It was October of the year 1981. I was fresh at JNU, feeling slightly homesick. This was before automatic inter-state dialing (ISD) revolutionised our telephonic culture. The only way to call Kolkata from Delhi was to place a trunk call, where someone physically connected the two parties (did she stay on to listen, one always wondered). I took a bus at 6am to arrive at the telephone office near Connaught Place early enough to get the discounted rate. To call someone important. A friend.

The call didn’t go well. She seemed withdrawn, perhaps because she had parents around, but more likely, it was our relationship that had crossed its ‘best-before date’. I decided a nice breakfast couldn’t hurt; they were frying jalebis outside in the soft autumnal morning sun, and with a nice helping of rabri, it did a lot to cheer me up.

Reading about air quality in Delhi made me think of just how much I used to love being in Delhi once the weather cooled. The depth of winter was always foggy and slightly bleak, thanks to the specific geography of the Indo-Gangetic plain, but autumn and spring were full of glorious days that celebrated Delhi’s marvellous treescape. I remember trying, with limited success, to film the pink flowers of the silk floss tree against the dark blue of the morning sky in early November. The autumn sky these days is a dull gray with a pink tinge that hints at all the chemicals that have been poured into it. The trees are still there.