Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Pic/Bipin Kokate

Doll's day out
A girl plays with her collection on a bench at Marine Drive on Wednesday.

A virtual tribute for a legend

The Abbaji Festival is an annual event that is held on February 3 every year to mark the birth anniversary of Ustad Alla Rakha, one of the finest tabla players India has ever seen. But this edition was held virtually for the first time yesterday, given the restrictions born out of the pandemic.

It featured a line-up of stellar musicians including the legend's supremely gifted sons - Zakir Hussain (in pic), Taufiq Qureshi and Fazal Qureshi - apart from Louiz Banks. Sheldon D'Souza, who featured in a jazz set at the festival along with Hussain, Banks, Zubin Balaporia and others, told this diarist that it was a pre-recorded performance. "It was the recording of the show that we played at Shanmukhananda Hall [in Sion] last year," D'Silva (inset) added.

A different biennale

The cultural calendar of India has got a new addition - the first-ever museum biennale. The Bihar Museum in Patna will be hosting the Bihar Museum Biennale from March 22 to 28. Organised by the Department of Arts, Culture and Youth affairs, Government of Bihar, the event will witness the participation of museums from across India, Poland, Mexico and Germany, among other locations, shared Dr Alka Pande (in pic), project director of the Museum Biennale.

Visitors at the Bihar Museum in Patna

It will also include speakers such as British art historian Neil MacGregor, Hilary Knight, Director of Digital, Tate Galleries, UK; and Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Director-General of CSMVS. Dr Pande added that the biennale has been in the works for more than two years. "We were set to launch in March 2020 as a three-month affair, but it got cancelled due to the pandemic. So, we decided to do it in a hybrid template, with both online and offline events. We will have masterclasses by Ira Mukhoty and Manu S Pillai, among others," she revealed. She added that the events will be quite engaging. "A museum is a laboratory of ideas tying together cross-cultural flows, which is the ras-anubhuti that occurs when you look at an object of historical import," she said.

This chef will fix it for you

These are exciting times for Divesh Aswani, who was formerly the head chef at Byculla's Magazine Street Kitchen. Aswani had aspired to open his own restaurant before the pandemic played spoiler to his plans. But he has now recalibrated his business strategy, and launched The Commis Kitchen in Mahim. It's a one-stop solution for all sorts of culinary hurdles. "I want to provide the means to other restaurants and home chefs to make things that they might not be able to, such as hand-spread pastrami noodles or a really nice range of sauces and condiments," Aswani shared, saying that he wants to play a supporting role for other ventures. He added that the space also has provisions for private dinner parties for six people, and he plans to host workshops there as well.

The perfect 10 idea for artists

The folks behind the Khajuraho Dance Festival have started a clever initiative to give as many women artists a platform as possible despite the pandemic. They are calling for entries from female sculptors, designers and artists of other hues, not individually, but in groups of 10. Festival director Rahul Rastogi (in pic) explained, "We will select 25 of these groups, with each artist sending in two artworks. That means we will showcase a total of 500 artworks made by 250 of them. Two people from each winning group will be invited to the festival, with all expenses paid." Send in your entries to artmart.kdf@gmail.com.