Air contains oxygen that is
needed for human survival. What happens when this basic need turns toxic? Air pollution kills millions of people, and for
millions more it exacerbate other debilitating health conditions, add to it contaminated
water, pesticide laced food, and ofcourse mind-numbing noise that characterizes
cities. Common people are seriously impacted by air quality, and they die
without being counted -that is how agencies deal with problem by not being terribly concerned about collecting data (data is crucial to understand the gravity of
the situation and formulate polices to save lives) or else manipulate data. Even short term exposure to polluted air can cause severe reactions -from deeply irritated air passage, persistent cough, headaches, burning eyes, weakness and disorientation, imagine living your whole life in these polluted pits. Human
life is pliable to official narration. In a poor and desperate society, it is
easily achieved. Fudging data is an art that even AI cannot emulate.
Today the world air pollution report was released. Out of top 50 most polluted cities in the world 43 are in India. If you look at the number of cities in top 30 it is almost
all from India, and these are mostly hellholes of small towns where the
development marauders are playing havoc. It is a statement on culture of apathy.
I have travelled most of these places,
even few kms away from nation’s capital these disappear from radar of any concern of
power salivating officials, market media and corrupt ecosystem of nepotistic control and
crony capitalism (ofcourse in recent time there is a focus on hygiene by
constructing unprecedented number of toilets for common people, which surely
has reduced number of deaths due to communicable diseases). Third rated Indian media
-mostly occupied by different versions of psychopaths and devious slimy thick-skinned
ectoplasts, stampede where the power, money and influence is. They create
mythical cozy world of self-fulfilling desires and opulence, while stampede to
represent desperate dying people around them. Fed and fattened they cultivate and percolate their
own reflection of slimy creatures into the ecosystem as opinion makers and influencers,
these appalling mediocres are then courted by feudal politicians with least connect
with any reality except to control the herd. You look at the list of polluted cities
and you will be mortified by the conditions under which millions of fellow Indians
live around you. This is what neocapitalist development has done to the land. Death
churning ecosystem is how progress is consolidated by market capitalism. The herd
sink deeper into fate muck while herd controllers create bubbles of sanitized world
to project their version of reality for herd to gawk.
