Once Upon a Hill

Exploring the world is easy today, all one needs is the internet. Getting to know the ground beneath one's feet is quite another story.

I began to look for the island on which I live, and, it wasn't there. So began my quest.

Why was it difficult to read the landscape? All its past had been viewed from ships at sea, or from libraries in lands I had never been to.

All its history was hearsay and all its storytellers were dead. I was an alchemist at the edge of discovery.

Andheri is where I stood, and Andheri is geology on speed. Hills explode, rocks shudder and slide, rivers slouch in culverts, the sea is dismissed, and the land sweats people at every pore.

Andheri is protean with mad caprice. A lake in the industrial district memorializes lost fields, a milestone marks a vanished road, a blind alley recalls a king, and our memorials are jailed in wire-mesh with dire warnings in three languages.

We're going underground, we're up in the air, we'll do the metro wriggle, the skywalk or trapeze, we'll do the right green thing on a prayer and a concrete wing, we'll flatten the hills, push back the sea, and we'll make even more room for the builder and me. The idea of Andheri is shaped from the land it is built upon.

Who will uncover that for me? How do you find something hidden in plain sight?

Begin in a village named for an epidemic, witness an exorcism, and enter a labyrinth. Emerge with a mirage and meet a curious cartographer.

Journey 60 million years with a turtle and a frog. Then, finally, find Gilbert Hill.

Once Upon A Hill is a plea from Kalpish Ratna to their city of Bombay. Gilbert Hill is where our past and future are gathered.

Shall we revere this still point, or as seems inexorable, destroy it with our dance?