“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
Native American Proverb
Some days in Mumbai, I look out the window and everything feels blurry. Not because of rain, but because the sky has turned into a quiet kind of grey. Not stormy. Just thick. Still.
That’s pollution.
We talk about pollution in school—smoke from cars, garbage burning, factories—but most of the time, it feels like background noise. It’s always there. So we stop noticing. Until someone in our family gets sick. Until the cough lasts too long. Until we see pictures of kids wearing masks—not for fashion, but just to breathe.
And then we remember. The sky isn’t supposed to feel heavy.
But here’s the real question: if everyone agrees pollution is bad, why does it keep getting worse?
The truth is, pollution isn’t just a science problem. It’s a power problem.
Factories pollute, but they also bring jobs. Cars pollute, but they also get people to work. Cities pollute, but they also grow economies. The people who suffer most from pollution are rarely the ones making those decisions. And the people who make the decisions usually live where the air is a little cleaner.
That’s how power works: it decides who gets to breathe safely, and who has to breathe in silence.
The sky turned grey, and no one cried,
The clouds of smoke just slowly lied.
They said, “It’s normal, just today,”
But years went by in shades of grey.
The trees still stood, the birds still flew,
But breathing hurt—and no one knew.
For power hides in what we see,
And stronger still in what we let be.
I’m only in fourth grade, but even I can see this: the environment doesn’t have a voice. It doesn’t vote. It doesn’t go on strike. So it gets ignored. Until it fights back.
Pollution teaches us something about invisibility. Not just of chemicals, but of consequences. People forget what they can’t see. And governments forget what they don’t have to feel.
But the sky is not a wall. It doesn’t keep secrets. It shares them. With our lungs. With our soil. With our future.
And someday, that future might ask: why did you let the air grow grey when you still had time to keep it blue?
