Capital alerts: Delhi's long tryst with sirens

Once central to wartime blackouts and air raid drills, Delhi's sirens return —evoking memories of darkened windows and tense, silent waits

- Manoj Sharma

NEW DELHI: On Friday afternoon, a day before India and Pakistan called a ceasefire and halted military action, a wail-like sound rang through ITO, in the heart of Delhi. It was a long and metallic cry of an air raid siren atop the PWD building—part of a citywide revival of a wartime warning system. This was one of 500 sirens the Delhi government planned to install across the Capital, reintroducing a civil defence tool that once dictated everyday life during times of conflict.

For many, the siren brought back memories of wartime Delhi, when residents lived in constant fear of air raids.

"I first heard the siren in 1962 when I was in college. The sirens were installed on campus, and the civil defence corps would visit to teach us safety drills," said Sydney Rebeiro, 83, former dean of culture at Delhi University. "They were sounded more frequently during the 1971 war with Pakistan. I remember once coming out of Regal Cinema and finding Connaught Place pitch-dark. Those days, the sound of the siren was unnerving, but the short burst that indicated the all-clear felt like music to the ears."

"We got our information mainly from All India Radio, about various civil defence drills. We used to rush to cover windows with brown paper or newspapers, so light wouldn't filter out and, in case of a blast, the glass wouldn't shatter like shrapnel," said Suresh Mehta, 70, a resident of Karol Bagh.

Air raid sirens: A history Delhi's first air raid sirens were installed in the early 1940s by the British colonial administration as part of the Air Raid Precaution programme during World War II.