Profiles in pollution.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

On Monday morning this week in November 2024, the UNESCO World Heritage monument of Humayun Tomb vanished. The view was claimed by a relentless smog so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. That fateful day, Delhi’s Air Quality Index remained in the “severe plus” category, almost touching the dreadful maximum figure of 500. It was the second-worst air quality recorded since AQI tracking began in 2015, according to the Central Pollution Control Board. During the ensuing days, The Delhi Walla tracked a few Delhiwale from varied walks of life who have been obliged to expose themselves daily to the city’s toxic air, with no succour or respite.

The qawwals

The two brothers, Azam and Nazim Nizami, are dealing with mildly sore throats. Must be the pollution, they assume. They also have a slight cough, and the customary richness of their voices seems to have been affected, especially in Azam’s case.

Like most of us Delhiwale, they have no choice but to resign themselves to this cyclic recurrence of extreme pollution. However, unlike most of us, their daily work is at great risk, as the pollution has the immediate potential to hinder their singing in real time. The brothers are singers, and they offer qawwalis every evening in the open-air courtyard of Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah. While the shrine may be sacred to the visiting devotees, the air inside is as toxic as the one that has engulfed the rest of Delhi.

The brothers commute daily to the central Delhi sufi shrine from their home in Old Delhi’s Chandni Mahal. This evening, they are having chai in a corner ahata that overlooks the dargah courtyard. “My eyes are burning,” says one brother. The other explains that a qawwal must always sing forcefully because of the nature of qawwali. “Each time we sing, even if we happen to be in the cleanest air in the world, we feel the force we have to extract from our lungs, our chest, and most importantly, from here.” He runs his finger along his neck.

The Delhi winter brings its annual wave of deathly pollution, but it also marks an increase in singing assignments for the two brothers, due to the wedding season. They remain vigilant about keeping their voices in good shape. Cold drinks and cold food are out of question. Only hot water is consumed before starting the two-hour-long morning riyaz.

Posing for a portrait, one of the brothers clears his throat loudly. Soon after, they both walk to the courtyard and sit down under the black starless sky with a few other singers. Azam takes hold of the harmonium. The combined voices of the qawwals spread into the chilly rancid air as majestically as they do on days of blue sky. It’s pure magic.

The rickshaw puller

He has been a rickshaw puller in Delhi for 20 years, but middle-aged Israil doesn’t consider himself a citizen of this city. He believes he is immune to the minutiae of Delhi life, including its winter pollution.

In truth, a rickshaw puller is more vulnerable to pollution than many others. While steering his vehicle through smog-filled lanes, he has direct and constant exposure to the toxic air. Can’t Israil excuse himself from the streets while the air is so hazardous? “I’m not living so far from my Bihar to sit without work,” he says. This grey afternoon, he has parked his rickshaw by a market roadside, waiting for customers.

Israil gets passionate when the topic of the mask comes up. “If I put one on my face, then my mouth sweats, the cloth sticks to my skin, and it is difficult to breathe.” In any case, he declares, “Pollution affects the rich, they are the delicate people… Poor folks like me cannot afford to stop working, God has made us strong.” He taps his hand on his chest three or four times for emphasis.

And suddenly, he coughs.

“I have four daughters and one son. I have to raise my children. I have to work every day.”

Israil admits that these days his eyes often burn. “But what can I do about it? I hit the road every morning at seven and return to my kamra at nine in the night.”

As he poses for a portrait on the rickshaw’s passenger seat, he remarks, “When you have to look after your children, it’s not easy for the death to come to you.”

The gardener

A gardener is typically expected to mow the grass, look after the flowers, trim the hedges, worry about the fertilisers, and so on. But gardener Tarun Mondal is patrolling the vast grounds with a spray gun, shooting jets of water 25 feet into the air.

“To bring down the dust… to control the pollution,” he explains calmly.

Tarun is one of the 50 gardeners at Sunder Nursery. Two weeks ago, the park’s management distributed pollution masks to all outdoor staffers, including the gardeners. The park itself boasts a gigantic air purifier, with a plaque proudly stating that it clears 600,000 cubic meters of air daily, which is equivalent to the size of a cricket maidan.

Like many others, Tarun has been dealing with sore throat. And a colleague, he says, has had difficulties breathing, especially while walking.

Elsewhere in the park this afternoon, masked gardeners are using hose pipes to spray water upon the grass and trees, while sprinklers are moistening the dust-laden air. All this water is coming from the park’s assortment of lakes, which are not only pretty, but also serve as reservoirs for rain water. Meanwhile, Tarun’s sophisticated equipment is drawing water from a plastic drum containing 50 litres of water. He has emptied 20 drums since the morning.

Tarun turns to another section of the garden. As the water shoots from his spray gun, the afternoon sunlight turns the vapour-like droplets into an illusion of brown dust.

