I Didn't Expect The Worst Thing About My Trip To India To Be The Air

Security precautions at airports still seem designed to encourage people to forgo travel. Even as a Known Traveler entitled to TSA PreCheck expedited screening (basically they don’t make me take off my belt, shoes or hoodie or take my laptop out of the case). I had a ton of stuff on my mind when I went through security on my way to India last month, like how was Roland doing, who in not a TSA Known Traveler. So I got through and went up to the lounge to wait for him. That’s when I discovered that I had left my house keys at security. I ran downstairs where I was greeted by typical TSA hostility, something I remember reading two books about, one by Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services and one by Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The security guard did everything he could short of arresting me to be unhelpful. I didn’t back down or let up and eventually forced him to look and look again until he finally found the keys.

Roland had an even worse catastrophe. Security ripped apart his luggage and pulled off a whole section of his wheelie, a section that held his Bose headset and his air quality meter. He didn’t discover it was missing until we were already on the plane. It ruined his whole flight because that air quality meter is the kind of thing he never leaves home without. I don’t take it seriously, but I felt bad about his extreme distress.

I learned the hard way how serious air quality is. The 5 cities with the worst air quality last month, from bad to worst:

• Beijing- 142

• Cairo- 170

• Dacca- 189

• Lahore- 192

• Delhi- 242

Roland is skeptical about the accuracy of these numbers and he was eager to test out the boasts of our hotel in Delhi, the Oberoi, which claimed to have the best air filtration system in the world, bringing the AQI down below 10. By way of comparison, the worst levels of unhealthy air in the U.S. include

• California’s Central Valley- 85

• Los Angeles- 86

• Fairbanks- 98

I did my best to ignore Roland’s sky-is-falling prognostications about the air. I wear a N-95 mask for COVID protection anyway. He, literally, wears two. But one of our friends started feeling heart palpitations which he attributed to the air and he and his wife cut their trip short and flew back to New York. All three cities we visited— Delhi, Agra and Jaipur— had AQIs of 300 or above. Delhi even reached over 400 one day. Roland forced the hotel in Delhi is bring a meter to his room and measure the AQI, which an electronic bulletin board in the lobby bragged was a 4. The meter showed over 100. I still did my best to ignore Roland’s extreme concerns.

After all, what can you do? During the post-harvest season, from October to January, farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh burn crop residues— stubble— in their fields to clear them quickly and cost-effectively for the next planting season. This practice is a major source of particulate matter and other pollutants in the air. The resulting smoke contains pollutants such as PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller) and harmful gases— this on top of the already deadly vehicle emissions, industrial emissions and construction dust. As Roland would be happy to tell you, exposure to high levels of air pollution, including PM2.5 and other pollutants, has been associated with various health issues and even short-term exposure can cause respiratory problems, exacerbate existing respiratory conditions and lead to symptoms such as coughing and difficulty breathing. Long-term exposure to air pollution is linked to more severe health problems, including cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, and an increased risk of premature death. The health impacts are particularly concerning for vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions. The hazardous air quality levels in Delhi have led to public health advisories, school closures, and the distribution of masks during peak pollution periods to mitigate health risks. The government doesn’t seem to have the will to take on the problem in any effective way.

How bad is the problem, really? The Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, estimated that 1.67 million deaths in India in 2019 were attributable to air pollution, 17.8% of all deaths in India that year. Other studies came up with even worse numbers.

The day before we left, I started coughing— a dry, barking, hacking cough that just would not stop. I was worried it could be COVID or RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). Roland said it was from the pollution and that it would go away once we got back to L.A.— but not on the plane, which was full of Delhi air. He seems to have been right.

By the way, when I first got to India in 1969 there were very few private cars, especially outside of the big cities. I drove around the whole country and whole days would pass without seeing another car-- lots of trucks, no cars. Now the traffic jams in Delhi are the worst I ever saw. No one obeys any traffic rules and they should start all over by taking away everyone's driver's license. Anyway, back in December on 1969, Delhi had the most polluted air of any city I had ever been to. I've been back many times since and the air quality seems to have been getting better until Modi became prime minister. Now it's even worse than in 1969. I would never go back. This is me at Humayun's Tomb in Delhi. I took my mask off for the photo (left hand). Notice the sky. We only saw one blue sky the whole time we were in India.