Satire | How does one get through Delhi winters? By reading classic literature

The idea of hell as an inferno must have come from Dante’s cunning inversion of Delhi’s cold, smoggy winter

How can anyone step outside in the Delhi winter and not suffer? I’m amazed every time I see a life form on the street that is not coughing or gasping. Sometimes that life form is a cow, dog or pigeon. But many are unmistakeably human. How? How can they absorb the air equivalent of water-boarding and go about as if the torture isn’t real?

The latest instalment of my annual torture began in late October when Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) settled down in the 300-500 range (‘severe’ to hazardous’). There hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t paid my ‘lung tax’ in the form of unending coughing fits.

At one point, my son Kattabomman began to worry I was going to die. Apparently, his teacher had said in class that air pollution kills. I explained to him that it’s not that simple — yes, air pollution kills, but it does so gradually, over many years, until one fine day you’re on a ventilator and it hits you that your  achhe din are well and truly behind you.

Of course, even healthy Indians know this already. But it’s different when you feel it in your chest cavity, when your breathing gets as shallow as the poll promises made by animated electoral bonds in human form.

So how does one get through the hell hole that India’s capital turns into every winter? In my case, what keeps me going is literature, the one with the capital L.

I want to thank both my chief minister and the Central government — which is based out of New Delhi for a reason — for not only providing free air (not even GST on it) to all Delhiites, but also fortifying it with supplements such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, cement dust and carbon monoxide so that you feel compelled to turn to literature. Where else can you find an answer to the question: what’s the meaning of breathing when clean air is rarer than a clean politician?

So I’ve been re-reading  Macbeth, and I’ve made some exciting discoveries. Did you know that its opening scene was actually inspired by Shakespeare’s sojourn in Delhi in the winter of 1604? He was waiting at the Ashram flyover when the line, “Hover through the fog and filthy air” came to him. A Shakespeare scholar from Oxford tells me the three witches actually stand for construction work, vehicle exhaust, and biomass burning. Is it any wonder  Macbeth is considered a timeless classic?