Delhi talks about pollution every winter. How does it affect you?
The 10,000 Breaths Project is a citizen-led experiment to understand how Delhi NCR experiences air pollution, what people actually know, where they feel powerless, and what could move us from knowing to agency to participation.
I got tired of ending every pollution conversation with the same sentence: someone should do something.
I want to research openly, talk to ordinary citizens, learn from practitioners where possible, build simple tools, run conversations and masterclasses, and publish what works as well as what fails.
Delhi knows the problem. What turns knowing into agency?
Understand
Use thorough citizen surveys, lived experiences, recurring feedback and solution testing to understand how people experience pollution and what they already know or do.
Listen
Speak with experts, doctors, public-health professionals, environmental practitioners, researchers and citizens to challenge assumptions and sharpen the project.
Build
Prototype simple tools that make information more understandable and actionable.
Learn
Bring people together around air, health, cities, data, law, communication and community action.
Publish
Release findings, limitations, tools, recommendations and what the experiment failed to solve.
Breaths getting affected in Delhi NCR right now.
Every marker on this map represents a person who has added their breath to the project. As more people join, the map becomes a visual record of how widely this issue is felt across Delhi NCR.
In the live version, every person who joins can appear as a dot on the map. Over time, this can show where the project is spreading and how people across NCR are participating.
You do not need to be an expert.
Answer
Take short surveys about what you understand, experience and do when the air gets worse.
Test
Try prototypes and tell me whether they make the problem clearer or more actionable.
Join
Participate in small conversations, masterclasses or community experiments when relevant.
Shashank Sharma
I am a brand and communications leader who has worked across financial services, education, media and social impact. Much of my professional life has involved understanding how people receive information, build trust and make decisions.
Over the last two years, I have taken that curiosity outside work and into community building. I built Anti-Fragile Circle around a simple question: can a digital community become meaningful social infrastructure, rather than another stream of messages competing for attention?
The 10,000 Breaths Project is the next experiment in that journey. Delhi NCR does not suffer from a lack of information about pollution. We have data, experts, research, policies and an annual public conversation. What interests me is the gap between knowing, agency and participation.
Can better communication, stronger communities and simpler tools reduce that gap? I do not know the answer yet. That is precisely why I am building this project.
This is an independent citizen initiative. Technical claims and recommendations will be sourced to credible scientific and official evidence.
“The most dangerous stage of a public crisis is when everyone understands the problem, but nobody believes their participation can change the outcome.”Shashank Sharma, Founder, The 10,000 Breaths Project
Add your breath.
If you live, work, study or spend significant time in Delhi NCR, join the project. Your response will help shape the survey, test the tools and decide which questions are worth pursuing.