Ahir Bhairav

I arrived at Royal Palms with several broken ends. How much control did I truly have over my life’s trajectory? I hoped this journey would offer the space to convalesce and reflect. Before arriving, I envisioned Royal Palms—a township on a hill amidst a forest facing Powai Lake—through the images and words I found online.

Once I reached there, I learned that, like all evocations of words and images, these were only projections of my mind. Royal Palms is situated in a forest, on a hill, overlooking a lake, yet everything else about it defied those idyllic associations. An ambitious project abandoned to decay had been left to the entropy of time. The high-rises stood as haunted mansions, their neglect palpable in the air. Garbage mounds grew unchecked, and even the trees seemed fatigued, wearing leaves of mustard yellow. The so-called lake-view apartments blocked any real sight of Powai Lake, which I could only locate on Google Maps.

This crumbling landscape mirrored my fractured mind, making me desperate to escape. Yet, since I couldn’t, I had to find a way to exist with it. Walking became my anchor. I walked until exhaustion quieted my thoughts, though the ruins surrounding me felt unbearable. I spent my days trying to shut out the world with closed eyes, only to lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling fan, the dim Light filtering through the windows, and listening to the distant barking of dogs. 

In Tarkovsky’s Stalker, the Stalker remarks that the Zone is not just a place outside us but a reflection of our consciousness. This thought terrified me—that the desolation I saw outside might force me to confront my inner wreckage. Photography became my way of facing this interior Zone, granting me the courage to see what I would otherwise avoid. Looking through the camera, I explored the debris and rust, both in the landscape and within myself, confronting wounds, disbelief, and hopelessness.

And yet, amid the decay, I found that there was Light. The Light scintillated everything equally—the broken glasses, polythene bags, discarded objects, even the once-majestic royal palms. Twice a day, I watched the Light transform this place.

In a land where the idea of God felt impossible, I found bhakti—not for a deity but for the Light itself. This work is my hymn to that Light.

– To Krishnaprabha, My wife