A Love Letter to New Delhi’s Leaves

In early January, I visited my family in India for the first time in over ten years. After my grandparents came to the United States and received their citizenship, the incentive for me to visit dwindled, and I found myself forgetting my memories of the country. But when I first landed at the New Delhi airport, a familiar, and so very recognizable scent permeated the air.

As a Californian, I am no stranger to the smell of burning foliage. Northwest of New Delhi, in the states of Punjab and Haryana, farmers burn their summer rice fields to prepare for the winter wheat-growing season, as this is the most cost-effective method for a quick planting turnaround. This smoke is carried by strong winds over the Himalayan Mountains, where it resides in the streets, homes, and lungs of New Delhi residents. Nearly twenty-two percent of children in Delhi have asthma. This rate is twice that of the global nine percent observed in children. It wasn’t just the smell that made me notice this issue, though. After a few hours in Delhi, I developed a sore throat which persisted for the entire duration of my two-week trip and, almost incessantly, heard coughing from people of all ages, regardless of where I travelled.

The health of humans is not the only thing affected by this smog. What really caught my attention were the plant leaves.

Shrouded in a thick layer of dirt beneath the orange, clouded sun, these beings managed not just to survive but to thrive. I noticed huge trees towering over buildings, making beautiful archways over roads and canopies that covered markets and parking lots. Children played in their shade and hid from their siblings behind trunks. Birds perched on their branches while monkeys swung between them.

A man sat underneath a tree, his foot rhythmically pressing the pedal of an antique Singer machine, creating the only steady beat in the bustling, hectic, and so very typical honking noises that make up New Delhi. Despite their dusty, sometimes infected leaves, the plants I saw were beautiful because they were intricately intertwined with their human and nonhuman communities. They serve, metaphorically and literally, as pillars in the communities they inhabit despite all odds. While many plants need unobstructed access to the sun via their leaves to photosynthesize, this is something that the leaves of New Delhi do not have access to.

At the same time, I felt devastated to see in these leaves the clear, tangible evidence of pollution and climate change. I also saw in them the beauty of resilience and a complicated Indian love story deserving of its own Bollywood film. It’s said that Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating under a Bodhi tree, a type of sacred fig tree in India. The tailor whom I spoke of earlier has done his work under the same tree for over ten years and has seen it through the passing of time as well as the seasons of his life.

Before the time of Buddha in the 5th century BCE and after, people have continued to form relationships with plants. It is perhaps one of the most intimate and consistent connections our species has. What is so beautiful about this love story spanning millennia is not just its length but how our relationship has evolved and adapted over time. Plants have been the millions of years old relative present at our birth as a species and even with pollution, as the Delhi leaves prove, they will be here long after we are gone. Their leaves have cradled us in death, providing sustenance and shelter for the microbes, fungi, and small animals that convert our bodies to nutrients in the soil.

When thinking about the dust-covered leaves of New Delhi or the millions of acres of old-growth forests in the Southeastern United States which have been destroyed for wood pellets, these details about their care for us become especially heartbreaking. Though we do not say it as much as we should nor act in a way that would indicate it, humans have always loved plants deeply, and I hope that one day we’ll have some reciprocity to show for the care, sustenance, and resilience they exhibit.

Isha Raheja – Pomona College

Isha Raheja (she/her) is a junior at Pomona College pursuing a degree in Public Policy Analysis with a concentration in Environmental Analysis. Isha’s environmental interests range from sustainable fashion and waste management to native plant ecology. Isha currently serves as the coordinator of Pomona College’s Free Room, a campus center dedicated to promoting sustainability and accessibility by providing free, secondhand clothing, shoes, bedding, school supplies, and books to students and community members.