Zoroastrian residents around Malabar Hill traditionally used dakhma, or Towers of Silence, to lay out their dead in a natural process of excarnation - wherein the corpse is consumed by carrion birds. Dense and tall luxury residential towers have rendered the high perimeter walls of the ritual structure ineffective in mitigating views, and non-Zoroastrians began to protest the traditional practice. At the same time,  high pollution and pharmaceuticals have decimated India’s vulture population, to the extent that in the past 15 years, the number of vultures has declined by 95%, and the birds have become practically extinct in Mumbai.

The 3,000 year-old ritual of sky burial avoids bringing the deceased in contact with earth or fire, both of which are considered sacred. The response in attempt to modify and preserve the practice in Mumbai has been twofold. First, a series of sunlight-reflecting mirrors that concentrate intense light into the interior platforms of the dakhma, were added to decompose corpses without the use of external agents or burning. Except during monsoon season, these solar concentrators function, albeit in a significantly slower timeframe than the vultures – that are capable of stripping a corpse to the bone in around 30 minutes.

A second effort has created a vulture aviary on Malabar Hill, a sanctuary to breed, re-introduce and protect both the sanitation-raptor species and the Parsi mortuary ritual.

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