“We have innumerable life and death problems in the country,” expostulated Ganjan Singh, a senior Indian bureaucrat when his doctor friend read out the alarming stats about death from air pollution in India.
“But my dear Ganjan,” remonstrated Dr Rajat, “air pollution in India kills more people than cancer, heart attacks, or road accidents. Yet, this government is spending too little to reduce air pollution”
“Rajat, you were not born yesterday. You know how governments work the world over. They want to be seen tackling visible problems. Take road accidents, the ones you so belittle. If the government shows that it has reduced road accidents by just a quarter, the public appreciates it. Road accidents are things they see, feel and fear. Air pollution? Bah! Except in some places like Delhi where it hits your eye rather vehemently, in many other cities people hardly see or feel it”
Rajat sat back, dejected. The alarming data were all there – many Indian cities had air pollution levels that were much higher than what was safe. Mainstream newspapers regularly published about this. But no one seemed to worry much about the dangers from something they could not see or feel. This was the case, he sadly reflected, even after COVID!
Rajat, yet harboring hopes, persisted, “Leave alone the masses, Ganjan. What about you? A learned man. Aren’t you alarmed about air pollution?”
Ganjan gently rocked back and forth while he mulled over the question. Was he really alarmed? Finally, he decided to be upfront about it.
“Sorry to disappoint you, pal. But I’m not, either. Somehow, I can’t feel or sense alarm about something that’s almost invisible.” He smiled at Rajat. “You perhaps have overestimated my wisdom!”
Rajat stared at him for a few seconds, and then drew out something.
Ganjan gasped on looking at it. “Oh my God! Whose lungs are these? They look completely gone. Now, this is seriously alarming.”
Then, struck by a thought, he looked at Rajat.
“Whose X-ray is this, Rajat?”
“Yours, my friend. This is the X-ray I took of your lungs last week”