Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

Pic/Rane Ashish

Mumbai in motion

Vibrant umbrellas stand out as people walk past Flora Fountain in Fort.

Drumming vibes in Kerala

Gino Banks performs at the event

How does a WhatsApp group transform into one of the largest gatherings of drummers in a state? Passion, said musician Gino Banks. Banks was invited as part of the Kerala music collective, Groove Garage, last week to honour the Kerala-based drummer, JoeBoy. "It was just a collection of people passionate about drumming. They started out as a WhatsApp group in 2017 and culminated in 2024. As part of their celebration, they invited me to jam with the group and share my experience," he said. Currently on tour in the United Kingdom with his father, Louiz Banks, Shankar Mahadevan, Rakesh Chaurasia among others, Banks revealed, "It was definitely one of the largest collective audiences of drummers and percussion musicians that I had performed for. It was very cool."

Umbrellas of special love

Two visually-impaired women prepare the frame for the umbrellas at the NGO

Monsoon, arguably Mumbai's most romanticised season, is ushered in with a dash of floral prints on umbrellas when they are pulled out of closets every year. In Gamdevi's charity shop, Turn Around, nearly 50 such umbrellas are up for sale. These, founder Nandini Singh tells us, are made with love. "Turn Around was founded last year to support various NGOs, tribal communities, the physically impaired, and people from the slums. Our ground floor is full of gifting products from body care, and seasonal essentials, to festive gifts, and more, made by people from these communities. The first floor, on the other hand, houses pre-loved clothes," Singh shared. The latest additions to this exhaustive collection are umbrellas made by the people of the National Association of the Disabled Enterprise. "These high-quality umbrellas are unlike any you would usually find in the market. The blind built the frame, the canopy was stitched by the deaf and the mute, the hooks were attached by the physically challenged, and the final products were packed and labelled by the mentally challenged," she revealed to this diarist.

Umbrellas created by the specially-abled folk are available for sale at the store

Luffy's first monsoon in the city

Smith Sawant; (right) Luffy experiences Mumbai's rains for the first time

While social media floods with clips of ‘Mumbai ki baarish' with romantic songs playing on loop, Monkey D Luffy from One Piece fails to understand the hype as he comes alive in The Comix India's latest AI-generated artwork. The character from the famous anime finds himself completely drenched in a flooded road in the city. All that's left of his umbrella is the handle that he gropes tightly in frustration. "Many love the rain, but I am not a big fan," shared creator Smith Sawant. He founded the community last year, to continue and reimagine famous narratives from the manga and anime verse in Mumbai through AI-generated pictures. "The idea was simple, make Luffy experience what Mumbaikars usually experience in rain. The first thought was to add the umbrella we all struggle to manage despite being prepared for the season each year. This is still his first year in the city. So naturally, the canopy is blown away by the wind," he chuckled.

How Mumbai became home

Dr Kranti Kiran Farias

After a recently concluded session, where the Church History Association of India (Western India) Mumbai invited pastors from across the city to present papers on Migration of Christians and Urbanisation, vice president Dr Kranti Kiran Farias has uploaded a series of key learnings exchanged in the seminar. "The seminar was well-attended despite the heavy downpour. Some eye-opening facts about the Christian community spread across the city were brought to light," she recalled. Her own paper presented the reason for the migration of Mangaloreans to the city in the 1930s. "Most of the communities presented came from low-income Christian groups, who after migrating to the city, started getting educated and financially secure," she added. To watch the videos, head to @krantimary1353 on YouTube.