Every winter morning, a soft, dull grey blanket settles itself over the city of Mumbai.
Every winter morning, a soft, dull grey blanket settles itself over the city of Mumbai.
By Tanay Bhuva
Read the storyIt turns the sunrise dull and blurry and hides the BKC skyline with a veil.
Sound cozy?
Well, it's not, really.
We call it fog and continue with our warm chai, and carry on with life. Most of that fog is smog, and every one of us breathe it in every single day.
Part one
The CPCB, Central Pollution Control Board, publishes Mumbai's air quality report online every single day, and it's free. It turns complex data such as PM 2.5 into a simple color scale from severe to good to very good. This information is in plain sight, but the point is that no one bothers to give it attention. Most of us check the weather or sports score that we follow but never the air that we breathe, and air runs through our system hundreds of times per day. Our complacency matters because barely anyone would have noticed that Mumbai's AQI was one full category worse in 2026 than 2025.
The CPCB AQI scale, the one published every day for Mumbai.
Annual average · US AQI · Source: AQI.in
Mumbai's air quality is affected by numerous factors, including exhaust dust and smoke. Its main causes are vehicles, industries, construction, and incineration of waste.
At a traffic packed junction engines send heat and CO2 into the air even when they're not moving. The air smells of the sharp smell of hot metal. Construction dust is heavy and sinks over netting and our windows.
At night the sharp sour smell of burning trash fills the air of most neighborhoods. No single source is to blame. Together they all are threads in the blanket that settles itself on Mumbai every morning.
Across the page, we already have the information, but we just don't care to look at it.
Part two
Many Mumbaikars believe sea breezes settles all the dust down and protects us. And bad air quality is a Delhi issue. The evidence proves strongly against. The sea breezes are faithful guardian but unreliable to when the wind weakens, the city suffocated. The pollution is trapped and some winter days, Mumbai's pollution has been as bad as Delhi's.
The most harmful particles, PM 2.5 particles, which are smaller than 2.5 microns, are so small that they are thinner than hair, they can not be seen, felt, or even smelled. Yet this invisible enemy is deadly.
A study of Indian cities linked about five thousand one hundred deaths per year in Mumbai, which is 5.6 percent of all deaths to the short-term exposure of PM 2.5 particles. This is above the WHO's guideline, the second highest after Delhi. The damage was even below India's limit, which is about four times higher than the WHO's guideline.
The people who are most exposed include young children, older or elderly people, police, especially traffic police, delivery boys, and street sellers.
In my research and findings, showed me the problem is not that we do not have information but it is about how it reaches people. On a number on a website never can make anyone fall sick, but a photo of the coastal road vanishing into the haze makes us stop and stare.
Part three
Let this blog be your start. Clean air is everyone's responsibility. So take these three steps to fulfill your personal duty.
This is Mumbai's time to shine. We must become the guards of the air we share. The grey blanket won't tear by itself.
Next time you see it, do not call it fog. Call it what it actually is, and let's all work towards clean, green air for us all, for Mumbai.
So what will you do?
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