India, April 18 -- Mumbai's intimacy with the sea is a famous affair. People of this city arrive at the seaside at any opportunity that presents itself. A Sunday, a quiet afternoon, a tired evening. They step out of musty squalors crowded with housemates and laundry, sprint away from the sensory mayhem of traffic and construction, and avoid the general assaults on their privacy to sit at the shore and hook their eyes on far-away nothingness. The horizon is a respite from everything else. It reminds them of space - of there being something larger than the immediacy of everyday life - and beckons them to breathe.

But something different has been happening of late. Now, when people go to meet the sea, they see the oneness of sea and sky inj...