The rains have started in Mumbai. The sheets of rain look lovely to anyone who wakes from the afternoon slumber and is greeted by these sheets though their windows. Especially when there is a blurry view of verdant trees, sea waters and hills yonder. Rains bring out the Williams: Blake & Wordsworth and the Da Vincis in a lot of people. Yours truly included.
There used to be a field in view when I looked out of the large three pane window of the room where I spend most of the time. Cricket matches used to be held there. Microphones used to fill the air around with cacophonous commentary. I did not mind it. In the island of isolation, the crowds and noise from a nearby field was the only social activity I could experience. This was 4 months back. The green field gradually changed to a reddish brown. Large brick walls were built around it. Temporary residential tin shacks cropped up just inside the boundary.
Soil was being dug up from one half of the field and this was used to fill up the other half. Intuitively I had had my window panes sealed with large sticky tape before all this had begun. Of late my right brain seems to have overcome my left. The Mumbai heat and the dust raised from the dry construction soil would be harbouring bacteria and fungi. They had to be kept out.
A large rectangular hole gaped at the farther end of the former field. Soon the hole became a foundation for the building that would be coming up there. Beyond this former field is a 14 storey residential building. This building has one apartment per floor. Each floor has twin car parking spaces and car lifts to take the cars up there. One hunky Bollywood film star has reportedly purchased a flat there. Just thinking of being able to sometimes see him, shirtless, on one of his balconies made us happy.
Beyond that building were trees, in a clustered row, separating the road from the Thane creek. An embankment lined the creek shore. The creek carried waters from the Arabian Sea into Navi Mumbai and it was therefore the sea for us. You know, a part of the whole and all that stuff. This room has a view of the sea. The breeze from the sea kept the apartments cool in the sweltering Mumbai heat. It also occasionally brought in nauseating fishy smells which was tolerated with not more than a passing remark on its unpleasantness.
With the rapid pace at which the field is transforming into a building, it won't be much longer before the sea view becomes a past tense for the three paned window. Not much hope of being able to see the Bollywood star's six packs remain. He hasn't occupied the apartment yet (we know because the entire building remains dark at night, none of the apartments have yet been occupied).
Pankhi, my haematologist friend, broke a leg. She had topped the lists in all three MBBS exams of the '87 batch of GMCH. She is a singer and comes from a family of musicians, film makers and artists. She has also sung for Coke Studio on MTV with the well known singer and musician Hariharan.
She broke one leg, but several bones and each bone in several places. They broke by tripping over a rope. She has the Vitamin D3 deficiency that the average urban Indian has these days. Her bone mineral density is normal. Nevertheless, she managed to shatter so many bones by tripping over a rope. Which, by her own admission, she had noticed and taken care to carry her right foot over it with sufficient clearing space over the rope. She was betrayed by the left leg and the right hemisphere of her grey cells.
Her leg is in a thigh high stiff cast and she can barely walk. I called her today and she was preparing to go to work. Her tibia, fibula and metatarsals fragmented barely 15 days back. She embodies the spirit of the batch of '87. Such a spirited batch we are. Those who know me would agree.
The cacophony over the microphones have been replaced by sounds of machines boring into the ground. Sounds of metal being dropped over metal also reach the ears. There are constant humming noises from machines doing things that I haven't yet been able to identify. I do mind these sounds.
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