Delhi has a unique stench which is intense, acidic and pungent. It can initially feel suffocating but in the end you get used to it. Soon the pores of our skin, our hair, and every particle of matter we carry with us will also be impregnated with this smell. The thought is not so pleasant when one thinks that what makes this smell so distinctive is essentially a level of pollution that we have never got to experience previously. But we end up getting used to it. Or else perhaps we are living in apnoea? I don’t think I have taken great inhalations since I arrived, and yet I don’t feel a lack of oxygen. I reflect then that the secret of the inhabitants of Delhi must perhaps lie in the perfect mastery of their inner breath. Because despite the noise, the madness, the intensity of life in this city, a paradoxical calm transpires on the faces of these men and women!
Text : Iris Knuebuhler
English Translation : David Cassard
Video and pictures : Ignacio Quiroz
inspiration viajera 