The farms are burning

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Editor's note: The fire crackles and hisses through the dry straw. Its flames, furious red ribbons of light, want to leap and fly. They do just for a moment, before the farmer takes cover, and spreads the straw to bring down the 4-feet-high flames to a more manageable level. The fire loses height but gains speed. It runs through the 3-acre farm inside 20 minutes and clears the soil of anything living. As it calms down, it leaves a layer of ash in its wake that covers the earth. Millions of tiny particles cling on to the farmer’s clothes.  The fire also sends plumes of grey-black smoke in the sky that hang low in the air. With more such fires around the area, this cloud of smoke will slowly get thicker and gather momentum. It will travel with the westerly wind and, in a matter of days, envelope the northern plains of India and choke cities, most notably Delhi.  As the temperature falls in North India and winter settles in, smoke from fields in neighbouring states such as Punjab, Haryana and western …