Smokehouse Delhi: All You Need to Know About the Smog in Delhi

n his seminal set of novels ‘In Search of Lost Time,’ Marcel Proust invoked the idea of involuntary memory with his famous “Madeleine moment.” Delhi provides for similar ‘delights.’

In Delhi, this time of the year, when your eyes start tearing up; your throat is itchy; your voice is hoarse; you are out of breath when you walk just a few hundred metres; you are coughing for no apparent reason; and when your inhalers seem to run out because you are coughing relentlessly thanks to your asthma acting up for no reason, you stop for a moment to ask the same questions that Proust asked about this “new sensation.”

It is November, and the sense of déjà vu in Delhi is physical and utterly unpleasant. Like James Bond in Moonraker, The Smog appears “with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” Why the smog? Why Delhi? How bad is the smog? Is it inevitable?

These will be among the questions we will hope to answer on this edition of our Pick of the Day. On this episode of Editor's Story of the day, we hope to get some clarity through the veil of deadly smog that has settled upon Delhi skies.