Pune Air
I
have registered for the Yoganusasanum event in 2015 and it is coming up.
There are several reasons I would choose
this event as a way for me to study in Pune rather than a month at the
institute
1 is that telling an employer ‘you know
that month of August yeah well I don’t see me working ‘work’ into that month’ seems
a bit much, where 2.5 weeks is long but still a little more doable.
2,
which is the main reason, is that where I stay, how I am transported to the
event and where the event is held all have 1 thing in common, the amazing
invention - the air filter. In 2014 I would sit on break and visualize what the
air filter on the building looked like, I know wasn’t everyone, in my mind it
ran the color gamut from black to dark black.
The
longer I was there the less I was willing to ignore the signals my body was
sending me about the air quality…visually Pune air is not an invisible element,
there is no ‘what is making the leaves move’ it’s what is the brown haze by my
head making my throat burn, just stepping from the hotel lobby to the driveway
my throat would start to burn. So the longer I was there the more I did not
vary from moving from 1 air filter to the next.
I
recently met Rose who is going this year and was telling her about Pune and I
said ‘the air is bad’ then to emphasize this I said ‘the air is very bad’. When
I got home I thought ‘just how bad is it?’ and searched 3 words ‘Pune air
pollution’…oh how I long for the time I just thought the air was bad…the air is
dangerous, toxic, poison…. bad doesn’t cover it. I had thought the mask Prakash
had recommended was over-the-top and now I realize he was trying to protect my
health…the air is lethal. The Internet is making the ‘I didn’t know’ excuse
harder and harder to pull off.
His mask recommendation:
I just saw this article published in the Indian Express on Dec 11,2014 - the day after Yoganusasanum 2014 ended - which has an explanation of the air quality
http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/city-breathes-hard-air-pollution-swings-upward-as-mercury-dips/
Some interesting info which took me
around 5 minutes to find out, I should have stared into space for that 5
minutes, I would be sleeping a lot better:
The WHO puts 13 Indian cities in the
world’s 20 most polluted, with Delhi deemed the filthiest. The Indians would
not be outdone by China in the filthiest air contest…you people!!
An estimated 3.2 million people died
prematurely in 2010 because of the poisonous effects of outdoor air pollution.
Two-thirds of those killed by air pollution lived in Asia, where air
quality continues to worsen.Outdoor air pollution has become India’s fifth highest killer. Only tobacco, high blood pressure, indoor air pollution (typically caused by poorly ventilated stoves), and diets that are poor in fruit and vegetables kill more people here.
The smaller the particle the more
lethal, PM2.5 is more dangerous than PM10, the WHO recommends the monitor reading number be
< 10. The PM2.5 toxin cannot be
filtered by the lungs and is inhaled and goes straight into the bloodstream.
Air pollution is a direct poison pipeline.
I did search ‘do building air filters
filter PM2.5’ and the answer seemed to be some, the better ones do. I was going
to search a list of all diseases caused by air pollution but decided getting on
an airplane audibly moaning might be irritating to my fellow passengers.
For perspective, since I have been
looking, Dallas has spent most time in 30-40 range which is color green good
but has been yellow 50-100 moderate, Dallas is a large urban area with too many
people and too many cars, it is certainly not a beacon of clean air, it is
polluted.
Pune has spent the entire time red
Unhealthy 151-200 on at least 1 monitor, 1 of the monitors that is consistently
red is 7mi from where I am staying. I did see it drop to Orange once which is
Unhealthy for sensitive groups, which I believe means those who breathe but
they could mean something else.
What would Patanjali say about flying
to a location that is unhealthy, toxic, to attend yoga class? Would he say this
is the practice of yoga? I am going to have to say no.
And what about an association that
requires its teachers to study in Pune, At the more advanced levels, trips to
Pune are mandatory, what would Patanjali say about that? Requires is an
interesting word isn’t it … requires…’oh you will harm your lungs, we insist’.
I imagine people inform them they will not be meeting this requirement for many
reasons, I would think the main ones would be family, $ and loss of work, but I
wonder if they have ever been informed that someone will not meet that requirement
because they practice yoga.
After seeing this I searched ‘Iyengar
air quality’ to see what information was out there, nada, I then searched
‘Iyengar air’ which returned info on landing at the airport, one of the first
Iyengar sites returned suggested I take a rickshaw from the airport to the
hotel, remember these are people who will give you a dissertation on food
quality unasked suggesting I walk out of the airport find an open air vehicle
lower to the ground so my face is closer to car exhaust level and have a fun
ride to my hotel – here’s one of the Pune air quality monitor readings as I read this
suggestion:
What if the World Health Organization
had instead of calling Pune a city had called it a restaurant? The vegetarian restaurant Pune with 2 pages
of vegan options where all the Iyengar students go, the food is fantastic. What
if the WHO discovered the Indian people were all adding poison to the food at
the restaurant Pune, so the WHO told people the food is poison and posted signs
saying the Pune restaurant is Unhealthy. Would Iyengar associations require my
friends to eat there? Would Iyengar sites suggest when I land at the airport I
find a bigger spoon so I could take big bites? Calm down, it’s not food…it’s
the air we inhale with each breath…prana.
If you would like to follow along on my
adventure as I poison myself on my yoga trip, click the below link, the
monitors are up to the minute and clicking at different times of day will give
different results, you can’t say I don’t know fun.
Pune air rating:
Dallas air rating
