Dhool and Dhoop

On the hottest day ever recorded in Delhi-NCR, with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees in many parts of North India, I was in an even hotter cabin of a Ready Mix Cement (RMC) truck with Vishnu, the ‘pilot’. Vishnu is one of the many heavy commercial vehicle drivers I have interacted with in the recent past, attempting to understand drivers’ take on mitigating dust and air pollution and the specific challenges arising from daily routine tasks.

This time, the conversation also veered towards the topic of working in extreme heat. He spends most of his hours seated inside that mercurial chamber in an awkward, kind of upright asana. His job entails delivering cement to several construction sites, sometimes even at night. With Sanjay, a local air quality consultant, and security guards, I was encouraging drivers to maintain a slow speed, to avoid violently re-suspending dust, and to save my otherwise well-maintained skin. Vishnu, with a wide smile, gave me a tour of his truck. “Ye AC garam hawa ke sath sath dhool bhi maarega!” This AC blows not only hot air but also dust! It was so hot that I still feel deranged after absorbing all the heat there was to offer. How does a human body endure this sort of challenge every day for months?

Heat alone is one hassle, but combined with dust, engine heat, fans, or warm water, it becomes far worse. At least two drivers told me about a viral reel where folks made roti on the dashboard of a truck. Inside the 25x25-foot guard’s room, a vintage air cooler sat useless. Before I could ask, my eyes locked onto the filter, covered in dust that transformed into clumps, infested by crawlies—unusable in every sense. The guards stared at the poor cooler, their expressions filled with betrayal.

?“This makes it worse anyway; even ACs aren’t helping. They’re all blowing hot air,” rued one of the female guards.

?"How do the laborers who work in the open manage?" I asked.?

“They are used to it, and we are getting used to it.”?

“Are labourers made of steel and you of chamri (skin) then?”?

Giggles followed by a helpless silence.

Today, I learned that a priest, unfortunately, lives in a room along the approach road to the site. I couldn’t help but wonder what misfortune led him to camp in one of the most dust-prone areas within the construction zone. At first, I dismissed it, thinking Sanjay was joking. The site staff fear the priest. Not only does he possess the power to call upon higher energies, but he also has the upper management on speed dial! He summoned the Project Manager recently because his room got dusty as a result of delayed water sprinkling on the surface. "See, boss, you can smell the fragrance of Attar until here," Sanjay whispered to me outside the priest's window.

I usually have my first meal of the day at the dhaba opposite the site, where construction workers, managers, drivers, and dust keep me company. They serve hot, fresh roti and a variety of sabzis at pocket-friendly prices. I'm sure visible and invisible particles contaminate the food, but it is still food, right? It’s a terrible excuse for wilfully eating dust. I usually fixate on food and stick to safe choices. For example, I have been eating curd rice with a Tamil-style spicy dry potato side for the last four nights, savouring every bite. Predictably, the dhaba owner read out my order before I could today. Chaas was in demand, so I asked the dhaba uncle to add a chilled glass along with the regular. There’s something about building familiarity through micro-interactions.

Without fail, I purchase a red bull from the shop opposite the site to douse my caffeine withdrawal.

“Bhaiya, sir dard ka dawai hai?” (Do you have any medicine for headaches?) The owner of the puncture shop, a young man in his 30s, inquired.

?“Is this a pharmacy? You are drunk again, right?” retorted the rather large and intimidating shopkeeper.?

“No, no.. It is so hot that my head hurts."

When exposed to too much sun, I have a tendency to invariably return with a blasting headache. Following my mother’s advice, I always carry a full sheet of paracetamol. Taking the young guy’s word, I offered him a Crocin, again thinking about the troubling combination of suffering a nagging headache in such heat. In fact, there is a thriving community I meet every day and have started to feel a part of.

Layers of dust, a mix of yellow, brown, black, and even grey, had already covered my face. By the end of our activities, my eyes were red and burning, and my head felt like a forest set on fire. Resuspended dust is a serious, recurring nuisance around construction sites. Drivers often aren’t aware of the discomfort they leave behind as they speed past dusty roads, and the victims of the ‘dust splash’ (much like driving over a puddle) don’t necessarily know what to do about it. But they are empathetic and readily agree that dust can be quite annoying. Drivers are in close proximity to the problem they cause by speeding, yet they remain distant from it.

The high-speed intersection along the approach road, despite its dusty nature, is a hub of activity. Workers chat, purchase fruits, eat kulfi, manage traffic, and visit family members during lunch hours with hot food. There’s a lot going on amid the haze. Despite all its dullness, the approach road and the communities it supports have grown on me. But what about all the dust? The problem is just so vast—I ask, how much water sprinkling will be feasible and sustainable? Speed control surely reduces the resuspension of dust, but that alone is not enough. Even though one site is proactively working on dust mitigation, the scale of construction activities and high volumes of HCVs speeding along the national highway in the rapidly developing vicinity make the issue even more challenging.

I’m learning that, while maintaining a slow speed seems like an easy-to-adopt practice, in reality, it is far more difficult due to a host of intrinsic and extrinsic influences. Broken speedometers, hard clutches, heat, and the urgency of meeting timelines—so many contextual factors influence the outcome of one action. Similar to the priest, by educating and empowering others to seek immediate and proactive solutions, guards, drivers, and workers can also assert their right to work and live in dignified conditions. We must first understand and accept road dust as a nuisance and health hazard, not as an inevitable byproduct of urbanisation.

My head spins after braving the unforgiving heat, thinking about the scale of the challenge that we're trying to solve.