New Delhi wakes up to toxic smog and goes to sleep in the same harmful conditions.
In the hours between, the 30 million residents of India’s capital region trudge along with chronic headaches and itchy eyes, symptoms of this rising superpower’s failure to provide its people with a most basic need: breathable air.
Experts at the nation’s top research hospital call the air “severe and life-threatening.” The level of toxic pollutants — from cars, factories and crop-waste burning by farmers — has been as many as 20 times above recommended levels for safe breathing.
The problem persists in New Delhi, even while other once-polluted capitals, like Beijing, have succeeded in cleaning their skies.
This past week, as the air grew so hazardous that the government was forced to order half of its workers to work from home, journalists for The New York Times traveled around the city, from the pre-dawn hours to midnight, to chronicle the struggle with bad air.
A daily PM2.5 level — a measure of the most harmful particulates — of 15µg/m³ is the standard for safe breathing. We used an air-quality monitor to take our own measurements of the PM2.5 at key spots, which we cross-checked against official data.
What we found was a city with no escape from severely toxic air, and a population resigned to a public health emergency as its everyday reality.
6 a.m., at India Gate
Joggers began arriving before dawn. They went through warm-ups and began to run down the central avenue that separates two New Delhi monuments — the India Gate and the president’s house. Even at this early hour, the smog was so thick that each was invisible from the other.
Not far away, Dinesh Kamath, 72, was out for his hourlong morning walk in a public park. For older residents like him, the winter, when pollution is at its worst, brings the same dilemma every year: to stay home and miss health-affirming exercise, or to stretch their legs outside at the cost of their lungs.
“I have to walk,” said Mr. Kamath, who leads an organization promoting the ancient Sanskrit language. “There is no other way.”
7:30 a.m., at Safdarjang Road
We sighted the first of many “anti-smog guns” — sprayers that are attached to water tanks and deployed around the city, including near key landmarks like the prime minister’s residence and major embassies.
The guns have been a matter of political debate. Many experts say the government is trying to deceive the public by spraying water around the more than three dozen air-quality monitoring stations, to lower their readings.
Opposition leaders have accused the government of an even more brazen manipulation, saying data from several of these stations have gone missing during the worst hours of pollution.
8 a.m., outside a secondary school
As children arrived for classes at the D.T.E.A. Senior Secondary School, the level of dangerous pollutants at the high school’s entrance was more than 20 times the recommended daily average for safe breathing.
Education in New Delhi is disrupted every year by pollution emergencies, when the government tells students to stay home and take classes online because of peak contamination levels. For teachers and parents, the sudden moves add confusion to an already struggling education system.
10:30 a.m., outside a public hospital
Doctors at All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, India’s most prestigious health institution, have reported a 30 to 40 percent increase in patients arriving with respiratory complaints. Preventive measures at an individual level can only have “negligible effects” at best, they say.
“This is public health emergency, and it should be treated like a public health emergency now,” Dr. Anant Mohan, the head of the pulmonary department, told local news media.
At L.N.J.P. hospital, one of the most crowded in New Delhi, attendants and families of patients were resting on blankets in the hospital yard, where the PM2.5 was about 17 times the recommended for safe breathing. Inside the hospital’s crowded halls, it was about 10 times the guideline.
12:30 p.m., outside the Income Tax Office
Shailendra Chauhan, 49, was getting a shave at a roadside barber stall. He works as the driver of an official in India’s tax authority.
“Breathing is difficult, and the eyes become itchy,” he said.
Mr. Chauhan said his boss had recently installed a small air purifier in the car. That made him wonder about the ways the rich clear the air in their homes.
Mohamad Kalim, the barber, said he didn’t know what an air purifier was.
“We have to come out for the livelihood of our children,” Mr. Kalim said. “We can’t just stay at home.”
5:30 p.m., at Chandni Chowk market
At opposite ends of a crowded market area in Old Delhi, we found a telling contrast.
At one end, traffic on the Chandni Chowk area’s main road has long been limited to cycle rickshaws and electric rickshaws. Because of a festival at a nearby Sikh temple, the traffic was further restricted, and the sidewalks washed twice a day for three days.
Near the temple, we measured PM2.5 at a little over 10 times above the level for safe breathing. But a mile down the road, where the traffic restrictions ended, the reading was nearly double.
8 p.m., at Anand Vihar Bus Station
Deepak Rawat, 31, makes a living at one of Delhi’s busiest bus stations by working at a chai and biscuits stall.
A native of the eastern state of Bihar, he said he opens his tea stall at 4 a.m. and goes home at 10 p.m. On most days, he earns $5 to $6. The tang of smog mixed with the pungent rot of the large open sewer behind his stall.
“My eyes burn all the time. Some days, I get tired very early,” he said, trying to suppress a frequent cough.
He said he wanted to save a bit and go back to his village. He and his wife dread every winter because their children, 6 and 8, fall ill frequently.
“It won’t work out here,” he said. “Every year, it is the same.”
Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
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