On Monday, Lahore was the most polluted place in the world. Yesterday the newspaper called it the second most polluted, then today it was corrected to the most polluted, with an AQI approaching 400. Certainly, the city had an apocalyptic feel. The air was yellow-brown and hazy, and pricked the eyes and skin. Everything smelt of something – not smoke, because the air pollution right now isn’t because of crop burning but is due to urban devastation. In this hellscape the GF and I decided to walk through Gulberg, from a tea place on the ganda nala to Tayyab’s, a deli near Gaddafi Stadium, and then back to the house. We probably lost a few years of life in the process.
Yesterday, we went to my brother’s to watch the cricket match with Namibia. It was a bit of a bore as the Pakistani team remained in uncharacteristic command of the match. I had rather thought that, after defeating the three best teams in the group, Pakistan would fall to the two worst teams, but this didn’t happen. We also had some khao suay, which was a bit disappointing.