Less sound and fury signifying something

Rome was not built in a day. Delhi’s Diwali-time ‘air pollution clearance’ plan also won’t be sold in a day. A day after the Festival of Lights, data from the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) and the Central Pollution Control Board show that the capital city, notorious for its toxic air especially during this season, had an air index quality (AIQ) of 319, making it still a veritable Festival of Difficult Breathing. But the AQI level this year has been the best since, well, 2014.

So what does one make of the Supreme Court’s ‘coercive’ tactics to minimise the bursting of crackers? (It wasn’t a ban on firecrackers but on its sale — thus allowing gents like BJP spokesperson Tajinder Bagga to ‘freely distribute’ crackers without breaking any law.) That a nudge and a push can work better than no nudge and no push.

Like voters during elections, it was the proverbial fence-sitter who, on finding it a bit more difficult to get his hands on crackers, decided to sit it out. And like smokers, or those addicted to making a political point out of everything, there were people who had to make that extra effort to ‘maintain tradition’, no matter how it may have affected their own, and their loved ones’, health.

In other words, Delhi has (relatively) quietly discovered beneficial laziness. May its light spread across all homes.