Comedian-actor Vir Das took a satirical dig at Mumbai’s toxic air quality on Thursday morning, posting a video from his living room with a thick smoke filter overlay and declaring that coughing is now pointless because “my lungs have adapted.”

The clip, captioned “Morning from Mumbai,” shows Das calmly greeting followers while a hazy filter mimics the city’s smog-filled skyline indoors. “I’m not gonna cough at this point, my lungs have adapted, it’s fine,” he says in the video, before adding, “Oh, you think this is the outside? No, this is what’s happening inside you.” The post quickly went viral as residents across the city grapple with worsening pollution levels.

Mumbai’s Air Quality Index has deteriorated sharply this week, crossing into the ‘severe’ category in several areas. As of Thursday morning, the city-wide AQI stood in the ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ range, with localities such as Mazagaon, Chembur, and Navi Mumbai recording readings above 300. A thick blanket of smog has reduced visibility and triggered health alerts, with doctors reporting a spike in respiratory complaints.

Vir Das’s tongue-in-cheek commentary struck a chord with Mumbaikars, many of whom flooded the comments section with laughing emojis and remarks like “welcome to the new normal” and “our lungs are now made of steel.” The video serves as both comic relief and a stark reminder of the mounting environmental crisis gripping the metropolis this winter season.