“Air pollution has been so normalised in India that no one even notices any more despite the science of its negative effects being well known.” The anti-ageing enthusiast millionaire Bryan Johnson’swords, after he walked out of a podcast due to poor air quality, did provoke many. While some thought the millionaire had given himself too much airs, some said he had given vent to what so many others have been feeling. Air pollution is, no doubt, extremely dangerous, especially when it has reached such alarming levels. Much more detrimental, however, could be the ability to‘normalise’.Normalising thingsinvolves accepting the unacceptable and living with it. Such an acceptance steals the one advantage that crisis can offer –acollective readiness to take the very tough road of ‘change’.

 

 

Let’s look into things that are now normal but which should have been unacceptable – air pollution included. In our society, many things fit the bill, right from corruption and the VIP culture to patriarchy and harassment, from rote in schools to rat race for jobs, from irresponsible social behaviour to growing human indifference, the list of ‘chalta hai…’ things is large and growing. Had we refused to grant these things the dignity of normalcyletting themremainunacceptable, thenperhaps they might have not achieved this acceptance that we are forced to give them today. This despite knowing fully well how detrimental they can be to our existence. At the heart of this acceptance is the lethargy to visualise things in totality, to walk the talk, to remain completelyinvestedin thepromise of life. Take for example the case of corruption. It isabad thing. Everyone knows that for sure. Some one described it as the parasite which weakens the fabric of a nation. Some, more experienced, call it a necessary evil. Answer to whyitis called‘necessary’is hidden somewhere between the many ifs and buts offered to justify it.‘We do not want to, but what is the option…???’ is the common refrain.

 

So, in the wider perception of things, we are honest but…the world in which we live is not and so we cannot be honest. Common sense says, ‘In Rome, do as Romans do.’ Sometimes, common sense of the present eats up the wisdom of ages. We survive the day, but lose the years. So easily, we make evil necessary. So easily, evil gets normalised.Corruption goes against the very grain of all our belief systems, all ourreligious principles, all ethical codes and yet it is to be practised since everyone is practising it. Ditto with patriarchy, we were born into. The earliest examplesofman-womancompanionship,inhistory of the Indian sub-continent, showed remarkableappreciation,respectandunderstandingbetween the two genders. Someone came up with the idea that women were born to serve men. And though most wise men of the land beautifully upheld the similarities and differences of the sexes, never to undermine one in favour of the other, in course of time common sense or the sense of the most common people took over. So, the ‘purdahs’ and the ‘johars’ came to protect women’s honour.

 

The easier way to protect her could have as well been to give her a sword and train her to protect herself, her honour and her nation as well! But the bright individuals of the ‘common-sense brigade’ did not see the strength of women and saw only her weakness. So, despite the fact thatineverychapterofhistory,women -- strong, clever and revolting -- have found mention, womenin toto became not the equal or unequal butlowerin stature andstatus.Andwhen this thought wasnormalisedin thesociety,prideinholdingadaughter changed into a burden so much that daughters were and are being killedin themother’swombitself. Similar is the case of our centre of learning today. The idea behind sending children into school is to carefully chisel a child into making him or her a strong, courageous, aware, clever and wise human being in control of himself/herself and his/her surroundings and willing to explore his/her own genius and that of the nature around him/her.

 

After running into manycommon-heldbeliefsand normalisations, it has come to suchalowthatourchildren,who were made to mug up the knowledge of the entire world, are now fearing that some AI, having a greater memory,willmake themredundantin theworld!They fear they will have no jobs to do. That again is a overnormalised approach. For in fact, they will have a lot on their hands. They will haveahuge job to fix a devastated world which we will, with our normalised conditioning, leave for them. And now for the vexed issue of air pollution. Have we normalised pollution? Well, AQIs of cities after cities fall in the red but are not red enough to make us see red. That shows how normalised air pollution is. We know progress and pure air do not go handin-hand. Many countries like Singapore and South Korea might have set examples of how it could be done. But they also do not fall into the trap of normalisation. They are not as resilient as we, nor are they as accepting.

 

Perhaps the trick for us is to be less accepting and less normalising. If our air is toxic, we must feel it, cry hoarse about it, and see that it changes for good. Air pollution is a crisis. Let us not rob ourselves of the one chance to change. This time round, let us ignore the insult. Let us not normalise it so that many more enthusiasts of long life run away from our shows. The best thing would be to give ourselves some time, perhaps a decade and then invite Mr Bryan Johnson again telling him that if he is eyeing longevity and anti-ageing, this is the place he ought to be. For it has much more than just pure air. It has a rich spiritual heritage which can also help him see maturity, life and death in a different way.