The Invisible Crisis: Why Air Pollution Fails to Inspire Indian Cinema

Despite the alarming air quality in cities like Delhi, Indian cinema largely neglects the issue of air pollution, focusing instead on more dramatic disasters. Industry voices express concern over this disconnect, calling for literature and filmmaking to better represent this pressing environmental challenge.

The 2016 hit film *Pink*, featuring the iconic Amitabh Bachchan, provides a rare glimpse into the real-life struggle with air pollution in India. A memorable scene sees Bachchan's character donning a mask as he steps into the smog-laden streets of Delhi. While this moment captures the choking reality of toxic air pollution, it is overshadowed by the film's narrative. Unlike other natural calamities, such as the catastrophic floods that have inspired numerous films, the pervasive plight of air pollution remains largely unaddressed in Indian cinema.

Siddharth Singh, author of *The Great Smog of India*, emphasizes this failure, highlighting that issues surrounding air pollution are predominantly relegated to academic discussions and scientific circles. He argues that the language of pollution—terms like PM2.5 and NOx—remains foreign to the average citizen, which contributes to its absence in popular culture. Amitav Ghosh, who has critiqued the lack of climate change narratives in contemporary fiction, echoed this sentiment in a 2022 interview, describing the alarming reality of climate-induced phenomena that have become normalized.

While mainstream films are largely silent, documentaries such as Shaunak Sen’s *All That Breathes* delve into pollution's impacts through a personal lens, charting the story of two brothers who rescue injured black kites in the polluted skies of Delhi. Sen argues that climate change is intricately woven into everyday life, a theme that he seeks to portray artfully rather than didactically.

Filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda, who has made over 70 films on climate and environmental issues, points toward the potential of storytelling to transcend typical narratives. His film *Megha's Divorce* tackles the implications of living in a polluted environment within a dramatic framework, showcasing how personal relationships can become frayed amidst the backdrop of an ecological crisis.

In contrast, Siddharth Singh notes the difficulty in finding personal stories amidst alarming statistics of pollution-related deaths. He raises a crucial point about the privileged creators of narratives being disconnected from those directly affected by pollution, whose experiences often go unrecognized in popular storytelling.

As air quality concerns flood social media platforms with memes and humorous commentary, it indicates a casual engagement with what is in fact a grave public health issue. Singh hopes these grassroots creative expressions will eventually propel broader discussions that reach decision-makers.

There remains a stark discrepancy between the urgent need for environmental storytelling and the current state of Indian literature and film. As climate crisis narratives struggle for representation, the challenge of engaging audiences with a subject as grave as air pollution endures, underscoring the necessity for transformative narratives that reflect and respond to our contemporary environment.