My Sky is Shrinking

In the suburbs of Mumbai, it is difficult to find a house with a view. So what drew us to this apartment of ours was that all three sides - the north, the south and the west- were completely open with hardly any high-rise around to obstruct the view. Sunlight entered from all sides and the cross ventilation was exhilarating. We could have taken the flat opposite which had the east on one side but all you could see from there were the tops of other buildings in the same complex. Despite knowing that the western windows would let in the piercing, hot rays of the evening sun from late afternoon till sunset, we chose this one. That was eighteen years ago.

Gold Rush

Leap of Faith

Every evening when the sun bid adieu and its harsh rays softened while taking the final bow, the hands of an invisible artist would take up the palette and the paintbrush. What colours, what shades and what myriad and wondrous hues this painter with his master strokes would splash on this vast canvas of his cannot really be put into words. Every sunset was a visual treat that we never tired of seeing. It was a new painting every day and every minute threw up a new riot of colours.

Alien Invasion

Orange is the New Black

Myriad hues

Smoulder

The night sky, too, would never disappoint. As night progressed and the moon journeyed across the sky to stop by our bedroom window, we would once again be left speechless. Sometimes it was just the sliver of a semi -circle in white, while on other days a full moon threw its floodlight and illuminated every object in the room. On those extremely rare occasions, we, too, have seen the red moon slowly fading into the wee hours of early morning. On a clear night a rare shooting star would catch the eye or a falling one urged us to make a wish or the evening star which showed up as the sun went down would send us into a flurry to get a better view.

Steel

Moonstruck

But, perhaps, the southern and western skies are at their best during the monsoon. In the peak of summer, I could literally see the clouds rising every evening and watch them as they grew bigger and darker and more ominous by mid-June. As the meteorological experts kept up their annual cacophony of when the monsoon would hit the coastline, from my vantage point I could actually see the clouds gathering, day after day, till one day the heavily pregnant clouds could no longer hold the water and let it come down as the first showers of monsoon. A parched earth would spring to life.

Curtain Raiser

Curtain Call

Curtain Falls

On clear days, the distant creek came into focus and we could see the horizon where the sky came down to greet its waters. On rainy afternoons, the rain clouds could be seen gathering and moving slowing towards us as the whole sky seemed to drape itself in a slate-grey sheet. The rains falling on the creek could actually be seen advancing slowly and then, suddenly, at great speed towards our building. Every time this happened a quick dash would be made by those at home to shut the French windows and pick up the clothes left to dry on the clotheslines outside. The strong monsoon winds had the capacity to turn everything upside down in a fraction of a second if they could find a little vent anywhere.

Monsoon Monochrome

On a nice cloudy morning, when the rains stopped but the sun was still not ready to come out, some guests could be heard and seen. The parrots, or probably what the ornithologists would prefer to call as rose-ringed parakeets, would come out in large flocks. At a time, you could hear and see as many as eight to ten of them who would fly away from the windows ledges and sunshades as soon as you approached them. You needed to have very sharp ears to know exactly which window they had flocked to. The parrots have had their homes for years in the ever-reducing big trees in our neighborhood, some of which, fortunately, can still be seen standing in our compound. At such moments, I would leave everything to just catch a glimpse of them as they flew away in perfect triangle-formation every time that I ventured near them. Much as I loved seeing their long green tails and perfectly shaped bodies, the reddish black rings round their necks and their well -sculpted red beaks, the Resident Evils of this building were never too fond of them. I mean the pigeons- those grey-blue, grey-black, brown and white spotted ones - who would huddle together on the side opposite to where the parrots were, eyeing them suspiciously with a touch of envy. Probably, they wondered why these pretty creatures were gathering at their favourite spots and screeching to their hearts content?

Perching Parrot

Over the years the skyline kept changing. The picturesque hills of Powai disappeared from view and, gradually, the crimson patch of the sky, which we could see from the south eastern corner in the wee hours of the mornings, was obliterated too. One by one the building blocks seemed to come up, almost overnight, on the southern and the northern sides. We were cowered down by heights of various names and proportions- celestial, monumental, galactic, imperial. Our only consolation was that the western side was still open. While under house arrest during Covid times, when the air was free from all man-made pollution, and friends in other parts of the country were sending pictures of Nanda Devi and Kanchenjunga peaks seen from their home-towns, we were happy to see the buildings across the creek- till then we had seen the creek but never beyond it.

The Lockdown Views...oops Blues

And then one day the gigantic cranes- not birds but monstrosities in iron – and excavators and cement mixers started arriving. Suddenly the Prem Nagar, which we had seen all these years as a conglomerate of shanties and chawls, was replaced by a plethora of buildings of odd shapes and sizes with no sense of symmetry or beauty. I believe it is just the beginning. More such buildings are in the process of coming up as soon as the present inhabitants of the remaining slums are accommodated elsewhere and the politicians and builders are ready to wave the green flag. Another round of trees and shanties will go down; the marshy land will be completely concretized so that not a drop of water can seep through to make way for more vertical blocks to come up in one congested cluster.

The view is gone and so has the sky. I have to run from one window to another and look over the jutting cranes to catch a patch of the sky. Not much is left. I still see the big orange ball of fire go down as it silently sinks into the horizon, but the artist’s canvas has shrunk to the size of one small window in which the changes in colours can still be observed but shorn of its magnificence. Just a matter of time before another concrete monster comes to stand in front of this window too.

The Last Ray

But there is one thing that haunts me every single day and every single night. It is the koel which keeps coo-ing, day and night, perhaps perched on its solitary nest somewhere in a branch of some very old tree still holding its place in this parade of urbanization. I have never seen this little bird; I have only heard it. Wonder what it keeps trying to say, trapped in this man-made concrete jungle?

“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:”
(Ode to a Nightingale-John Keats)

DS

Pictures and captions: MS