NEW DELHI—Citing mounting concerns over an atmospheric composition that currently resembles a thick, chewable bean soup, local environmental ministries issued a comprehensive safety bulletin this week urging citizens to celebrate the annual festival of lights by simply not inhaling for the duration of the holiday.
The guidance, released ahead of the nationwide Diwali festivities, suggests that worshippers can easily honor centuries of cultural tradition while protecting their lungs by sealing themselves inside heavy-duty contractor garbage bags, purging all oxygen from their systems, and maintaining a state of clinical dormancy until at least late November.
"We completely understand the deep spiritual significance of lighting diyas and setting off firecrackers," said federal air quality commissioner Rajesh Sharma, speaking through a three-stage respirator while his skin slowly turned the color of a wet nickel. "At the same time, the sky is currently composed of seventy percent industrial effluent, twenty-nine percent unburned diesel exhaust, and one stray Roman candle from 2018. It is imperative that every citizen does their part to stop breathing this air immediately, as human lungs are proving to be an aggressive nuisance to our ongoing particulate collection metrics."
According to the newly minted protocols, traditional celebrations should be modified to eliminate all unnecessary respiratory functions. Officials recommend replacing joyous chanting with silent, inward panic, and substituting festive firecrackers with the quiet, dignified popping of lung tissue under extreme barometric pressure. Families are encouraged to gather around the living room rug, turn off all household appliances to conserve ambient oxygen, and stare blankly into the middle distance while waiting for the smog to politely disperse into the upper stratosphere, where it can become someone else's problem.
The annual advisory arrives amidst a familiar recurring debate over the primary source of the region's winter-long apocalyptic haze. While independent scientists have repeatedly pointed to millions of acres of agricultural stubble burning, thousands of unregulated coal-fired manufacturing plants, and a vehicular fleet consisting primarily of smoke-belching tractors from the Eisenhower administration, government officials have courageously chosen to blame a single uncle named Sanjay who bought a ten-pack of sparklers at a roadside stall.
"Make no mistake," Sharma added, adjusting his oxygen tank as a passing hawk dropped out of the sky mid-flight. "The real threat to our pristine ecosystem is not the chemical manufacturing hub releasing enough sulfur dioxide to melt a Buick every twenty minutes. It is the reckless abandon with which children are lighting small cardboard tubes filled with gunpowder. If we simply outlaw happiness for four days, we are confident the air will clear up just enough for billionaires to resume poisoning the water table without feeling mildly inconvenienced."
Public health agencies have helpfully provided a series of alternative, eco-friendly holiday traditions designed for the modern urban dweller. Citizens are now advised to observe the triumph of light over darkness by sitting entirely in the dark inside a windowless basement, thereby saving electricity and eliminating the temptation to look outside at a skyline that currently resembles a tire fire inside a coal mine. Furthermore, traditional sweet distributions have been streamlined: instead of exchanging boxes of heavily sugared confections, families are encouraged to simply swallow a small pinch of damp charcoal while contemplating the inevitability of municipal failure.
Critics of the new guidelines have pointed out that telling millions of people to stop breathing might temporarily reduce emissions, but would ultimately cause a slight drop in economic productivity. The ministry, however, dismissed these concerns as short-sighted, noting that dead citizens consume significantly less electricity and leave behind remarkably efficient real estate footprints.
"We are simply asking for a little compromise," Sharma concluded, his voice muffled by an industrial-grade gas mask. "You want to celebrate your heritage. We want to pretend we are fixing a catastrophe we spent the last three decades actively ignoring. By combining these two goals into a single hypoxic event, we can all look forward to a cleaner, safer, and mercifully quieter winter season."
