Most Mumbaikars look out of their windows at familiar sights of building blocks, unending construction, clogged streets or neighbours’ homes. Then there are those tucked away in apartments that climb into clouds and offer airliner views of the city.Up there the sights are sweeping and mostly spectacular —entire parks, zigzagging roofs, trains rendered toy-like, tree tops and a whole lot of sky. Sounds of city life evaporate, along with closeup shots of urban squalor. Kicking back, watching wisps of cloud drift into the balcony or a storm roll in over the bay is just another day in the life of those crested 500 feet above the ground.A view from Rita Mehta’s 30th floor flatHowever, in times of extreme weather, inhabitants of the upper levels of these rarefied flats feel the most vulnerable. Even as rain and winds bring relief to a sweltering Mumbai, the onset of monsoon can seem like a kamikaze attack for those living above the 30th floor as dark clouds blot out the sun, wind howls and raindrops pelt the window like little stones.Purvi and Ishan Shah could barely wait to unpack when they moved into their dream home three years ago—a duplex on the 48th and 49th floor of Ashok Towers at Parel—the kind that many Mumbaikars dream about with its impossibly big rooms, a garden pool and helicopter views of the city. But the payoff for peace and panorama can be unanticipated. As Ishan unbolts the French window leading to their open terrace, a gust of wind buffets his face and he points at blank patches around their rooftop that once housed a gazebo, a marble fountain and garden chairs all knocked down by the winds last month.A view from Rita Mehta’s 30th floor flat“Everything was dismantled overnight. Outside the air maybe cooler with clouds floating by, but the moment you open a window, the fog will flood the room and the doors will slam shut or fly open,” says Purvi drawing attention to a whopping crack on their living room wall. “We’re living and learning, one monsoon at a time,” adds Ishan even as Purvi rues about laying to rest their plans of mounting a projector outside for movie evenings under the stars.Devang Raiyani and his wife Bharti enjoy uninterrupted views of sprawling green and abundant sunlight standing on the 41st floor of their balcony at the beanstalk-like 55 storey DB Woods in Goregaon sprouting above the Aarey Milk Colony on one side and a forest of husky buildings on the other. It’s all good until the first clap of monsoon thunder booms. Just last week, a fierce blast of wind slipped through a gap in the window, scooped up their potted plant and whisked it against the wall. Meanwhile the carpet sailed to another corner of the room. “Living this high up, can be eerie, intimidating and mildly traumatic when you have to brave a storm every day!” he laughs. “To get through sudden flashes of lightning at night, our two-year-old needs to sleep with the lights on.”Rita Mehta and her daughter Hazel’s ears pop while going up the 20th storey. Beyond that it’s only the winds that they can hear as they step into their home on the 30th level of a skyscraper in Parel. For Pankaj Seth, living on the 26th and 33rd floor of the Imperial Towers, the twin 60-storeyed skyscraper in Tardeo, soaring 256 metres into the blue often feels like a hill station and sometimes an aquarium Those seeking a trophy apartment in the sky pay a premium for privacy, noiseless environment and scenic views but loftiness requires time, effort and more than a little money to maintain. Mumbai currently has close to 30 major high rise projects of more than 50 storeys. “Due to less friction on higher floors and lack of shading, the effect of rain and winds is multiplied,” says Tanvi Goyal, of Liases Foras, a real estate rating and research firm.Everyday solutions like cross-ventilation and sunning to purge the house of that damp feeling, don’t work in Mumbai’s highest homes. So they come up with inventive hacks. Rita rummages through every shopping bag in the house for silica gel packs to scatter around the house. Other hacks in trying to shield her home involve “a dehumidifier, varnishing on wooden furniture, and matte laminating the artworks,” she says. Such elevated habitat isn’t very gadget-friendly either, informs Devang, currently vexed with a moisture attack on his TV screen.When it comes to sheltering tall buildings from an engineering perspective, wind tunnel testing can be a powerful tool, explains Dhaval Ajmera, director, Ajmera Group known for designing high rises stretching to 40 floors. “Wind tunnel testing currently offers the best estimate of the wind load on a building and helps minimize wind effects by reshaping the structure, fine-tuning stiffness and orienting the structure properly. In a coastal city like Mumbai, this analysis is all the more necessary because of changing weather patterns throughout the year particularly during monsoons,” he says.To withstand the wind currents running down the face of these tall buildings, the glass in a high-rise building is twice heavier and thicker than normal domestic glass. “Inter-layer lamination of glass panels in high rises make them impact resistant. Additionally, tempering the glass provides balance. The frame of the window panels must also be larger and wider to support increased vertical load and make room for thermal expansion and contraction,” says Ajmera.Then there are some veiled risks of living above ground. Not just in physical terms but in the minds too. When low clouds obscure the ground beneath, it is easy to lose all sense of time and perspective, they say. “Instead of seconds and minutes, you judge time in sunrises and sunsets. It lulls you into laziness,” confesses Hazel while her mother rues. “More clouds mean more calories. It’s hard to combat the craving for chai, pakora and bhajji all day.”

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