Where are my Blue Skies?

Where are my Blue Skies?

          My niece, all of three years, was happily running errands when asked to fetch and carry stuff during a family get together on her birthday. When I asked her to get the packet of sky blue paper-serviettes from the living room table, she returned promptly with the desired goods and pompously declared that I was colour-blind and should know better than to say that the sky is blue when it is actually grey.  Something rankled inside me and I went blank, unable to contest my niece’s postulation.

        Well, of course, the sky is grey and it was only traditional knowledge which compelled me to say “sky blue” when I have often enough observed myself that it is months before grey skies turn to blue. So rare is the occurrence that a young toddler has scant memories of blue skies. All she has seen in her tiny life is grey skies, whether they emanate from the fog in winters, dusty haze in the summers or clouds at other times, duly interspersed with smog from factories or from stubbles of fields being burnt in the post-harvest season around Delhi. Even when the sun is shining bright, the colour of sky remains grey, not blue and in Delhi it is certainly the case of excessive airborne particulate matter which prevents the blue colour from scattering easily.

        So why do we Delhiites bear with it? There was a time when we got rid of the perpetual smog of the mid 80s, early 90s.  It seemed that a city with high incidence of Asthma, Allergies and cardio-thoracic disorders was finally getting some relief, but that eternal haze is back and how! This time I have actually been counting the days. I returned from an overseas visit before Diwali, spoilt by the visuals of clear blue skies and crystal clear waters, hungering for more on home-soil. But Holi is almost round the corner and I haven’t seen Blue Skies even once in this period. Every morning I get up and peer out of the window, hoping to see my favourite blue in the sky but it remains depressingly grey, despite the occasional sunny day. So what should we do? We have experience from the past and instead of being defensive and challenging the data used for concluding that Delhi is more polluted than Beijing, can DPCB and all stakeholders not sit up and decide upon a slew of measures that would restore to us our legacy of blue skies?