Out of all pets, the dog has a special place for man. Known as man’s best friend, the dog certainly lives up to the description, by his loyalty, love and attachment he shares with his owner. There are stories bordering on legends featuring the unique relationship between man and his dog. I remember reading a true story about a dog – Hachiko in Japan in the early twentieth century who went to the railway station each day, waiting for his master to return (who had unfortunately suffered a fatal stroke at the university he travelled to each day). He did this for almost ten years till he finally died of old age. As a result of this news published in a newspaper in Japan, the city of Shibayu built a statue of the dog outside the ShibayumRailway Station and immortalized the story of Hachiko.

'Breathing Here is Injurious to your Health' falls short of turning into some bleak futuristic movie, where humans have ruined all they could on this earth, governments complicit, citizens irresponsibly unaware and still continuing to live like nothing happened, creating new ghastly normals with every decade passing by. The writer however chooses to keep the narrative human and hopeful, and the story has turned out to be equal measures of shock, denial, acceptance, struggle and small victories in the air quality scenario of New Delhi.

In India, around 50% of pedestrian fatalities in the worst-performing states in road safety viz., West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka are due to private vehicles which are termed as ‘crime vehicles’ in the Road Accidents in India - 2019 report by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. 

It has been 8 years. Nirbhaya was beaten, gang-raped and assaulted in a running private bus she was travelling in. A 26-year-old veterinary doctor, near Hyderabad, was gang-raped and smothered.  Then, they allegedly loaded her benumbed body onto a lorry and dropped it on the roadside. In UP, a truck collision resulted serious injury of the Unnao rape survivor and death of her relatives. The same survivor set on fire in the morning. A woman was on her way to a local court for a hearing on her rape case. Suzette Jordan, a prominent women's-rights activist and anti-rape campaigner from Kolkata, was offered to drop at home. She was gang-raped in a moving car and dumped on the street.