[sadhuji]

Every year during the winter months, rail, road and air traffic becomes unpredictable. The blame is laid squarely at the feet of the demon called fog. This is basically a phenomenon where the hot air rises from the ground and mixes with the cold air that descends from the atmosphere. The resultant turbulence in the atmosphere is the common man’s fog.

It stands to reason that in the Northern part of the country, where temperatures fall to unbelievable low levels account for severe fogs – visibility reduces to hardly a few meters and even with headlights on, one cannot clearly see what lies ahead either on the road or the railway tracks. Speed has to be very much less and the driver has to be extra cautious. In the case of aeroplanes, the landing and takeoff depend on direction finders and the lamps that line the skirt of the runways indicating to the pilot the edges of safety.

However, the problem is confounded when pollution adds to the already poor visibility. The pollution comes from open roadside ovens, from exhaust of vehicles, from smoke that emanates from industries and from the burning of unwanted material to create a fire on which to warm up the hands from the biting cold. The net result is that we have grown accustomed to these situations and do not grumble when we arrive at the railway station and find that the train is running late by 15 or even 20 hours. Or – arrive at the airport and discover that the flights have been delayed or even cancelled. We cannot control nature but we can certainly control pollution which is a contributing factor.