Yesterday, my mother told me not to come home.
Coming from a woman whose only daughter is studying on the other side of the world, this request might seem unusual and maybe even a little worrisome. However, if you realize that this woman lives in India, a location where the Air Quality Index (AQI) recently hit 50 times the safe limit, this plea might not seem so bad. In fact, it made me close my computer, step outside my room and appreciate the azure shades of the blue skies that seemed to cover my undergraduate experience at UC Berkeley like shimmering wrapping paper on a birthday present. I stood outside and took a deep breath waiting for the pollutant-free air to fill my lungs only to be hit by a spiraling wave of guilt. Even though the clean air was refreshing, I didn’t want to breathe it alone.
As the brilliant shades of the blue sky settled on my eyelids, I thought of my family back in India with watering eyes and searing pupils. This isn’t all. They’ve also developed a hacking cough that interrupts every phone call with the entitlement of a forcefully inserted comma. As I hear them pause their thoughts and halt their laughter just to cough or sniff, the realization comes at me with increased force. Something needs to be done.
In such a scenario, it’s not unusual to question the functioning of the government. Responding to this public health emergency that made several news outlets label the capital city, Delhi, as a “gas chamber,” the government instructed schools and other educational institutions to shift to online classes. Trucks and other construction activities were banned, and outwardly “healthy” individuals also reported adverse pollution-triggered impacts. While these measures are presently contributing to the curbing of what’s going on, I can’t help but wonder if something could’ve been done earlier to ensure that things didn’t get so bad in the first place. Over video calls with my family, as I ask them to show me whether the characteristic winter fog is settling into our Indian skies, they shake their heads despondently and say that there’s no point in focusing the camera outdoors. Because there is no outdoors.
As Indians, we’re social animals and strong practitioners of community. In simple words, we like to do things together—right from executing something as simple as a shared family meal or going into the complex intricacies of celebrating a festival. But these communal gatherings come at a major cost that include compromises to societal sustainability. This is why my demeanor toward my community resembles that of an agonized parent, overwhelming me with the desire to shake them into consciousness.
Even though I’m deeply concerned about their lungs and the respiratory price that they’re paying with the currency of watery eyes and itchy throats, I’m equally disturbed by their resistance to sustainability.
This is why as I stood under the soft azure sky, breathing in those gusts of fresh, pollutant-free air all by myself felt wrong. If I could, I would position myself under the clouds and fill this air into little test tubes, screw on the caps and take it back to the people of my land. And every time they made a choice that was remotely unsustainable, I would unscrew the cap and let the air float onto their faces with deliberate gentleness. As their awaiting nostrils inhaled a whiff of clean air, I’d screw the cap on again and tuck these test tubes back into my pocket. While this may irk them, I think this would be my way of telling them what they’re missing out on and subsequently expose them to the underestimated beauty of breathing air that doesn’t make you cough and sneeze.
It’s time to recognize that, like celebratory gatherings, sustainability is also a cause for communal celebration. Replacing that unnecessary car ride with a walk isn’t a compromise—it is, instead, an attempt to construct a future where the AQI levels don’t go 50 times beyond the safety level.