The entrepreneurs

Their sixth floor apartment in Ghaziabad is sealed with air purifiers and ACs. If they wished, the mother and daughter could keep themselves secluded from the city’s extreme pollution.

But they continue to navigate daily through the smoggy exteriors, spending hours in the dusty lanes of south Delhi’s “garment factory” zones.

Designer Payal Singh recently gave up a comfortable job in a garment firm in Noida, and registered with her daughter, Paridhi, a name for their forthcoming fashion label. Gendabloom is still to be launched. First, the two women must build their collection of couture, endlessly dealing with scores of fabric sellers, tailors, dyers, and cloth suppliers. Each day, they commute to the “production houses” and “factories” of Govindpuri, Mehrauli, Shanti Mohalla, and Tughlakabad. The vast distance between Ghaziabad and the southern edge of Delhi is covered within the sanitised metro, but once they are in the area, the duo commute through the crowded dusty lanes on e-rickshaws and by walking.

This being a crucial time for their new business, they cannot let the nasty pollution come in the way, says the mother in a workaholic’s cargo pants as she prepares to leave the house. The living room shows a panoramic view of the surrounding multi-stories. This morning, they are cloaked in a haze. Early this week, the view had become almost invisible, causing an allergic reaction to the daughter.

Wearing the mask isn’t helpful. “My energy level goes down as soon as I wear it, I feel a lack of oxygen, I feel exhausted,” says the mother.

During their work visits to the “factories,” the two have lately observed that the “karigars” are being given chai in small cups after quick intervals. “These days, each one of them is having a sore throat, partly because of the pollution, and also because their work involves a lot of fine particles of fabric fibre. The chai helps with the throat.”

Since the daughter still hasn’t recovered from her allergic cough, Payal will go out alone today. “I don’t feel the pollution so much,” she says dismissively. Her daughter retorts, “The pollution will still affect your lungs and your overall health, whether you feel it or not.”

The safai karamchari

It is early morning, and the colony road is strewn with leaves. Rajbir appears in a sleeveless sweater, walking along the lane. Carrying a long broom, he starts to sweep. Dry leaves swirl around him, and a cloud of dust, invisible until now, rises into the air.

This has been Rajbir’s morning routine for 19 years. It would have been any typical day for him, were it not for the extraordinarily levels of pollution blanketing Delhi. Around the construction sites, labourers are sitting or lying on piles of cement, idle for once. Much of the Delhi region’s construction work has been suspended to limit the spread of dust.

No matter, Rajbir, a safai karanchari with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, must wade into the smog every day. “I work from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and spend most of that time in the dust,” he says. A resident of Mandoli village, he commutes to work on his bike, braving through the cold, dirty pre-dawn November air.

The peak pollution of the past few days has left him feeling slightly dizzy, with occasional throat irritation. Otherwise, he says, he’s doing “ok” and can always rely on the department’s medical dispensary.
The morning feels a bit more bearable, Rajbeer comments, pointing to the warm sunshine streaming through the leaves of a pilkhan tree. He tries not to think too much of the pollution. “It’s best not to dwell on something that is beyond my control.”

As he sweeps further along the street, more dust swirls around him. Silently, Rajbir folds his gamcha (scarf) around his neck, pulling a part of it to cover his nose.

The shopkeeper

Bookseller Surinder Kumar Dhawan runs a proper shop, not a stall, near Golcha Cinema. So he isn’t sitting out in the open. That said, consider the whole scene. The tiny bookstore faces the pavement along a traffic-heavy road, and the store has a shutter (no door), enabling the city’s smog to effortlessly invade the interiors. Surinder himself sits at the mouth of the shop, right beside the pave.

Still, he doesn’t feel much of the pollution, he says in an easy-going tone. “I’m so used to smoking beedis that I don’t feel the smoke of the pradushan (pollution).” Yet, early this week, on one of the season’s worst days of pollution, Surinder felt breathless while climbing the stairs to his apartment. He got alarmed because “a few years ago, around this time of the year, when we had this same kind of pollution, I felt a slight pain in my chest, and it was a mild heart attack.”

After that scare, Surinder quit smoking at his family’s urging, and quickly returned to the habit. “It’s not that I feel great when I smoke, I suffer when I give it up.”

The peak pollution translates into a drastic drop in customers, yet Surinder is obliged to keep the shop open. “Our dhanda involves so much movement of maal that a single day of closure creates problems with suppliers and distributors. I also have to pay daily rent for the shop and warehouse, and I have to pay my employees for every single day, whether the shop is open or not.”

Surinder is soon joined by fellow bookseller Rajesh, who pulls down his mask to share a cup of chai. Rajesh recently returned from a long trip in north-east India, “where the air is so fresh.” Folding his arms, Surinder looks serene. “Dilli is unliveable,” he remarks. “What to do, I cannot go settle somewhere else, I don’t have this option.”

Lodhi Garden in extreme pollution