Hidden Below

While returning home, I passed under the Balkumari flyover and noticed piles of garbage dumped beneath it.

People walked past with masks on, trying to protect themselves from the smell and polluted air.

For a moment, I wondered if we believe that throwing waste out of sight also makes its consequences disappear. The garbage remained under the bridge, but the air it polluted did not.

It spread far beyond that place, reaching everyone who walked, worked, or lived nearby.

The man in this photograph wore a mask, but a mask can only reduce what we breathe.

It cannot remove the pollution we continue to create. That day reminded me that pollution doesn't stay where we leave it.

It always finds its way back to us.

A cleaner environment begins not by hiding our waste, but by taking responsibility for it.