We, the people of Delhi, are in a bad marriage with the city. This marriage is beyond redemption, but both parties dither in calling it quits. Because calling it quits brings not only pain but also an acknowledgement that we made a mistake.
So, we carry on with the burden of our past mistakes on our fingers only to dig our claws deeper into each other's skin. On a ‘good' day, such as today, the AQI reading in Delhi is 407. We are jubilant at the sickly sunshine trickling through the slightly dissipated smog.
At least it's not 1600. At least s/he isn't hitting me in the face. We are so used to the drama of this destructive toxicity that we are scared of the lack of drama.
Our lungs get into a shock when we are exposed to clean, crisp air the way we feel threatened by a love that does not thrive on contractual power dynamics. We are instinctively scared and suspicious. We seek beauty in the haze of smog exactly how we find comfort in the seeming stability of a marriage.
This beauty and this stability are enough to kill us a hundred times over. Resorting to generalisations, there is a class-defined perception of pollution of both marriage and air. While the rich keep discussing it ad nauseam from the relative comforts of their homes—with airconditioning and purifiers cranked up to max—the poor have no such luxury.
In fact, they light a fire to keep them warm. The results are the same. The rich have the luxury of getaways and vacations to lull them into thinking that it's n.
