Dehli Dirt

            This week headlines are about Lelyveld’s book on Gandhi.  He portrays the Mahatma as having had a homosexual relationship.  Reactionaries in India suggest that the disrespect of Gandhi be added to the already existing Prevention of Insults to National Honor Act, 1971, which forbids acts that desecrate the National Flag or the Constitution.  So dirt of one kind but not what has preoccupied me.

            I have been unpacking many of my possessions this past month which came by ship from India where they have been for the past two and a half years.  And the dirt is noticeable, pervasive, and nearly impossible to remove from some things.  There is dirt on the top of every book, on the spice jar lids, on the decks of cards, on the creases of my hanging clothes, in every crack and opening in my printer even though it was covered with a sheet the whole time – and it goes on.   It’s made me think a lot about dirt and Delhi. 

            Why is Delhi so full of dirt?  Why did I have to have my home swept and dusted every day?  I thought I knew dust but I didn’t know anything until I set up a home in Delhi. 

            Dirt is generated in so many different ways in Delhi – some seem obvious, others not so much.  First there is just plain dirt from unpaved areas of the city.  Once you’ve driven around the city it is puzzling when there is so much concrete in evidence that there are so many places with open ground.  Often there is a strip of dirt between the black top of the street and shop fronts.  There are numerous unpaved allies and many streets in poorer neighborhoods are not paved.

            Delhi is situated on the edge of the great desert areas of Rajasthan. There are of course many parks and gardens – and many median strips filled with dirt and even occasionally plants.   There are crickets pitches in many places – formal and informal all of which involve some dirt as well.

            The cars emit plenty of pollution although the Delhi city government has decreed that all public transportation vehicles, including taxis beginning this year, must burn Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).  City buses carry the slogan on their sides “The World’s Largest Green City Transport System.”  Could be true.  But there are hundreds of thousands of vehicles burning diesel fuel – the largest contributor to emission pollution.

            And many of the poorest people, especially those living on the streets and underpasses, burn wood or whatever they can find that will combust to cook their meals.  During all the cool months, October through February, the nightwatchmen (every house has one) burn small fires in front of the house they are guarding.  They burn twigs, leaves, trash, whatever is around, throughout the night to keep warm.

Another major source of dirt and pollution are the fireworks – which are frequent.  Fireworks are used to celebrate weddings (on some auspicious days as many as 60,000 weddings in one evening) and any religious celebration except funerals.   One morning after Diwali, the festival of lights, when fireworks start at dusk and continue until midnight, non-stop in front of every home and in many major display centers, I wiped actual cinders along with the black dirt off our dining table in front of an open window.

The last source of dust that I discovered are the funeral pyres.  I passed an “Electric Crematorium” every day on my way to and from work but it wasn’t until the end of my stay that I attended a funeral.  I found that the funeral would be at a crematorium near their house, not the one I knew.   There I saw that there were 20 or so pyres and at least 6 of them were burning, or almost finished burning.  The pyres are made of large stacks of fast burning wood, and the body is anointed with ghee (clarified butter) by the priests who oversee the ceremony.  Two or three gallons are poured into the pyre.  The smoke bellows high and the wind carries it out across the city.  There are many of these crematoria, serving the many small neighborhoods that make up the sprawling city of 15 million. 

Delhi is dusty for all these many reasons.  As I wipe things off I remember.  There was no escaping it – and I managed to transport a lot of it back to Evanston.