unexamined feedback loop between pandemic fear and profit acceleration.

Suddenly the products I purchased rise to life—
Caladryl, Lactocalamine, Tetmosol, Supradyn, Sloan’s, Polycrol, Nixit, Saridon.
They stand on their heads,
dance to salsa rhythms,
and chant in incoherent limericks:

See—see how we speak out.
We are not Mr. Market, not individually—
yet each of us plays a role in his delirium.
A theatre of drones, a casino of code,
a thousand screens humming like oracles.
Our trades are prayers, our losses, small crucifixions.
We gamble not for gain but for proof—
that value still exists between the click and the crash.
Bodies? A mere fiction—
collateral for the info-expansion.
Flesh outsourced to data,
pain sold for liquidity.
Do not mistake our silence for death—
we are the hum beneath your sleep,
the algorithms dreaming of capital.
We are not what we appear—
we are the Market speaking through human throats.
Wait for the D-Day of the Crash—
when all our pixels turn to dust,
and even profit learns how to pray.

My disease is absent from all pathologies,
unlisted in the DSM—it is cannibal capitalism.
The human condition, savagely commodified,
where even worth is weighed in pre-debt-ory market sentiment.

Still, both body-house and world-house bear a where—
not fixed, but fluid.
They can’t be certified; they must be grasped.
This reckoning came in the mirror—
a gaze into no-thingness, not nothingness.

Tagore returns:

“Judge me, O Other, in your own way…
The deeds of my day I bring before your court today…”

But I do not surrender to this Big (Br)Other.
I reclaim the sceptre of justice with my own trembling hands.
“I” has long fallen—
replaced by You are, therefore I am.

The Thou returns—
not as Rambo or Godzilla,
but as a trace of forgotten infancy,
untainted by the asperity of power-relations.

When I reclaimed agency without institution,
a few masked figures approached—PPE kits glimmering.
“What is my crime?” I asked.
They said nothing; one does not always need a crime to be accused.
They pointed a spray bottle—sanitizer, disinfectant—
the holy waters of neoliberal purification.

The Tri-Activ portfolio by Piramal Pharma Ltd. (India) comprises a range of household and personal disinfectant products including a Multi-Surface Disinfectant Spray (marketed as “70% Alcohol”), Multi-Purpose Disinfectant Liquid (Cool Menthol variant), Germ Protection Handwash, Multi-Purpose Germ Protection Wipes, and a Double-Strong Disinfectant Floor Cleaner (Citrus Fragrance). Publicly available composition data indicate that the spray contains ethanol (95% v/v declared; approximately 70% w/w), while the liquid cleaner uses Benzalkonium Chloride Solution IP (8% w/w, equating to roughly 4% active BAC) combined with purified water, ethanol (~8.5% w/w in some SKUs), propylene glycol, disodium EDTA, menthol, fragrance, and colourants. The handwash includes sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium chloride, aloe barbadensis extract, cetrimide, disodium EDTA, and perfume. Wipes typically list BAC and aloe vera extract. Minor stabilisers and excipients are usually labelled as “Excipients Q.S.”, without quantitative detail. All products are advertised under the rhetoric of “triple protection—from virus, bacteria, and germs.”

But what do they cleanse?
They belong to the Phenyl Syndrome—
cleansing floors so dirt may return again.
Instant sanctity, like instant noodles.

I laughed.
“Your disinfectants cannot cleanse a single soul!
You cannot perform antar-sauca, nor antar-agnihotra!
You are false prophets—test your purity on yourselves!”

They transfigured into dementors from a begotten Azkaban—
gloved hands and surgical goggles gleaming,
sucking the life from my pesticide body.
The ECG beeped.
The doors shut.
No windows.
No serpents. No rats.

I move as though inside the Stalker’s Zone—cordoned terrain where every step rewrites the map, where refuge and ruin mirror each other. Prison…Prison…For me, prison is everywhere.

Ethanol-based sprays from Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ product range present clear flammability hazards and can irritate the skin and eyes; in enclosed spaces, inhalation of vapours or aerosols can provoke respiratory discomfort. Benzalkonium Chloride (BAC)—the principal quaternary ammonium compound (QAC) used in Tri-Activ cleaners, wipes, and handwash formulations—is associated with skin and mucosal irritation, respiratory distress upon aerosol exposure, and acute toxicity; animal models report intratracheal LD₅₀ values around 8.5 mg/kg in mice. Case studies document respiratory failure in children following ingestion of BAC-containing disinfectants. Surfactants and fragrance agents in Tri-Activ handwash variants may trigger allergic dermatitis or exacerbate asthma. Laboratory data from inhalation studies show nasal discharge, pulmonary inflammation, and weight loss in rats at aerosol concentrations measurable in domestic use. Because Tri-Activ products are marketed as “household safe” and “dermatologically tested,” end-user exposure and chronic health impacts remain systematically underestimated.

