For the first few weeks after they returned to Hyderabad in 2019, Padma Priya, 39, and her husband would stare into the blue sky in awe. They had stopped looking at the sky during winters in their five years of living in Delhi. “Either it was not visible due to the smog or it was this dirty grey,” says the media consultant.

They moved cities so that their daughter could breathe easy. Ever since her birth, she would fall sick frequently; by the age of 2, she had three bouts of bronchitis. As parents they did everything they could, from buying air purifiers to restricting outdoor exposure, but her breathing issues persisted. “By the age of 3, she already knew how to hold the nebuliser,” says Padma Priya, who had to quit her communications job owing to the frequent leaves she needed for managing their daughter’s health.

Padma Priya remembers one scary night in 2017, when their daughter was breathless, coughing for over 40 minutes straight. The paediatric pulmonologist recommended steroids and antibiotics and asked the question that changed their life trajectory — is there any way that they could move out of the city? Since their daughter was under the age of five, he told them that her lungs could still recover, else she would develop asthma and need inhalers all her life. The couple took the difficult decision to leave, paring down expenses and opting for a small 2BHK in Hyderabad. “It was a gamble but it was better than getting our daughter susceptible to lifelong breathing issues,” she says. Within a few weeks of moving, the little girl’s health improved. They have never regretted their decision.