Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Pic/Bipin Kokate

Mood swings

A monkey has a bird's eye view of the city as it rests on a cable wire at Walkeshwar. Pic/Bipin Kokate

Food for thought

Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal and Sujit Patil

Earlier this year, the Godrej Food Trends Report 2020 predicted, among other things, that we'd go back to ghar ka khana and mindful eating. Half way into the year, here we are calling up our mothers for recipes of comfort food, and finding innovative ways to savour staples. Their food platform Vikhroli Cucina is hosting an Instagram series, Rise of The Culinary Explorer, to review the lessons 2020 taught us.

Sujit Patil, VP and head, corporate brand and communications, Godrej Industries Limited & Associate Companies, said, "Considering almost all the 10 trends predicted saw acceleration during the lockdown, the series aims to bring together thought leaders for a mid-year review." Survey designer Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, who was part of the series, noted that a new order of things is here.

Being immortal

Deathless by Aditya Damle

Graphic designer Aditya Damle's been designing a lot of characters that never ended up in a narrative. While pond-ering on the endless nature of the pandemic, he took a short detour and ended up writing a story to fit one of them, a nomadic immortal. After 50 days of working on it, he's almost ready with his comic, Deathless, portions of which he'll exhibit as part of art gallery Method's Pause series from September 19.

Aditya Damle

"Since he's imm-ortal, I could play with concepts like time," he told us, adding he was inspired by Hellboy and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "A lot of elements were inspired by these ideas. It's got the existential crisis, but isn't depressing or dark."

Curator in the hot seat

CSMVS had participated in Ask A Curator Day

Initiated by Jim Richardson, the founder of MuseumNext, Ask A Curator Day, a worldwide social media Q&A session took place yesterday. And Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) and Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum participated in it. Their followers had a chance to ask their curators virtually anything, through the day. Some of the most interesting questions CSMVS received, according to Divya Pawathinal, assistant curator, Non-Indian Antiquities, were, "In what ways are you inclusive?

What do you exclude and want to change (with regards to access)? And, which is the most successful exhibition as a curator?" A follower also inquired about CSMVS collecting during COVID-19, to which she replied, "Contemporary objects that we collect will be the history that future generations will view. This was in our minds when we launched an open competition for children in April. They were encouraged to send in entries on the theme 'What values have I learnt in these challenging times that will help me in the future'. And the response was tremendous."

The 50-hour challenge

Vasu Dixit

The India Film Project (IFP) is an annual event that involves a 50-hour challenge for filmmakers. They have now extended that idea to music, wherein people will get a theme at 8 pm on September 18 and then have to compose a piece of original music from scratch by 10 pm on Sunday.

Naezy and Ritam Bhatnagar

The judges include performers like Lisa Mishra, Vasu Dixit and rapper Naezy. "A lot of people who used to perform covers earlier have realised that they can also compose original music," IFP founder Ritam Bhatnagar told this diarist. Log on to indiafilmproject.co by this evening to register, if you think you have what it takes.

DIFF-erent screen

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

With the virus still raging, the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) is set to go online from October 29, making it one of India's first major film events to take the virtual route. Director Ritu Sarin said the success of the DIFF Viewing Room started in the lockdown spur-red them on.

"With the support of our filmmakers, we were able to stream films for free. This was an encouragement when we decided to take DIFF online," she said. Co-director Tenzing Sonam noted one of the upsides is that DIFF will be accessible to a wider audience. "We'll miss the pleasure of hosting a phy-sical event." We'll miss being there.

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