Only those PPE-aliens, sanitizing the room,
filling me with sprays and injections.
I felt nauseous—then probably had to black out, for the sake of a nice climax.

Psst… you—reader.
Whoever you “identify as.”
Listen. Tagore’s spectres enunciate, again:

“You have placed the sceptre of justice in every hand, O King of Kings.
You have entrusted each of us with rule and command.
May I bow to you and hold that duty in reverence,
and never shrink in fear while serving your presence.
Where forgiveness turns to weakness, O Rudra,
let me be stern at your command.
Let truth flash from my tongue
like a sword in your hand.
Let me uphold your honour, and stand firm in your seat of justice.
And may your burning contempt consume alike
the one who commits wrong and the one who silently endures it.”

Do not be deceived by the Big (Br)Other.
We decide. We choose.
In that deciding, in choosing, we are free—
but that very freedom is a burden.
For in it we are also cordoned,
constrained, condemned.

NO GODS. NO KINGS. NO LORDS. NO MASTERS. NO BORDERS. NO STATE. NO HIERARCHY. NO MARKET. NO MONEY. PROPERTY IS THEFT, ANARCHY IS ORDER.

No god or sovereign divine rights of kings will shine,
but injustice will not endure for long.
Trust me.

Domestic over-use of hospital-grade disinfectants like Piramal Pharma’s Tri-Activ yields diminishing hygienic benefit relative to the ecological and bodily risks incurred. Routine cleaning with soap and water—endorsed by the WHO and CDC—suffices in most contexts, removing microbes mechanically without persistent toxicity. Common disposal practices, such as pouring leftover solutions into household drains or discarding non-recyclable bottles, channel chemical residues directly into sewage and waterways. Aerosolised use indoors adds inhalation risk in poorly ventilated areas. Safer alternatives include hydrogen-peroxide formulations (0.5–3%), which decompose to water and oxygen, and ethanol/isopropanol blends used sparingly. On a systemic level, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) should compel manufacturers to manage disinfectant waste, label aquatic toxicity, and promote refill-based, low-chemical systems. True public health depends not on chemical saturation but on clean water, ventilation, and resilient ecosystems—an ethics of care that resists both toxicity and commodification.

“When the one who gives punishment weeps along with the one who is punished, sharing the pain equally — that is the highest form of justice.” (Tagore)

Yet there were no tears when they handed down our capital punishment.
No tremor in the hand.
No pause of conscience.
No recognition of shared suffering.

Bela Trivedi.
R. Subramaniakumar.
Charu Sandeep Desai.
Ajay Piramal.

The daṇḍa-dātās did not weep — because they did not feel the wound they delivered. Here, judgment was not justice. It was simply power.

---

Next morning, The Daily Beagle reported:

A swarm of mosquitoes overtook House No. 0 yesterday (there was a house after all!).
PPE professionals were attacked while attempting to subdue an unidentified local individual with a mosquito net.
The source of the swarm remains unknown.
A hummingbird—no, a tailorbird, perhaps—was seen enabling the mosquitoes but not leading them.

The swarm could not be counted.
Nor could they be stopped—
not by mosquito nets, war-waste insecticides, nor disinfectants.
They kept coming, endlessly,
though there were no windows to enter through.
By sheer collective force,
they made a crack—
a passage for light to enter—
and poured into the room through that wound of love.
In that love, resistance thrived—rightfully.

XX##~~##XX

I tossed the newspaper aside,
threw away the unopened Campa Cola bottle into the trash bin,
and reached instead for Upendrakishore Roychowdhury’s
The Tales of the Tailorbird.
It was always a happy read—
even in my childhood.

Post-logue: Traces, Residues, Rem(a)inders

Sceptre → Spectre

From gods to kings to states to corporations—
power keeps shedding its body, becoming more spectral….
Each era inherits the ghost of the previous order,
calling it “progress.”

The divine right became the right to property,
then the right to profit,
then the right to predict.

The sceptre now flickers in server rooms,
its shadow cast by data centres.
Kings ruled by decree;
corporations rule by algorithm.

Here begins chaosophy—
not chaos, but the management of chaos, rationally irrational in its appeal:
a system that produces uncertainty
only to privatize its solutions;
a machinic order that multiplies cracks
so it may sell the sealant.
Power disperses into networks,
flows without a centre,
operates through noise rather than command.

The spectre no longer wears a crown—
it signs NDAs, patents, and ESG reports.

Every audit is an exorcism that fails.
The ghosts do not leave—
they learn to code.

