Delhi’s outdoors have grown increasingly hostile. Extreme pollution is poisoning the air, summer heatwaves are becoming inhumanely intense, and, every year, the monsoon inflicts a renewed threat of dengue fever. One victim of this triple whammy is an element of multi-floor housing architecture that is commonly taken for granted: the balcony.
Once a cherished outdoor space at home for breathing, observing, and relaxing, the balconies in the city’s residential towers are losing their relevance. Today, they survive mainly as decorative relics. Even those citizens who have the luxury of balcony rarely step into it, keeping themselves secured in AC rooms equipped with air purifiers. Many balconies, in fact, tend to be sealed with jali screens, or glass panels, to keep out pigeons and mosquitoes.
There is no balcony in this spacious sixth-floor apartment in Sahibabad— by choice, per the owners. Instead, the apartment has been turned into an architecture of windows. It is almost a house of glass. Take the drawing-room window. It spans an entire wall. Through it, one sees the haze outside, along with a thick layer of neighbouring apartment blocks. Beyond stretch the highway flyover and the metro station. The elevated metro track slices a straight line across the view. From the window-facing sofa, one can follow the train as it enters from one side of the superwide window and exits from the other.
Indeed, in this apartment, windows have assumed the role earlier held by balconies, which were themselves heirs to the old-fashioned courtyard. These windows frame the city for the apartment’s dwellers, filter out its environmental dangers, and define the apartment’s character. By day, the windows let in the muted sunlight, aggressively lighting up the interior.
It is the window in the house’s study that offers a stark evidence of the growing irrelevance of balconies. For it overlooks a residential tower, where some balconies are crammed with potted plants, others serve as drying lines for clothes. Save for one balcony, all are enclosed either by glass panes, or by jaali. All balconies are small.
The windows in this apartment help the dwellers strike a visual relationship with the city that stands immediately around their residence. The same windows also keep the dwellers removed from the city. They confirm they never open the windows, fearing the infiltration of the toxic air. The shut windows additionally keep the city sounds inaudible.
Tonight, the glass panes of the apartment’s drawing room window are showing the illuminated windows of neighbouring towers while simultaneously reflecting the interior—the sofa, the dining table, the passing movements of household members. The lady of the house is leaning by the window, gazing out at the city lights. See photo.