Praful Desai was to shift out of his flat in the four-storey Amba Bhuvan at Sion. Prospective buyers had begun queuing up. That was until work on the flyover started last year. ``The buyers simply vanished,'' says the incredulous businessman. ``All our five families are trapped in this building.''

Sorab Taraporevala, a retired BMC official, and his wife Banoo have lived in Sion Mansion for the past 47 years, have a modest request. ``I just hope they don't brick up the sides of the flyover, I don't want to be staring into a wall,'' he says, recounting how it was first all open ground with a clear view all the way upto the Trombay jetty. The burst of urbanisation in the last 40 years has reduced the view to the buildings across the road.

Neighbour Narendra Chadava rarely opens the windows ofhis flat. An eight-metre-high pillar has sprung up outside and the labourers working on it are within hand-shaking distance.

The figures are astounding. Over one lakh vehicles pass through this narrow intersection each day.

Life in the shadow of a flyover in the city's most congested and polluted traffic junction can indeed be debilitating. More so now in the case of this flyover which appears to have been designed and built ad-hoc, say residents.

For instance, the one-way, south-north flyover swerves to one side and not in the centre of the road as you would expect. There is no neat row of pillars in the road centre, but supporting pillars sprouting haphazardly from pavement and road, perilously close to at least a dozen buildings.

``This is one of the most difficult flyovers we have built,'' explains MSRDC's Joint Managing Director P L Bongirwar. ``The place is full of unmapped underground utilities, we had to change the flyover design several times.'' He explaned how even the construction materialscould be ferried in only at midnight due to the rush of traffic. Still, the Rs 22 crore, kilometre-long flyover is to be completed ahead of schedule, by September this year.

The petrol pump run by the Desai family adjacent ot their building was lucrative because it was the last before hitting the highway. It has has experienced a 60 per cent drop in business. ``After the flyover is complete, business may drop to less than 25 per cent,'' says Sandeep Desai.

In fact, the Desais came close to having their petrol pump shut down earlier this year, when the flyover's pillars came close to drastically shrinking the access to the pump. ``Our licence would have been cancelled if fire engines couldn't enter in an emergency,'' says Sundeep.

The pillars were shifted. But residents say there have been instances of at least half a dozen such constructions, hastily errected disregarding warnings, and then cancelled. Praful Desai says he had written letters warning contractors about utilities like phone and electricitycables beneath the pavement. But the contractors pressed on and the excavation later ruptured electricity cables, periodically plunging the buildings into darkness.

He however agrees that the flyover is important for this critical junction, but only if it had been done properly. ``For instance, why isn't it a two-way flyover?'' he asks.

Bongirwar says they had selected a uni-directional flyover since all the major roads were on the left. ``We had no choice,'' he says. A flyover with columns in the road centre would seriously impede local traffic.''

Rustom Irani doesn't agree. One of the owners of Sion Mansion stands in his open balcony and conjures up a spectre of unending noise and smoke pollution when the flyover is complete. ``The noise and pollution that was previously on the ground floor will simply be brought up to the fourth floor,'' says Irani.

``Since our flat faced east, we had regular access to sunlight. Now that is something that will be in short supply,'' says Sundeep Desai.

The tenantson the first floor of his building are already preparing for this eventuality. All their windows have been embalmed with tightly wrapped cloth sheets.