A steaming cup of chai appears at my desk as the sun sets over the squalid, smog-coated winter skies of Delhi. The chirping of birds as they make their way home punctuates the dull drum of traffic and high-pitched honking in the distance. The acrid smell of evening smog, along with my cup of tea and the melody of the birds is endearing, a far cry from the clear, deathly silence of winter in New Haven. Delhi’s pollution may get a bad rap but at least the birds don’t flee from it.
I visit home twice a year, a sad contract I signed with the universe when I decided to go to college seven thousand miles…
