Ashes to Ashes: A limitless horizon of fly-ash at the summit of the NTPC ash dyke in Chhattisgarh's Korba district. Photo: Aman Sethi

An immense expanse of fine, grey, fly-ash stretches out to meet the distant horizon, its flat surface rippled by slow-spinning whirlwinds. Seen from the road, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC)’s ash pond rises up like an enormous ziggurat of expired embers with a base nearly 1120 acres wide and a summit rising forty feet above Dhanras village near the coal town of Korba, Chhattisgarh.