A prescription for getting Delhi to breathe fine again

Delhi must relocate many of its institutions. It must remain the nation’s capital —no question about that. But it has to become a leaner, cleaner city

- Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Delhi’s toxic air is a scandal, a global scandal. And it is going to be so, for the foreseeable future. Just imagine, visualise, this conversation between a young Delhi-based corporate employee from the South and his wife who is expecting their first child.

Wife: I am fed up. I cannot breathe. I want to go back to Chennai.

Husband: Leaving me alone?

Wife: What “alone”? Are you a child ? What about me? And our child who is going to be born? You go happily to your office which has air-purifiers, leaving me alone in this suffocating place. I cannot stay indoors because I cannot keep the windows open and I cannot step outdoors. Can you imagine what this may be doing to the baby? I cannot tolerate this Delhi...

Husband: Every place has its problems. Chennai has mosquitos.

Wife: Don’t you try to be clever with me. Just try staying at home. You say you will work overtime and make an excuse to go to your office.

Husband: I get a heavy overtime compensation. You know we need that money.

Wife: Money is all you care for. You keep your overtime and let me go. I am going to speak to my father to arrange my return. I was going anyway for the baby’s birth.

Husband: Okay, go.

Wife: “Okay, go”? So simple for you, isn’t it? Make a bed for yourself in your air-puri-fied office also. Overtime!!

Wife shuts the door with a bang after her husband, who gets on to his scooterette to drive to work.

How, apart from the hapless residents of the national capital, representatives of other world capitals put up with Delhi's pollution is another amazement. Diplomats posted to a country have no choice but to serve in the countries to which they stand accredited. But what of their spouses and children? One can imagine the following conversation in the homes of diplomats stationed in Delhi.

Spouse: I cannot take it any longer.

Diplomat: You have no choice.