Six years back we moved to a new house with a sea view. Something that is aspirational in most books you would think, we did too. While we were shortlisting houses to move to a lot of people commented that this would be noisy as hell. We also got to hear the oohs and aahs of friends who couldn’t believe how lucky we were going to be with such a beautiful view to have on tap. All the rooms faced the sea and the kitchen faced the hills at a distance.
Not paying heed to the naysayers we moved in into this beautiful house on the 20th floor precisely on the 3rd of July 2016. I mean who says no to a sea view house in Bombay, right? That too with free and instant access to a jogging track around a lake. People from all over used to come to the tracks and parks outside this building for their morning/evening walks it was so beautiful. No brainer really for someone who loves the sea, solitude and nature.
The first night our little one who was all of four years old at the time walked into our room claiming there was a ghost in her room. Upon investigation we figured out that the window was not closed properly and the very high speed wind coming from the seaside was making a loud howling, whistling noise. All it required was locking the window properly.
The noise factor was real. It was extremely windy which was even more accentuated because we were on the 20th floor. and there was absolutely nothing in our line of sight on either side of the house to block the sea or mountain breeze. Essentially we had doors slamming hard and children moving in into our room for the night.
It is very easy to write this off as a wrong decision and start cursing the day we decided to move here. But hold on I am an IT infrastructure optimization and security consultant I do not give up easy. We had these huge Fenesta sound proofing windows. Doors could be installed with hydraulic door closer assemblies to deny the wind it’s playfulness. Over the next few days we acclimatized, we adapted and solved the problem. That gave us six years of a house where we enjoyed such beautiful sunrises, sunsets and also the greenery of the mangroves that gave us abundant amount of oxygen. All in a city that is known for noise, vehicular and what not pollution.
For six years we did not need air-conditioning! Can you believe that? Six years just the clean, oxygen rich breeze from the sea and the mountains took care of the cooling needs of an entire house. Even in peak summers when temperatures were reported to be 38 degree plus we did not need to switch on the AC. So much so that after a couple of months here we sold off the air-conditioners that we had carried from our last house on OLX. The electricity bill savings apart this was such a huge deal with growing children who tend to develop all sorts of breathing ailments due to the recycled air in sealed houses. Our towels used to dry even in the rainy season, the wind ensured that. This was unheard of in most of Mumbai.
I took some of the best pictures and stitched the best time lapses from the balcony of this house.
Moral of the story is that we may feel we are in a bad place surrounded by problems however the truth is that we hold the power to turn everything around. We can choose to see the best in what we have, focus on that good and make sure that becomes our reality rather than let the negatives ruin something that has potential. Nothing in this world is perfect on the other hand nothing in this world is so bad that it cannot be made perfect. All it needs is an angle of approach that ensures you see the best at all times. Noisiness of the world around us can be turned off if we so choose and choose we must because otherwise the cacophony has the power to drive us absolutely nuts…