This topic does not get much attention at social gatherings or when dropping off kids at school, but if you've lived in Gurgaon for several years, there is a good chance you've had some sort of thought regarding the below question - especially on bad mornings in the month of November when it appears as though the sky is filled with dirty dishwater and your child has been continuously coughing since the month of October.
Is this really okay? Is this just the way it is now?
I honestly need to talk about this question, not with the intention of scaring anyone or making a sale – at least not now. But because I know that something is off which many of us are aware of and have just adapted to live with it.
Firstly, let’s start with what exactly is in the air of Gurgaon that we breathe.
You have likely heard the term Air Quality Index (AQI). You probably check it out with the same frequency you check out what the weather is like before you plan on how to dress or whether to allow your kids to play outside. However, the AQI is only a number; it will not tell you anything about what is there in the air or what it is doing to you.
PM2.5, or particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometres and smaller in size, is the main reason we have these health effects. To give you an idea of how much size that is, a human hair has a diameter of about 70 micrometres. These PM2.5 particles are about 30 times smaller than a human hair.
These particles cannot be seen with your naked eye. They cannot be tasted or smelled. Unlike dust, which stays in the nose or throat, PM2.5 particles are very small and will move to the deepest parts of your lungs, pass through the walls of your lungs, and enter the bloodstream. From there, they can enter the heart and brain, and travel to other parts of the body that were not designed to have foreign particles inside.
According to IQAir, one of the largest and most well-respected air quality monitoring organizations in the world, Gurgaon's PM2.5 level, on average, is about 17 times greater than the safe annual PM2.5 level recommended by the World Health Organisation.
Not 17% above; but 17 times.
The research results from IQAir also tells that inhaling Gurgaon's air on a typical day, as an involuntary action, will have the same harmful effect on the human body as inhaling two cigarettes per day.
And we simply accepted the situation, thinking it isn't bad because it has happened to us all. We have an air purifier for our bedroom, another one for our living room, and we replace the filters multiple times a year at an expense of several thousand rupees. A set of masks hanging by the door, that we sometimes remember and sometimes forget. AQI checking before even going out for a walk.
This has become our routine now, which has now started to feel like life.
How are people coping?
Several families have moved to a new location. Not permanently however; many cannot or do not want to uproot their careers, schools, and lives built over many years. However, there is an even quieter phenomenon taking place. The nature of the weekend is changing.
There is an increasing number of Gurgaon and Delhi families who have begun viewing the weekend as an environmental reset rather than as merely recovering from the previous week. When one drives two hours in either direction from Gurgaon, the landscapes appear to have been altered dramatically. The open air on the horizon of Haryana’s Aravalli Hills is free from pollutants and clean enough that we do not have to filter the air prior to inhaling it.
Quite regularly, people will tell us, without exception - that when they arrive at their destination, they can feel the change in their bodies within one hour. Shoulders relax. Breathing becomes deeper. Their children run outside, not returning to the house until it is dark. The difference isn’t easily noticeable; it’s actually quite an experience!
That’s why Nirvaana Hills is created where it should have been created.
200 acres of land located in the Aravalli hills in Mahendragarh, Haryana - two hours from Gurgaon, with over 100,000 trees to be planted on the land. They will not be planted solely for aesthetic appeal but in order to create an ecosystem capable of providing very different quality of air for us all. The land has eco trails, organic farming operations, wellness centers, and villas made of stone, wood, and mud, all of which actively contribute to the ecosystem surrounding them rather than sealing them off from it.
We are not selling you clean air at Nirvaana Hills as an individual unit or feature; rather, we view it as an integral part of Nirvaana Hills as a whole and thus a fundamental right for every human being on earth - as this has now become a finite commodity that is genuinely scarce. For most families in the world, clean air is no longer just desirable, it is becoming increasingly urgent.
We know that our air purifier operating inside our bedroom does help to improve the quality of air there but not nearly enough to solve the problem of poor air quality within our home. We have all been impacted by poor-quality air in our own homes over the past few years and now most of us are just waiting to see what the answer to this dilemma will be for all of us.
