Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Dia backs a cause with a smile
Of the many basic rights that children living on Mumbai's streets are deprived of, not having an Aadhaar card now counts as one among them. In an effort to change that, an enrolment camp was organised in Mumbai Central by the non-profit, Save the Children (STC), in collaboration with Mumbai City Collector office, Hamara Foundation and Salaam Balak Trust yesterday in a school in Mumbai Central.

The camp, which was held in the presence of STC ambassador and actor Dia Mirza, issued the document to 106 street kids from the neighbourhood.. Mirza shared that 79 per cent of street kids live without a legal identity, which denies them access to healthcare and education. "The idea behind this initiative of getting Aadhaar cards issued for these children is that they have an identity proof in unforeseen conditions," she explained. With this sorted out, we hope it offers a ray on sunshine to these children.

It's pore-ing jokes on Trump
Anyone who follows JK Rowling on Twitter would know that the Harry Potter creator is no fan of Donald Trump. Recently, she jumped at the opportunity to mock the US President when he made yet another gaffe on Twitter (who can forget "covfefe", the word that spawned a thousand memes). Here's how it went: Trump was bragging about his writing abilities in a tweet, pointing to the bestsellers he had written (or not, since his biographer later claimed they were ghost-written). But in the process of doing so, he spelt "pore" as "pour", which is one of the most rookie mistakes a man of words can make. This led to Rowling replying with as many "hahahas" as possible. Even Jimmy Kimmel couldn't resist taking a dig. Talk about serving up humour on a platter, indeed.

Two presidents and a desi chef
While the Internet was abuzz with all kinds of salutations around America's Independence Day yesterday, our very own desi celebrity chef Vikas Khanna decided to rejig our memory to his culinary exploits with two of the most powerful men from the country. This photo with two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, will make it to any photo exhibition in the rich and famous category, we think.

Sounds of classical music in Mumbai
We've heard that good music is like fine wine. It gets better with age. The annual Con Brio festival that will return to the city, attempts to challenge this notion with Coming of Age being this year's theme. The ninth edition will exclusively feature young Indian talent from Kohima to Pune and beyond, as well as past Con Brio winners, performing the most timeless piano compositions of the last three and a half centuries. In addition, the audience get to witness the actual competition, while competitors get to interact with each other - a community-building of sorts.

The first year of this celebration of classical music saw support for young talent from Marialena Fernandes (right, in sari) and Paul Stewart while the second year had Patricia Rozario (left) and Mark Troop join the core team. These four have played stellar roles as mentors. The three-day festival will be a treat for Western classical music fans. Chloe De Souza, 2012 winner, will perform Scarlatti as the opening act. She will be joined by Nakul Jogdeo (Mozart) and Chelsea De Souza (Haydn).

Himanjali Sankar's Talking of Muskaan (2014) was one of the first Indian books about coming out among young adults

Writing for change
It's common to hear of publishers calling out for manuscripts from aam junta when they choose to throw open the race. This tends to create a buzz, especially among first-time fiction writers who are keen to have a book against their name. However, a recent shout-out from Delhi-based publishers Zubaan, for their YA (young adult) imprint, Young Zubaan, had a rather radical idea for aspiring authors. This time, their theme is feminist YA fiction, where the post went on to spell out the search for manuscripts that would touch upon heady queer romances, self stories of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi teens, tales of a#'-kicking kids with disabilities and coming-of-age stories for 14-year-olds and above. In a country where parents cringe over the thought of talking to their kids about sex, gender, equality and disabilities, and where school educators are grappling with guiding impressionable minds, this is a small but important step towards encouraging literature that represents every kind of reader. Bravo!

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