City: Mumbai

It's that time of the year in Mumbai now. If you visit the mangroves of Mumbai these days, you will see clouds of dragonflies (Pantala flavescens) dancing above them. Dragonflies helicoptering above the mangroves at Thane Creek (Photo: Gopal) Dragonflies undertake one of the longest migrations known among insects. They fly all the way from the Deccan to South Africa riding the North-East monsoon winds. In Kerala, the dragonflies appear just around or after the festival of Onam in September, when the South West Monsoon loses steam and are called Ona-thumbi or the dragonflies of Onam. In Mumbai, we do not have a…

It's been three months since Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide but the swelling media coverage could deceive you into thinking that it was two days ago. In fact, there was an unfortunate death two days ago. (Actually, there were many, if you count the 300+ deaths Maharashtra has been recording all week. Its current total of coronavirus cases is more than a million. But we know you're bored of all that.) Anyway, back to the one death two days ago. A barricade on Western Express Highway fell on a pillion bike rider and killed him instantly. The incident resurfaced…

Tens of thousands of flamingos congregate annually in Talawe Wetlands, in Navi Mumbai on India's west coast. These annual visitors comprise Lesser and Greater Flamingos, the two varieties that migrate to India. Flamingo congregation at Talawe, May 2020 (Photo: Surabhi Agarwal) With India's coronavirus lockdown, this year saw a 25% increase in numbers of these migratory birds. Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), estimates that number this year may be more than 1,50,000 vis-à-vis 1,34,000 counted last year. Flamingos at sunset (Photo: Surabhi Agarwal) These wetlands, habitat of flamingos, are in danger of being taken over for development for a golf…

When I dial Dr Rahul Ghule's number for an interview, I expect the phone line to be busy. In fact, I am prepared for it. For the past four months, Dr Ghule has repeatedly tweeted his phone number urging anyone with COVID-19 or related ailments to get in touch. But Dr Ghule answers immediately. “Most people WhatsApp me,” he says.  Dr Ghule is the Founder and CEO of 1Rupee Clinic which has been running Emergency Medical Rooms across railway stations in Mumbai since 2017. The doctors at these rooms or clinics offer checkup and out-patient department services and charge one…

When I made my 2020 planner on the first day of this year, I marked important academic and professional dates for the next six months. The first of these was my university graduation due in the month of March. We are now in September and the aforementioned graduation still seems a far mile away. To be fair, nothing about this year has been normal. With the coronavirus setting in from early March and a nationwide lockdown being declared from the end of that month, we’ve lived a life that is completely different from anything we might have experienced before. As…

The story of Kekee Manzil — The House of Art is the story of Mumbai’s Parsis, looked at through the life of one iconic person. The documentary film takes us through the life of the late Kekoo Gandhy (1920–2012), the famous art gallerist and picture frame manufacturer who was the owner of the popular Chemould Frames shop at Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda neighbourhood. But the film is also a nostalgic visual journey of Bombay in the 1980s and 1990s, which charts the history of the Parsi community in parallel. The filmmaker Behroz Gandhy, Kekoo’s daughter, has sketched his life through her…

Nirmohi Kathrecha, a graduate from the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA), is concerned about Mumbai's outfall levels - points where the city's drains or sewers empty into the Arabian Sea. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a sea-level rise of 0.5 metres by 2051. “This means that Mumbai's outfall points will be below the sea level or the high-tide line,” Kathrecha says. “A backflow of water from the sea could submerge us.” The information is alarming. Kathrecha grew up in Mumbai’s Gorai region where torrential rain and flooding is routine. But solutions for flood mitigation, critical due…

On August 27, a portion of a three-storied building collapsed in Nagpada. Two people, including a 12-year-old girl, were killed. The building was dilapidated and had long standing plans to be redeveloped. Despite the collapse, residents refused to vacate the building. “They kept saying that our part of the building is fine and we will continue to stay here. They didn’t want to shift to transit camps in distant suburbs. The fire brigade and the civic authorities had to disconnect their water and electricity connections to get them to vacate their building,” said Amin Patel, local legislator from Mumbadevi constituency,…

In 2018, 30,000 slum dwellers from the Tansa pipeline area and those affected due to the Brihanmumbai Stormwater Disposal System project were moved to Mahul, an industrially polluted area in the east of Mumbai. After uninterrupted citizen protests from August 2018 to September 2019, the High Court ordered the Maharashtra Government to rehabilitate residents or pay them Rs 15,000 monthly rent and Rs 45,000 deposit to find accommodation elsewhere. For a city known for incomplete or uninhabitable slum-redevelopment projects, this sounded like an interesting move. If implemented, it wouldn’t have been different from the model of “housing choice vouchers” where…

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report of 2019 indicates that every day, 35 people die due to fire accidents in India, with over half being home fires. Fires in high rises are not very common, but they almost always make it to the media headlines because of the damage they cause. Fire safety in apartment complexes is usually not on the list of priorities of either the builder or the flat owners. This is because fire safety systems do not impact our day-to-day lives, unlike water pipes, lifts, lighting, landscaping, garbage, drainage, etc. When a fire breaks out beyond…