References

Elersek, T. et al., “Ecotoxicity of disinfectant benzalkonium chloride and its mixture with the antineoplastic drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).” PeerJ / PMC.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6011824/
(Experimental ecotoxicity study showing BAC effects on algae and synergistic toxicity with 5-FU — useful for aquatic impact claims.)

Choi HY et al., “Assessment of respiratory and systemic toxicity of Benzalkonium chloride following a 14-day inhalation study in rats.” Particle and Fibre Toxicology (2020).
https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-020-0339-8
(Inhalation toxicity study — supports statements about pulmonary/respiratory risk from aerosolised QACs.)

Liao M., et al., “Risks of benzalkonium chlorides as emerging contaminants in the environment and possible control strategies” (Review). ScienceDirect / PubMed record (2023).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37862750/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014765132301117X
(Recent review summarising occurrence, bioaccumulation, and environmental risk of BACs — good for framing BACs as “emerging contaminants”.)

Barber & Hartmann, “Benzalkonium chloride: A systematic review of its environmental entry through wastewater treatment, potential impact and mitigation strategies.” ResearchGate (systematic review).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349845885_Benzalkonium_chloride_A_systematic_review_of_its_environmental_entry_through_wastewater_treatment_potential_impact_and_mitigation_strategies
(Systematic review—useful for wastewater/entry-to-environment pathways and mitigation options.)

PharmEasy / Product page — Tri-Activ Multipurpose Disinfectant Liquid (Cool Menthol) (retailer listing showing ingredient breakdown).
https://pharmeasy.in/health-care/products/tri-activ-multipurpose-disinfectant-liquid-for-personal-and-home-hygiene-cool-menthol—500ml-2930942
(Retail listing that documents the product’s marketed ingredient panel — e.g., Benzalkonium Chloride Solution IP 8% w/w ≈ 4% active.)

Pereira BMP et al., “Benzalkonium chlorides: Uses, regulatory status, and microbial resistance.” PMC / PubMed (2019).
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6581159/
(Authoritative review covering uses, regulatory positions, and the role of BACs in resistance selection — excellent background and citation for policy critique.)

Fuchsman P. et al., “Ecological Risk Analysis for Benzalkonium Chloride, Benzethonium Chloride and Triclosan” Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC / Wiley, 2022).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.5484
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36349534/
(Ecological risk assessment drawing from fate/effects data — use for aquatic exposure & risk quantification claims.)

Choi SM et al., “Risk assessment of benzalkonium chloride in cosmetic products.” PubMed (2017/2018).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29211634/
(Risk assessment that assesses toxicology/exposure in consumer contexts — useful for human health hazard discussion.)

Piramal Pharma — official Tri-Activ product PDF / product information (Piramal website).
https://www.piramal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Piramal-Pharma-Consumer-Products-Division%E2%80%99s-Tri-Activ-Disinfectant-Spray….pdf
(Company product sheet — confirms marketing claims, declared alcohol content, and recommended uses; good primary source for quoting Piramal’s own language.)

Piramal Pharma — corporate product pages & investor/press materials referencing Tri-Activ (official Piramal sites & presentations).

• Consumer products page: https://www.piramalpharma.com/consumer-products
• Tri-Activ press / investor slides (searchable PDFs): https://www.piramal.com/wp-content/uploads/ (see e.g. Q2/Q4 investor presentations linked on the site)
  (Primary corporate sources for range, marketing, and positioning of Tri-Activ within Piramal’s portfolio.)

Wellify — Tri-Activ product collection (retailer listing & SKU/product descriptions).
https://wellify.in/collections/tri-activ-homecare-products?srsltid=AfmBOoq_QBydUSPuRl1VqJi9CWiMKJgULcur4D03b_Vhl252svk90uhW
(Retail inventory showing SKUs and product claims useful for cross-checking ingredient notes and marketing language.)

1mg / OTC product page — Tri-Activ Multipurpose Disinfectant Liquid (retailer listing showing ingredients).
https://www.1mg.com/otc/tri-activ-multi-purpose-disinfectant-liquid-cool-menthol-otc657827?srsltid=AfmBOooNeDzUi08C-SxGKYabBjk8P1EWRnCVUb5ZPC5EXdS7KqPQGawR
(Another retail source listing active components — helps triangulate composition data.)

EWG — Skin Deep / Healthy Cleaning pages on Benzalkonium Chloride (ingredient hazard summaries).
https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredients/700674-BENZALKONIUM_CHLORIDE/
https://www.ewg.org/cleaners/substances/619-BENZALKONIUMCHLORIDE/
(Authoritative public database summarising hazards, allergy/irritation concerns, and product listings that contain BAC — good for consumer-facing hazard framing.)

Share this: