November 2008.
View from my 16th floor bedroom balcony...
Intriguing. It took me a while to soak in what lay in front.
A settlement of migrant labourers stood where once was an agricultural land.

March 2009
The same view - the barren land surfaces to tell its story.
Note the water tank at the far north, on the left of the high rise buildings - the constant factor - our point of reference.

March 2009
Have been so preoccupied - that I did not notice how fast the shacks had disappeared.
There is something brewing - the barren land is taking birth.

A car... a tractor with a trailor... first signs of development?

The land shall not be sold in pertuity, for the land is mine;
with me you are but aliens and tenants.
- God speaking to Moses on Mt. Sinai

April 2009
The high rise buildings stand as silent spectators as the land is stripped naked yet again... for a second time.

April 2009
Demolition over - the rubble is collected into mounds...

I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither and thither everywhere over the land. -Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

Keep the water tank at the far north, on the left of the high rise buildings in mind - the constant factor - its been with us right from the start - from the very first picture.

How long will the land be parched
and the grass in every field be withered?
Because those who live in it are wicked,
the animals and birds have perished...
Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard
and trample down my field:
they will turn my pleasant field
into a desolate wasteland.
It will be made a wasteland,
parched and desolate before me;
the whole land will be laid waste
because there is no one who cares.

-the prophet Jeremiah (c.628–586 B.C.)

All cleaned up - except for something that lies at the centre... just below the green patch.
Scroll down to view a close-up.

A tulsi plant left unscathed by the bulldozers.
The holy plant - and two holy cows ( top left and top right corners of the picture)
Lord... guide us for we know not the outcomes of our actions!

Marking one's territory...

First signs of construction...

Bricks and mortar... girders and labourers...
The barren land readies for a makeover.

Man... machine...
or should the caption read - digging one's own grave!

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief"
There's too much confusion; I can't get no relief,
Business men, they drink my wine; plowmen dig my earth.
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

-Bob Dylan, from the song All Along the Watchtower, 1968

Birds eye-view of the boundary wall coming up.

May 2009
Almost like bridal make-up (remember the dots around the eyebrows) ... getting ready to exchange hands.

The ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator.
Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men.
Destroy it and man is destroyed.
-Alan Stewart Paton (1903-1988)

Sharp contrast of the adjoining multi-storey complex

May 2009
Visible from a far - 'The Great Wall' now gives the barren land a fixed dimension.
The building site office in the centre houses the masterminds.
The shacks on the left top corner are where the labourers have now been shifted.

Ironic - a plant struggles to grow on the 16th floor while the earth is stripped off all its vegetation.

A straight line...

When geometry was first formalised by Euclid in Elements, he defined lines to be 'breadthless length' with a straight line being a line 'which lies evenly with the points on itself'.
For me - a line is a straight curve.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
-Aldo Leopold (1886–1948),