For those of us who live in Delhi-NCR, every winter is now déjà vu wrapped in smog; except it is no t imagined but real. The script is also to o familiar and almost normalised by now; AQI indices spike, schools close, flights circle, and the usual cast of villains takes the stage – stubble burning, diesel trucks, firecrackers and unhelpful winds. By February, the haze lifts just enough for everyone to move on with their lives. The real affliction in Indian cities and especially Delhi runs much deeper. The city is not just polluted but it is simply wasteful. Indian cities are designed to discard value as fast as they create it.

India’s urbanisation is still built and continues to be built on a linear idea of growth: extract, produce, consume, throw away. This logic perhaps made sense in th

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