Into Thick Air

Dilli and The Inability of Freedom

This post is unlikely to leave you energised. It follows the general pattern of a story except there's no moral or life advise to give you a sense of closure. I hope it's still worth your time. Especially if you need any help languishing.

---

---

There’s a certain continuity to the senses on winter mornings. I couldn’t explain that to you except by telling you that I sometimes I throw my arm out of the blanket to check if it’s light yet. I also plead with my memory to remember the brilliant sentence that just crossed my brain. A sentence I was too lazy to get up and write down. I shut my eyes real tight and translate that sentence into an image for it to stay. I need it to stay. By the time I’m up, my eyes hurt for the effort and there’s nothing to show for it.

Delhi winters are my favourite kind of winters. To be fair, they are the only winters I have experienced in their full flavour, colour, and energy. Yes, I find winters to be full of energy. I am the kind of person who feels most awake in the evening and can talk through the night. I think my body follows the same pattern for the year. Around November is when I come alive like a winter crop, making more plans than I did all year, organising picnics, attending weddings, ordering tea, finding smaller cafes, making seasonal friends. I celebrate the New Year quite well, only to fall back into a sleepy, languishing pattern from April onwards. And it is my Dilli that crusades with me all through the season, entertaining my energy for as long as it lasts. Delhi winters are not like English winters where you can't feel them unless out on the streets. When I was in England for a year, I used to burst into laughter at the touch of warmth on the bathroom floor, the heated clothes on top of the radiator, the comfort of the knob of the thermostat. The chill of Delhi is like pain- it draws attention and forces you to make adjustments. The marble floors of the Punjabi middle class house, the aimless struggle before the shower, the wait for water to turn from cold to lukewarm to warm, and the burst of the jet spray. But unlike the English cold, the Delhi cold can be shaken off for the most part in the blazing winter sun, or a long walk between metro stations.

For the past few years, I have romanticised the Dilli winters with the force of a prayer, trying to avoid the rude reminder of the Delhi pollution. But this post is not about the flavourless (important) debates around crackers, crop burning, and dust. It is a selfish meditation on my anger. The pollution has managed to dull the light of my favourite months, pushed me inside the house, and put a stop to my most sacred activity- walking around the city for hours on end. 

If I had a choice in counting how I’d like time to pass it would be in kilometres. It is an indulgence that has revealed the city to me in its widest forms- Which metro station lets you pee without exiting the station? and without entering? Which path to take for snacks under 50? 200? Which road has a tea stall that accommodates requests for sugar free tea with less milk? Where can you see the tall trees with pink flowers in bloom? What is the longest, prettiest route from India Habitat Centre to Jor Bagh metro station? Is the Mutiny Memorial worth the trouble of crossing from South Delhi to North? Or should I stick to Purana Quila? Where to go if you run out of water? Where can you find the best books for 25 rupees? My friends were at a loss to comprehend my fascination with the road, my detours, my frequent unplanned metro exits, and the time it took for me to make it to college- number of stations from home into two plus 3 minutes for transitions.

Until 2019, I had trouble explaining what the pollution did to my winter routines, and why I responded to it with something equivalent to rage. But with COVID pushing us all inside in 2020, this annoyance is now received with less abstraction. For those of us in Delhi, pollution is only the newest sorrow as the promise of post COVID refuses to come. It has collected us all from the places we dispersed to in 2021 and packed us back in- like clothes of the previous season. 

The past two weeks of November are the most amount of time I have spent at home since the 2020 lockdowns. These are also some of the most difficult weeks I have had with my throat, lungs, and moods in sync- a little something stuck from where you can't retrieve it. At any other time, I would have walked the kilometres surrounding the metro's yellow line, translating my disquiet into 10,000 steps in the nooks and corners of the city that has always held me. With the usual recourse unavailable to me, I keep reading the AQI meter which shivers between 'Severe' and 'Very Poor' as I cough on my arms, just in case it's also COVID. 

Living as a young woman in Delhi, the freedom to step out was hard won. The victory lies futile as COVID and Delhi refuse to oblige. The injustice of it all is felt acutely from the insides of a blanket in a closed room with the air purifier on. Once my season of movement, the winter smog now leaves me with a sense of being interrupted with an anger I have never felt for any other abstract headline so far. The Delhi smog eats at our lungs and shortens our lifespan. But it also leaves me stranded in my house, waiting for the city to yield to my ability. I am lost at home in a city with air too thick to accommodate my freedom. I had a terrible month and gosh, I had a really small wish to make. I wish I could go for a walk without my N95 and the need to catch my breath, with some breath left to catch.

---

---

What are we reading?
As the air and life in general continues to disappoint, I am reading Pico Iyer's Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells. It is a slow paced, descriptive stroll through Japanese autumn, a lovely meditation on family, loss, and the rhythms of generations, seasons, and human life. It was a gift from a community member at Khwaabghar. (Thanks Ila!)

Meet-up

For those of you who responded to the call for the meet-up picnic, please check your inbox on the evening of 21 November. I promise to make the picnic happier than this post!