Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Pic/Satej Shinde

Daddy's new game for us

A man plays with his kids at Juhu beach over the weekend, as their mother captures the moment on her phone

Been Ukrained?

If you are someone who enjoys Indian writing in English, author Khushwant Singh's weekly column, With Malice Towards One and All - that can be easily browsed online - should be one of your go-to haunts. This diarist remembers the section for its irreverent wit. Khushwant Singh LitFest, a festival dedicated to the writer, is coming up with a special series on its social media handle, @kslitfest, to uphold the irreverent contradictions in the English language. Titled Fractured Frases, the series will document the evolution, useful, useless, humorous and informative aspects of English. Their first example is a new phrase called Ukrained, which means: when under the assumed support of others, stand up to an aggressor, end up soundly thrashed by the said aggressor and looking around, find assumed supporters absent. You can use it as, "I was Ukrained by my boss yesterday." They are currently looking for contributions and the first 10 submissions will get personalised fest tees.

A winding road

In their 120-day-long road journey, ex-colleagues Akshay Aralikatti and Gurkirat Singh (in pic) have befriended chaffed toe skin. The duo hit the road in mid-November to cover India on foot, and thus, the WINK (Walking India from Nagaland to Kanyakumari) project was a 4,000-km tour through its remotest parts. Aralikatti told us, "Often people would badger us about what we have in our backpacks, imagining we were out to sell sarees." The trip was conceived from a civic need. "Footpaths don't have enough room for pedestrians," he added, reiterating why pro-pedestrian facilities should be more accessible in busy cities.

Follow this trail for a cause

Vanvasm, a Mumbai-based eco tour agency, stands in solidarity with Sanctuary Asia's #MudonBoots project that supports and funds conservationists at the grassroots level. Their team members are organising jungle walks at BNHS's Conservation Education Centre in Goregaon. A donation of R1,000 that directly goes towards such green initiatives, as part of the project, is the first step to sign up for their walk on March 26. Naturalist Gaurav Shirodkar (inset) shared, "Interested folk can email us with a receipt of their donation, and we'll register them for the trail. There isn't any cut-off on the number of attendees yet." To know more, check @vanvasm.

Slow and steady

In these chaotic times, poet Priya Malik is encouraging people to take it slow. In a two-part workshop, Malik will communicate the need for ‘thehraav' or calm in our lives. "I call this spoken word workshop, Slowing Down for Poetry. It will also delve into the principles of slow living," she shared. The poet, who has struggled to adopt this way of life, said, "We should be mindful of our routine actions and create our own peace-inducing rituals." For details, check @priyasometimes on Instagram.

Phool's paradise

A moment from the video, Mahaul

While images and videos on social media catch our eye with pastels and symmetric grids, some short videos leave an imprint for their old-worldliness. Mahaul by visual artist Gaurav Ogale and classical singer Avanti Patel captures similar moments in time. Created as a commissioned audio-visual narrative for The Luxe Life, Mahaul was inspired by a Sunday morning stroll in Worli's phool bazaar. Ogale explained, "It was the first time I stepped out in a large market after being confined in small spaces during the pandemic. One can smell the energy of a festival [Holi] from the sights and sounds in a market. I had carried some cutouts of elements that define Holi in my memory - colours, positivity, the feeling of being outdoors under the sky. You see a bird from Persian miniature plonked on marigold flowers, large rose petals twirling over a tori of rose petals, and a chandelier hanging amidst the chaos of the flower market." The ambience, set together by Patel's rendition of Dheet Langar, resonates in this sensory marvel.