We call this project the Death Star. The Death Star is going up across from my flat. Just outside our bedroom window, as a matter of fact.

Here’s an eyewitness account of how they build the Death Star:

After fielding an unusual duty call at midnight last night, I returned to bed at 01:00, badly in need of some shuteye.

Instead, about two dozen workers across the street were just getting started disassembling heavy metal scaffolding and tossing the poles into the back of a flatbed  truck just below our window.

Bang! Clank! Thump! went the workers’ song, stretching into the early hours. I knew they wouldn’t quit of their own accord any time soon.

I rode the elevator down 14 floors and surprised the guards posted to the ground level  outside our building. They called for back-up as went to ask the crew to knock it off.

To my surprise, the crew stopped immediately. The reminder of a 10 p.m. noise ordinance had its effect. The foreman even called his headquarters – a contracting firm called Samsung. He passed me the phone and let me speak to the guy who’d sent his team out to fill the night with their noise.

The manager was apologetic, but still I question his sense. Who assigns a noisy construction job at 1 a.m.?

The guards stayed vigilant the rest of the night and work didn’t resume. Slumber finally pulled me under in the silence.

This isn’t the first time work has started up at the Death Star [i.e. the so-called Reliance Jio World Center] at an unreasonable hour (a few months ago it was around 2 a.m.). I don’t know when it will happen again.

What I do know is that, upon completion, the Death Star will boast  an international convention centre, hotels, two malls—not one, two—a performing arts center, office space, and a rooftop drive-in movie theatre.

Wouldn’t Darth Vader be proud? And when will I sleep?

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