I am riding on the streets of Mumbai, our metropolitan financial capital. There is sewage flowing onto the road from an open drain. As I move ahead, there is a road being cemented. There are open mounds of sand lying by the road which swirl and rise with the wind. It settles on my skin in this sticky weather.

I am on the last leg of the Sandakphu trek, near Darjeeling, the queen of the hills. As I come down from Rammam to Sirikhola, the road is being widened. There is carnage on the mountainside. The greenery has been butchered. The earth’s being defiled by an earth mover, a demon of development. Rocks and mud lay strewn near the open wound. Stones and boulders roll down the barren slopes as we slip and slide our way to safety. A little further down the road I meet an elder who bemoans the lack of electricity, water and other supplies in the remote villages. I wonder if it will do any good. The previous evening I had come across piles of garbage callously being dumped by the local homestays into the forest. The responsible ones burn to get rid of it. I can’t decide which of the two is causing greater damage.

I am in Patna. An over bridge is being constructed. The narrow road is teeming with vehicles like crabs in a basket. They honk and spew black smoke. The roads have holes dug and open man-holes ready to swallow you. Dirt is synonymous with being out. I hop step and jump, keeping eyes fixed on the road below, rather than on the traffic around me, for fear of stepping into something disgusting. I finally reach home, and decide not to step out unless I am in a car.

I start from Guwahati, intending to cycle to Shillong in a day. The task is daunting, with a 1500 meter overall climb across 100 unforgiving kilometres. As I step out, a familiar haze greets me on a cool winter morning. The roads of the city are empty in the morning, and I am reach the highway quickly. The up-climb greets me, as do the dreaded dust and smoke. The road is being widened from a two to four lane highway. It is a dust bowl. The traffic is chaotic, with vehicles driving on either side of the newly four lane segments. Earth movers and workers with drills create a cacophony complemented by the vehicles whizzing past me from either side. Mud, rocks and earth roll down the sides of bleeding mountains. The soil poured on top of the tar road to dry it, flies into my eyes. The dilapidated trucks that go past emit soot from their exhausts, labouring beside me on up-slopes. I have covered my face fully with a thin towel, but my arms and legs are uncovered. By the time I reach Shillong, they are as black as the coal being loaded on the trucks on the way.

These are a few instances of the level of air pollution we face every day in India. We have got so used to the dust around us, that it doesn’t bother most of us, sitting in our closed rooms and air-conditioned cars. The few times that we step out in the open, we deplore the deteriorating traffic situation, the cause of all such evils. Then we just go about our normal lives unconcerned. Unfortunately, I am not able to do the same thing. I ride around on a cycle, or prefer to walk, so am exposed to the foul air that envelopes us. I am allergic to dust and smoke. This means that if I am in Mumbai, or Patna, or any other large town or city, I have a chronic cold and cough. I have a congestion that keeps getting worse, bordering on asthma. But I can’t coop myself indoors. The India outside is there to explore, and I risk going out. Slowly, the Mumbai I loved is losing its charm. I would rather be in the mountains, where my cold goes away, even during winters when I am most susceptible. I miss the movies, the friends, the internet, the mayhem. But I enjoy the fresh air of Sikkim or Shillong, and yearn to be in these places.

So why is there so much dust here? Is it because India is a developing nation, and we cannot really control the pollution, while there are other more important issues like the ever present poverty? Is it endemic to our tropical climate? Or is it because we are careless enough to dump construction material on the road uncovered? Is it because most of our mines work uncovered and unchecked? Is it due to the lack of pollution control in our cities and virtually no regulation in the smaller ones? Is it because of the flouting of the rules by all industries, for it saves money that lines the pockets of corporates, bureaucrats and politicians alike? Is it because most of our villages and towns are bare without much forestation and greenery, with the top soil being blown by the wind?

I think all of the above are just symptoms. The cause is something deeper, yet much simpler. It is our passive mind set, coupled with a myopic view. I think that is the cause of most of our problems. Let me explain how. We dust and wipe our houses crystal clean, yet we don’t think twice before dumping garbage on the road. This includes wrappers and other such things after we eat them. Chucking them as soon as we are finished is easy. We are not accountable. Sab chalta hai. But the garbage that we chuck confronts us as we step on the road for anything. We bemoan the dust lining everything in our house every day, even though we clean it repeatedly. We don’t remember that you just swept it out of the door. With the breeze it slowly flies back in. We don’t think twice before dumping a pile of sand on the road for construction. But when the same sand flies into our face, we blame the government. We cut trees, and build mines and roads. We don’t think of planting and maintaining foliage along the roads or around the mines afterwards. It requires effort and application to keep a balance between development and nature. It is much easier to just plunder and move on. We are used to that as a species. Unfortunately, with the growing population, it has become unsustainable. Our needs have grown too. We want more houses, more cars. Each of them chips away at our resources slowly. The financial pundits will talk about how the materialism benefits our economy. I suggest they start breathing notes and eating and drinking coins.

Austerity and compassion have been preached and practised in our land by the sadhus for centuries. We talk about preserving our culture. Yet we are blindly running after the greed and consumerism promoted by the west. We don’t really care what happens to the environment, as long as we are comfortable, not affected directly. There is lack of collective will to get us out of this mess. We have resigned ourselves to the worsening quality of air, water and other critical resources. If we really need to look westwards, shouldn’t we try and follow the way Germany is moving to solar and wind energy? Or how Sweden is completely garbage free, and imports garbage for electricity generation? How Copenhagen and Amsterdam are largely car-free, bicycle friendly cities? I am not saying we model ourselves on any of these countries. I want us to aspire to be like these forerunners, with changes in our setup to facilitate such steps. We need to “Make this India” a better country to live in. Each of us need to make an effort from our side to achieve this. May the dust never settle on this debate.