Daily dose of fresh air.

Part of my summer holidays consisted of working on summer projects as part of my school grades. We would get to choose a topic of our choice from an assortment and I picked Global warming for three consecutive years. Without the internet, most of my information came from outdated encyclopedia and the news, the latter almost never covering anything. I was shocked to see how grave an issue was being treated as something trivial by the governments and leading corporations alike. I took a no fire crackers stance, which my father inculcated further in me by never buying me firecrackers again once I brought this up to him. The Supreme Court of India recently banned the sale of fire crackers, the aftermath of last years Diwali causing AQI's to spike up to emergency levels.

Almost ironically my father and I were the only ones affected by the air pollution

I can never forget the sleepless nights I would spend rubbing my eyes or the gallons of phlegm I would cough up. My parents were just as helpless as me as all the best doctors and physicians had no idea what was the issue with me. I remember to this date how my mother brought up me sitting with my school syllabus books might be the cause of this(*rolls eyes* that's a story for another blog post) and how our family homeopathic doctor genuinely contemplated that I might be allergic to the oils in the printing ink. If only this were the case it would have been easily resolved. 

Unfortunately it was only after the air pollution in Delhi got noticed by international bodies that I was able to diagnose myself as being allergic to the heavy dust particles. The evenings I would spend playing football in the foul Delhi atmosphere with the phlegm I spent my nights coughing up or the itchy eyes I got for the next few hours. Luckily enough I got to spend two years of my schooling days in a boarding schools in the beautiful hilly area of Dehradoon, which was where I never faced any breathing or allergic difficulties. However not knowing what a huge difference the air quality these two cities had I could never co-relate the air to the allergic reactions.

Anyone with a dog in their house knows how traumatic it is for a dog to be around fire crackers even if it's a few hundred feet away.

Just needed an excuse to add a photo of her :)

The AQI caused Kygo, the music producer and artist, to drop his concert in Delhi for fear of his health. United Airlines stopped their flights when the AQI became increasingly toxic. Anumita Roychoudury, the executive director for the CSE(centre for science and environment) recently said in an interview and I quote "I feel ashamed" about the United Airlines canceling their flights to India. Most recently there was a cricket match which was put to a stand still because of this and the ICC(International Cricket Committee) are about to add a pollution clause for playing conditions. Now these sportsperson are only visiting the city once or twice every year, what about the sportsperson who aren't part of the national team, whose bread and butter consists of playing day in, day out in the same city and what about the citizens? These Sports committees and the companies which spend Billions on sponsors, gear, infrastructure, promotions etc. how about they spare a thought for these people choking in the city on a daily basis? After all these are the very people who make their livelihood possible each time they show up at a stadium or tune into their channel to watch these sports persons throwing a fit after half a week in the city. 5300 school children made a pair of human lungs at Thagvaj Stadium, New Delhi to set a Guinness Book of World Record's record. All this to raise social awareness of air pollution.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 2017 had a Red list of 91,523 out of 1.9 million assessed species. 25821 are threatened and in one year 866 species had become extinct. 69 species were extinct in the wild with 8455 endangered species and 11783 species were in the vulnerable zone. 5583 species were critically endangered. Indigenous animals almost everywhere are endangered. Whether you think of them as food or even majestic beings whose beauty and lifestyle enthralls, if you aren't doing your part in saving these beings here's something that might you think twice before you pass on the next news article about Poachers and Black market medicines made from endangered species:there are 41,415 species in IUCN Red List, and 16,306 of them are endangered, one step away from extinction. Gone, wiped out from existence, just another ingredient to the next fossil fuel or part of the nutrients in the soil to be absorbed by the trees. Future generations will only have the chance to see these species on videos, pictures and hear about them through books reminiscing the diversity of the beings that once habitat-ed this planet. Fortunately some animals do make it to the limelight like the Royal Bengal Tiger or the Lions from the forests of the Gir. The Government of India has taken some steps, like the Save the Tiger Act, to ensure the safety of the predator species. Recently a politician received flak for getting caught with a pistol while on the hunt for a leopard. However, there's a flipside to this, most species like the Bustard, the common house sparrow and the mouse deer never get enough attention. Now there's at the very least 3 species of deer indigenous to India who are endangered, these very species are part of the staple diet of these predator species. Unfortunately due to scarcity of these species, the predator species have to turn to the human habitats like villages, and grazing grounds bordering their habitats, further putting them in danger when the villagers turn on these predators.

After winning his first Oscar Leonardo DiCaprio's first project was a documentary titled"After the Flood". It was a beautiful movie highlighting the scenic beauties and diverse bio-diversities this planet we called Earth is the home of. George Carlin talked about Global Warming quite a lot and in one of his last stand up shows, he made a pithy observation. He said "We say the Planet is fucked.", then he went on to say the planet's not the one that is screwed but rather the inhabitants in it, chiefly us. Comparisons were made to us and a flea, and the planet to a celestial body which has existed for over a billion years, the analogy was the Earth would shake us off the same way a dog shakes off fleas. Celebrities aren't the only ones responsible for spreading awareness of the genocide we are heading towards, people ranging from entrepreneurs to Oscar winners are doing their part. What is the average middle class family doing to ensure that they are doing their part in taking care of this planet and ensuring a planet that isn't lethal to the future generations.

It isn't just the physical environment that deteriorates in the house but the mental ambiance as well. Being sick during the crucial exam time, took a toll on my academics. Which caused my parents to stress and wonder were the exams the reason for some kind of mental worrying which triggered the sneezing fits and the irritable eyes.

In a recent article Krishna Kumar, a former director of the NCERT wrote about 2014 where "one morning the smog was so dense and visibility so poor that during my morning walk I bumped into a tree I had known for years. Throughout that winter doctors advised people to avoid taking morning walks". Then he went onto say he left the capital city but that doesn't seem to be an option for most of us.