Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

All work and no play

A man types away on his laptop, sitting near a statue of a woman and her furry friend at Matunga Gymkhana.

Breathe easy in the city

If you ever need a breather from the endless Mumbai versus Delhi debate, you'd be better off taking it in Mumbai. Walking Project, a grassroots advocacy campaign that logs the city's AQI recently revealed that the average AQI during a fire situation in Mumbai still sits lower than the average reading on a normal day in Delhi. "When we reached Five Gardens in Dadar during our walk, we noticed fire engines assembling at the spot. We sat near the garden for 30 minutes until the fire was doused and recorded our observations," Vedant Mhatre, programme manager, shared. While the average AQI was 47 ug/m3 before the fire, it shot up to 211 ug/m3 by the end of the recording, Mhatre revealed, adding that the average AQI in Delhi on the same day was 411 ug/m3.

Winning with the city

The recyclothon

NGO Project Mumbai's recent achievements at the Global Anthem Awards in New York have proved that no good deed goes unnoticed. The organisation bagged a gold for their initiative Samavesh, which most recently worked towards making the Mumbai Festival accessible.

An inclusive basketball event

Another initiative, Plastic Recyclothon, under which waste plastic was turned into benches for BMC schools was honoured with a silver. "We were delighted to find out we were chosen out of 2,000 nominations across 30 countries. We will continue to work with our volunteers to make the city cleaner and more inclusive," Shishir Joshi, its founder, shared.

Framing new frontiers

Balaporia's The Matriarch of Dah (right) Zubin Balaporia

Rock music might be his first love, but seasoned musician Zubin Balaporia (inset) is now focused on his skills as a lensman starting today. "Photography is a hobby for me," he clarified about the exhibition alongside close friend Nandita Badiani at the Durbar Hall of Asiatic Society. Badiani will showcase her watercolour canvases about animal life. Balaporia added, "The photos are shot in natural light, and feature people, landscapes and even architecture from places as far and wide as the Amazon jungles, Morocco, the Arctic Circle and Nagaland."

For the record

Enthusiasts at a community event organised by the club

The Revolver Club (TRC) is on a mission to make trading physical music records a breeze with its new TRC Consignee Program. "We will evaluate the records we receive, and price them optimally to make sure it's a win-win for all parties involved. The primary goal is to introduce more people to the culture of owning physical copies," Jude de Souza, founder, shared. Those interested, can log on to @therevolverclub.

Too cool for school

(Left) The entrance of the government school is painted with a mural of a girl child; (right) volunteers paint quirky and vibrant motifs on a wall

City-based content creator Siddhesh Lokare seems to have cracked the code of making attending school interesting. Partnering with artist Naitik Jain and Create Together Foundation, Lokare revamped a 75-year-old deteriorating government school in Kalamboli, Panvel, into a vibrant, conducive space. "We noticed that the school hadn't been renovated since its establishment in 1948. Not only was the paint wearing off, but the walls also had cracks in them," Lokare shared. The team began with fixing the walls with a coat of POP to fill the cracks and followed it up with painting murals. The ground floor features educational art, while the first and second floors sport freedom movement and space themed artworks respectively. Lokare added that the school still lacks basic amenities like clean drinking water, and that plans to send a water purifier to the school are in the works.