It was ‘Delhi’ Before it Became a ‘Gas Chamber’

I woke up to a quiet morning with little time to myself. Autumn mornings and a nip of cold, the swirling smoke of warm tea tracing memories in the air.

A rare delight, it was not.

Delight is when you are happy, but now the pleasant memories of autumn morning are safe somewhere in the past.

A day off from school because the air is unsafe to “breathe” was the last reason imaginable for a holiday. Yet, we live in a world stranger than Orwell’s 1984. Now, we look at autumn mornings from behind glass doors with green plants and air-purifiers adding freshness to the room.

The other day, my daughter had breathing trouble in class, and her classmate was quick to share her inhaler. I was shocked!

Not at the quick thinking of the child to offer inhaler (offering first-aid knowing, we do not share inhalers) but at how the world has evolved from once sharing pencils and lunches to this generation sharing ‘inhalers.’

Now, the school checklist each morning is inhaler and mask, followed by water, lunch, books, & RFID.

The school doesn’t allow sharing food due to health issues, I do not allow re-filling water bottle outside due to NDM 1 scare in water supply, and the government doesn’t want us to breathe due to polluted air.

‘Vote- seekers’ (read politicians) call Delhi a “gas-chamber” as though they will win empathy of citizens. Those in places to bring change have left it to citizens to do the needful. Writing slogans, car-pool, online petitions can hardly put a dent in the bigger problem – a problem that governments of various states can easily work out together and resolve; after all, it’s the lives at stake.

What Should Be Done?

First, innovative techniques have to be used to reduce farm stubble. Also, alternate crops like maize should be grown, instead of paddy, that leaves such stubble and lowers ground water availability. After all, the wind will blow from west to east for now.

Cars are a major source of pollution, as are bigger transport vehicles like trucks. But, what about the silent problem of dust on streets?

A study by Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur in 2015 revealed that cars and jeeps contribute less than 10 percent of particulate matter, while trucks are bigger culprits. Also, road dust accounts for about 35 percent of tiny particles known as PM 2.5 in the air.

Construction sites are equally responsible for pollution, as are restaurants and hotels.

Perhaps on a more neighbourhood level, civil society activism is needed where RWAs can pitch in to address issues like road dust, planting more trees in the neighbourhood, and leaving less carbon footprint in every possible way.

The urban jungles can use more green and less concrete.

However, for ‘vote-seekers’ the problem to resolve immediately is the one that gets votes, not humans suffocating in the capital of India which is leisurely termed a “gas chamber.”

If we are in a gas chamber, then what does it make those at the top responsible for putting us in it? 

Need I say more or is it understood?

The only difference is we are all in the same “gas-chamber” – the haves, the have-nots, the policy makers, the vote-seekers, and the voters.

(Prachi Pratap lives in New Delhi with her Indo-American family. She is an entrepreneur manufacturing bronze art. She also has a social enterprise reviving and selling ethnic Indian wear. She is founder of web-based platform connecting non-profits called Ngo Express. She has done history (hons) , BA LLB and MBA. The views expressed above are author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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