Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Pic/Nimesh Dave

Pine-ing For Christmas

A shopkeeper hopes to make the most of the festive spirit at IC Colony in Borivali West on Wednesday.

Parting ways

A still from the animated film

The horrors of the Partition in 1947 continue to scar the country, and a film called Child of Empire - which makes sense of the trauma that three people suffered back then - has now been selected for its world premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in the US next month. The animated feature includes voiceovers by the likes of Adil Hussain. "This film is a challenge to the divisive communalism that unfortunately plagues the Subcontinent today," shared co-creator Sparsh Ahuja.

When children read for joy

Can children connect winters with fun reading the way they equate the season with picnics? This diarist learnt they can. GetLitt! is an online library that recognises the importance of children reading books, and they are back with their winter reading Olympiad, scheduled for February 2022. "We have curated a detailed and unique book list for this edition, too," says Richa Sethi, the library's founder and CEO. The books have been selected keeping the preferences of various age groups in mind. Sethi points out that the Olympiad is for children between classes 2 and 8. After kids come to know of stories from the list, they will appear for comprehension, vocabulary and trivia section tests. When we ask Sethi if a test, however light and interactive, can dampen the joy of reading, she feels that it will be part of the experience. "The questions are all game-ified and games excite them. They keep answering until they get it right. They test what they have learnt." There will also be a segment where children can review the books they read over these two to three months.

Books with a green touch

The inaugural edition of the Greenlitfest was held recently in order to promote conversations around sustainability, and to bring green literature closer to the mainstream consciousness. The event featured the likes of former Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, and Chinese author Chen Qiufan, who took part in panel discussions. But alongside these talks, the organisers also released what they called The Greenlitfest Honour Books. Meghaa Gupta, the event's founding member, told this diarist that the list essentially acts as a kit that can serve as an introduction to the natural world for various age groups. The names in the three categories - business, children's literature and general fiction - were recently announced. They include Gravepyres School for the Recently Deceased by Anita Roy and Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh (in pic). "The criteria we kept in mind were originality, writing style and the potential that the titles had for inspiring action," Gupta shared.

An Australian lens on India

A photo by Karen Knorr that is part of the exhibition

January 2022 will mark one of the biggest showcases of Indian photography to have ever been exhibited in Australia. Bengaluru-based Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) has joined hands with Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne for Visions of India: From the Colonial to the Contemporary. The exhibition will display photographs from all the way back to 1860, to the present day. "We will uncover not only the primary history of the genre [of photography], but also the multiple parallel and lesser-known photographic practices in the Subcontinent," shared MAP director Nathaniel Gaskell.

Korean invasion

Here's further evidence of India's growing love affair with K-pop. According to a report that Twitter India has released regarding trends in 2021 on the micro-blogging site, BTS (in pic) - inarguably the world's biggest K-pop band - was the most-talked about musical outfit on the platform, with Blackpink being another act that caught fans' attention. BTS was followed by Lata Mangeshkar, AR Rahman, Taylor Swift and Armaan Malik in terms of musicians who were tweeted about the most.