A few days back I landed in Delhi to attend a wedding. I was in the capital after a gap of full five years. I hadn’t had the chance to get back to the city of my schooling and graduation. Employment followed my master’s degree. And as fate would have it, job opportunities took me to Mumbai and later to Bangalore.
Though I had been following all the depressing updates about the city's air quality index, this was my first tryst with the real thing. The moment our flight landed, some of the seasoned Delhiites put on face masks before de-boarding. As I stepped out of the aircraft, I was greeted by a grey and gloomy skyline.
I took the Metro to the wedding venue. The train zoomed past flashy billboards that cut through the hazy skies announcing launches of anti-pollution products. One could purchase pollution-fighting shampoos and don face creams that repel pollutants. Quite amusing. I plugged in my earphones and tuned into an FM radio channel. The radio jockey rattled away about the various risks associated with polluted air. ‘Pollution’ seemed to be there not only in the air but everywhere! Sigh... Whatever happened to my Delhi trip that was supposed to be fancifully nostalgic! Once in my hotel room, I washed off the soot-like deposit on my nostrils and eyelids. Talk about pollution being palpable!
In the coming few days that I was to spend there, I could not, to my horror, identify with the city that was once my home. The haze on the streets was suffocating. The parks wore a deserted look. Friends told me parents don't wish to risk their kids’ health. The Delhi of my childhood had parks bustling with gregarious children, frenzied joggers, groups of card-playing uncles and kirtan singing aunties. The state of things was just heart-breaking.
Dad’s banking profession took us to many cities. Every city holds cherished memories for me, but none as special as those associated with the capital. When dad got transferred to Kolkata and we moved there, I could not bring myself to like the humid months and the damp rainy season. And though pujo and Rabindra Sangeet and shandesh and rosogolla had a charm of their own, I still missed the Delhi winters, the hot, piping aaloo-tikki chaats and smoking chholaa-bhatooras. Bengaluru and Mumbai were the cities where I came of age. But there was something special about Delhi. Say, the city-scape in Delhi as opposed to Mumbai never felt overbearing. The towering muti-storeyed buildings in Mumbai intimidated me. But Delhi's relatively laidback residential colonies, lush lawns, wide roads, the ruins and the tombs, felt more embracing. Unlike the almost always wonderfully pleasant weather that Bengaluru offered round the year, Delhi’s May meant juicy mangoes and desert coolers, August that long-anticipated spell of thundershowers, December the merciless winters with the pristine white fog, February the onset of beautiful spring and a customary visit to the flower show at the majestic Mughal Gardens!
It pains to see how people now dread the thought of being asked to move to Delhi. What saddens me even more is that I myself don't want to go and stay there anymore. I can’t phantom bringing up my own child in a place where one can’t breathe without worry. It is a pity because the city has so much to offer otherwise!
And Delhi is just one of the many tragedies that are soon to follow. None of us are going to manage to remain immune to the maladies of our own creation. Bengaluru is expected to run out of water by 2020, Mumbai has already been reeling under the tremendous resource crunch of playing host to a humongous population. And then there are the inter-State water disputes, the polluted rivers, the concretisation of wetlands and lakes.
Where are we headed with all this, if not towards doomsday? What answers will we give our own children? Can a nation of over a billion minds not come together to prevent a dystopian future, secure happy and carefree childhoods? If there is collective will, there will certainly be a way.