In a surprise move that took the country’s breath away, literally, the PM announced a drastic move to solve the growing problem of Delhi’s atmospheric pollution, which could well spread to other cities across the nation.

Pollution was caused by the prevalence of bad, or black, air which was driving all the good, or clean air, out of circulation. All this black air was choking our systems, and causing all the ailments we were afflicted with.

Where did all this black air come from? Black air, which was caused by us having too much carbon in our environment, was caused by unscrupulous people who’d taken all our good, clean, white air out of the country and stashed it in secret air accounts abroad.

The PM promised that he would get all this good, white air stashed in foreign accounts and bring it back into the country, ensuring that each and every citizen would get 15 lakh tonnes of good white air.

But first, all the carbon-caused black air had to be sucked out of the system. The idea was to have a carbon-less society, or at least, a less-carbon society.

With that laudable goal in view, 86% of all the air in the country would overnight be sucked out of the system, as though with a giant vacuum cleaner, in an operation called Dematerialisation, or DeMat, which would be kept under wraps until the very last moment.

With Dematerialisation having taken 86% of the air out of circulation, how were people to breathe?

Special air dispensing kiosks would be set up, outside which people could queue up to fill their lungs with strictly rationed air. Each person would be allowed a daily quota of no more than 4,000 breaths a day.

Though this could cause some unavoidable minor hardship, such as death, there would be long-term gain for short-term pain.

And that’s how the problem would get solved permanently, thanks to what would come to be called nose-bandhi.