27 August,2020 06:48 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
A cow rests against the backdrop of a No Parking sign in Powai.
A cow rests against the backdrop of a No Parking sign in Powai. Pic /Anurag Ahire
Rijneveld celebrates the win
Reviewers and critics in the West had already dubbed 29 year-old Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's English translation, The Discomfort of Evening, as one of the most exciting, edgiest works by a young writer. Then, it made it to the longlist, and later, the shortlist of the International Booker Prize [different from the Booker Prize for Fiction] that honours exceptional works in English translation. On Wednesday, the book won the top honour, as Rijneveld and her English translator Michele Hutchison beat formidable competition. Rijneveld, whose preferred pronouns are they/them, is the youngest winner of the prestigious £50,000 prize that will be split evenly between the writer and translator. The book, also the first debut work to win, drew rich praise from the jury for its arresting plot and unfiltered flow. Set in an agrarian, religious community in The Netherlands, it lays bare the upheaval that different members of a family experience after the death of their young son.
We've always looked at museums as spaces of culture and history. But can they affect our well-being? Museum Dialogues is an online series by Museums Of Hope that conducts outreach programmes in the sector, to open up this conversation. About the series, its founder Poornima Sardana (inset) said, "The pandemic made me realise that we need to look at a larger definition of well-being, including environmental balance and communities who play a role to maintain it. So, we're inviting people working in this sphere to talk about it."
The Saturday session features Mumbai artist Parag Tandel (in pic) and artist-educator Kadambari Koli-Tandel, who run Tandel Fund of Archives that documents information on fishermen communities in the MMR region. "They bypassed the museum space through a public art project, and are building a trans-disciplinary narrative via community engagement," she added. Head to @museumsofhope on Instagram to register.
When you are contemplating a romantic relationship, being honest with the other person is important from the get-go. That's what India's millennials feel, according to a recently conducted survey. Ninety per cent of the women said that they wouldn't lie on a first date, while 72 per cent of the men felt the same. "It's quite mature of Indians to think that being themselves is more important than lying on a date," said Ravi Mittal, founder and CEO of QuackQuack, the desi dating app that carried out the survey across major cities.
If you have forgotten what it meant to dine at a bustling restaurant before the pandemic struck, it's unlikely that your memory will return anytime soon since even when eateries open up again, the rules will be different until the world has a vaccine. But that doesn't mean you have to miss out on the delicious grub that they offer. Home deliveries are already in vogue, and now Dineout, a restaurant tech company, has partnered with over 5,000 eateries across India's metros - including Pop Tates and Mamagoto in Mumbai - to offer a contactless takeaway system thanks to specially-curated drive-through windows. All you have to do is place an order on the app and pick the food up at a designated time. "We have focused on increasing our offerings for both diners and our restaurant partners keeping their safety and growth in the centre of everything we do," said Dineout CEO Ankit Mehrotra.
The well-heeled, or in this case, the well-wheeled, are keeping their vintage cars inside their garages right now. In pre-lockdown times, owners would take out their cars in Mumbai and take them for a spin on public holidays and Sundays. Though the situation is ideal right now for vintage car driving, driving for pleasure and leisure is a no-no. So, these golden oldies are cooling their wheels in their parking spaces. Nitin Dossa, synonymous with vintage car events in Mumbai, stated some vintage car owners like him are, "driving around their home compounds, or taking the cars out to fill up a little petrol, once a week or fortnight and in this way, the classics get a short run too."
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