The Dilli Gate vendor

Nizam, a street snack seller in Delhi, copes with severe winter pollution affecting his health, yet continues to thrive in the bustling city despite challenges.

During the days of extreme pollution, a week ago, his eyes were burning as if someone had flung red chilli powder into them, he says, here on the smoggy streetside, near Dilli Gate metro station, just across the road from the historic Dilli Gate monument. His breathing wasn’t feeling right either.

Nizam, a young street snack seller. (HT Photo)

Nizam, a young street snack seller, knew it wasn’t his eyes (or lungs) per se, but the extreme Delhi pollution that arrives every year with the start of cold season. “This winter problem has been with us for many years, and it will stay with us forever,” he declares matter-of-factly.

Nizam talks of his village in UP’s zila Bahraich. It is full of trees, he says, and despite the fact that many villagers there now have cars and bikes, the place is almost free of pollution. Even so, to leave Delhi for the fresh air of his village, only for the limited duration of winter, is out of question, he says. “Winter is a very short season, and it happens to be the best time of the year for my business in Dilli.”

In winter, Nizam focuses on jaggery-based eatables that give warmth to the body, such as gajaks and chikkis. The superstar of his cart though are his roasted peanuts. This addictive stuff is available all through Delhi at this time of the year, and every such cart serves a reasonably decent version. But roasting the peanuts is a skill that is easy and simple up to a point. While everyone can do it, a mere few do it perfectly. Nizam’s roasted moongphaliyan are exceptionally flavourful — heated and salted in a coal-black cauldron to the exact right degree. The moongphalis come from Rajasthan. (In fact, Delhi gets most of its peanuts from this desert state, as told by many vendors.)

Nizam winds down his stall daily at seven in the evening, when he walks back to his rented flat, nearby. “These days, the first thing I do on returning to the kamra is to turn on the fan and open the window so that the stale air of the day goes out… but the smoky smell of the air outside soon enters the kamra, and then I have to quickly shut the window and the door.”

For now, the pollution situation has somewhat improved. On revisiting his cart, Nizam says his eyes no longer irritate. The sky upon the adjacent Dilli Gate isn’t looking grey either, he says. See photo.