My dear R,

How are you doing? I know I was supposed to write this letter to you a long time back. I just could not put together my thoughts and you know exactly why. Today, I feel I have to speak to you because no one else appears to understand, or listen, or care.

I know it must be depressingly cold in the UK and yet festive. I hope you’re enjoying the Christmas break, unwinding, not thinking much about your PhD for now. I so hope. (We shall talk about your love life later).

As for me, I wish I could do that too.

I’m sorry R but I feel the city we both love so much is dying a slow death and no one seems to care. Imagine people celebrating death. The whole of last week has remained tough. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I have started experimenting with some yogic practices lately. Breathing gives life, energy, health, the yogi says, the only thing that matters. Breathing in Lahore these days is like inhaling poison, yet all of us are doing it, happily.

“Breathe consciously,” the yogi says. “Breathe poison?” I ask.

It didn’t start last week. It happened a couple of weeks back when at 10pm I had a breathing issue. I searched for a local manufacturer close by on the internet, messaged him and bought two air purifiers in an hour, in order to be able to sleep well in my own room. I had been resisting this purchase for as long as I could but finally gave up.

Then came a week or so of sunshine. It’s now back to the dreary, smoggy, putrid air for God knows how long. I can’t step out, walk or cycle; and it depresses me more and more.

You know R, sometimes I stand on the edge and look into the city. Other times, I, too, become a part of it — restaurants packed with people pretending to be normal; girls and boys laughing, taking selfies, others making TikTok videos; the flow of traffic, unrhythmic but constant; holidays, Christmas, weddings, diaspora descending on the city, friends and family getting together, going sightseeing.

Sounds of life, one tends to think. To me it’s all noise, quite unnecessary, frankly. I can’t think straight. It’s like I am grudging people happiness and joy. Instead, I want to shake them into looking around, see what’s wrong with the air, and think what they can do about it and then do it.

To be honest, R, I meet quite a few people who talk about it. A word we often use now is air quality index: the AQI this, the AQI that. A Google search on this tells you to do four things if you are in Lahore: wear a mask outdoors, run an air purifier, close your windows to avoid dirty outdoor air and avoid outdoor exercise.

Imagine the impracticality of it for a majority of people. Imagine the explicit privilege. Imagine the claustrophobia it evokes.

Yogis tend to preach meditation — for emotional, physical and mental well-being of individuals. To manage our stresses and anxieties, to become tolerant, accepting and positive, to experience peace and tranquility. The tool is simple. Put everything on hold, sit and do nothing. The stillness and the quiet are supposed to do wonders and they do. Your city and mine is under stress. It needs to meditate.

Do you remember that two years (or is it three years?) ago, in the midst of pandemic and lockdowns, how the skies became blue-r, the air cleaner. Flowers blossomed, birds and butterflies returned to the city. Apart from the masks, the refrain then was to open the windows, cross ventilate our houses. Exercise outdoors. When life itself was under threat, livelihoods were put on hold.

Tell me, when a city starts dying, how long can its people stay indifferent? They can breathe only when the city breathes, right?

This frenzy has to end. Clean air is a human right but it’s also a civic duty to not pollute the environment. Every single car ride adds to toxins in the air. We the citizens will have to bring vehicular pollution down and be prepared for no-car days. Stay home to save the city. Put off socialising. Call up friends on the phone instead. Delay action. Relax where we are. Meditate.

Am I going crazy, you think?

But thanks R for letting me vent. Write back as soon as you can, about everything I want to know. Send me a new poem that you wrote.

Love,

F

The writer is a former TNS editor. She is currently the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan director.