05 February,2020 05:35 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Sayyed Sameer Bedi
Ayushmann Khurana lets out a yawn and Jitendra Kumar gets his glasses fixed while sporting snazzy printed jackets at a Juhu five-star on Tuesday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Bedi
When poet Ranjit Hoskote looks at artist Sudhir Patwardhan's works on Bombay, he thinks of the people in the paintings and the many languages they speak. To Hoskote, Mumbai is a crucible of languages, one that deserves to be celebrated through poetry. Today, he will convene a session of poetry at NGMA - where Patwardhan's retrospective is on view - with poets Gieve Patel, Kamal Vora, Sampurna Chattarji, Prafull Shiledar, Hemant Divate, Mustansir Dalvi and himself.
He told this diarist, "It's meant as a celebration of the many languages of the city. Sudhir Patwardhan's work is a celebration of the city and its strengths and its crises. For me, as someone who has viewed his work for a long time as a poet, I also look at the many languages of the people in his paintings. We see the city as the Tower of Babel. When you live in Bombay you are naturally influenced by multiple languages."
There will be poetry in Marathi, Gujarati and English in addition to translations from Urdu, Kashmiri and Bengali.
The official account of Mumbai Coastal Road Project gave people a glimpse of what the city will look like after the project is completed in 2023. They posted a six-minute video on YouTube that introduced the south section of the project that stretches from Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Sea Link.
Although people praised the editing of the video, many raised their doubts about whether the organisation will actually be able to accomplish its goal. "Please don't show hopes and dash them," a comment read.
The protestors at Shaheen Bagh have become a beacon of resilience in the face of adversity. A four-year-old child has died of the harsh Delhi cold. But his mother is already back at the venue. A man shot a warning bullet in the air. But the people refused to move. It's in fact become the longest protest against the CAA and NRC, having now entered its 52nd day, with there being no signs of stopping. Even performing artistes have started stepping in.
Pic/AFP
A programme called Artists Against Communalism is being held there at present, and day three saw the legendary Shubha Mudgal perform live yesterday. Mumbaikars who will perform include Saba Azad and Ankur Tewari. Indie poster boy Prateek Kuhad, too, has lent his support. That's quite an impressive list of artistes standing up for a cause.
Recognised as one of the greatest painters in Indian art history, Raja Ravi Varma effectively fused the styles of European realism and Indian folk. His work is now the inspiration for celebrity photographer G Venket Ram's 2020 calendar.
Featuring actresses like Shruti Hassan, Samantha Prabhu and Ramya Krishnan posing as women from Varma's paintings, the calendar has been created for the charitable trust Naam, founded by Suhasini Maniratnam. We're certainly looking forward to more such canvasses being captured by Ram in the future.
A unique, free festival for NGOs kicked off yesterday at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Organised in collaboration with the Akshara Foundation, the Story 'xpress festival brought together storytellers, authors, and for the first time, dancers, too.
Among some of the participants was NCPA's head of dance programming, Swapnokalpa Dasgupta, who took to the stage to tell a story of Lord Krishna and the three demons through an Odissi piece. Storyteller Geetanjali Shetty conducted a workshop on Egypt while author Sakshi Singh launched a book titled Ret Mein Paon.
Co-founder of the festival Radhika Kundalia told this diarist, "We had 225 children in attendance and they were delighted because all of this is new for them. The plan is to continue exposing kids to new forms of art to encourage them to think differently."
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