A recent video from Kashmir shows a tourist stepping out into the Valley’s misty morning and exclaiming that the air is “so polluted”. What followed was predictable: Online mockery. But behind the humour lies a quiet tragedy. For so many urban Indians, clean air has become such a rarity that we can no longer recognise it when we see it.

For those living in Delhi or other metro cities, haze almost always means harm. The skyline is a blur of concrete and chemicals; every breath feels rationed. The language of everyday life is AQI numbers, HEPA filters, and “poor” or “severe” alerts. We have become so accustomed to measuring air quality through data that our senses have forgotten the difference between natural mist and toxic smog. What that tourist mistook wasn’t just fog. It was a glimpse

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