Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Pic/Sameer Markande

A bullish move

Acrylic replicas of animals keep a young boy company on the Mumbai-Gujarat highway on Monday.

Keeping it short

From Chekov's Raincoat to Tagore's Kabuliwala, short stories have had an enduring impact on the minds of readers, perhaps because their more concise format packs in a stronger emotional punch. A virtual creative writing workshop at this year's Kala Ghoda Arts Festival will help aspiring writers to master this craft. Indira Chandrasekhar, founder of Out Of Print - an online quarterly journal that curates short fiction - is organising the workshop and has put out a call for submissions. "The theme is Love and Plurality and explores love in its various facets. The stories should be about 2,000 words in length. We will work with the shortlisted participants to identify areas where their stories can be refined to make a greater impact," Chandrasekhar told this diarist. The deadline for submissions is January 31.

Dhaka calling

Staff outside the newly opened outlet of Farzi Café in Dhaka

There is another feather in Zorawar Kalra's cap. The restaurateur has launched an outlet of Farzi Café in Dhaka. This makes it the eighth international branch of the eatery, which is also present in England, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman among other places. "The cuisine in Bangladesh is quite similar to that in some parts of India, and we felt that there is huge potential in Dhaka since there is a burgeoning market. It was my father's [the late Jiggs Kalra] and my personal crusade to put Indian food on a global palate, and it's a matter of great pride that Farzi Café is our vehicle to do that," Kalra told this diarist.

The reel deal about design

"Nearly 99.9 per cent of everything we do in our existence as humans is in and around something that someone built for us, which we often take for granted. For example, our valuables, cars, boats and planes; our buildings and cities exist because someone designed them," pointed out interior designer Saket Sethi, ahead of the screening of his short film Palazzo Utopia at Soho House, which revolves around a day in the life of an architect who's building a new house which merges a sustainable green design with classic Italian architecture. The film, that the owner of Saket Sethi Design shot, is an attempt to highlight the blood, sweat and tears that design professionals put into their creations, Sethi said. "People rarely understand this. This is a story of the love, passion and devotion that goes into our creations. I hope this short film will help people understand and appreciate the works of creators everywhere, just a little bit more."

The stage is set

The Alkazi and Padamsee families have contributed immensely to the growth of theatre in India in the 20th century, and a new book - Enter Stage Right: The Alkazi/Padamsee Family Memoir (Speaking Tiger) - sheds further light on them. Feisal Alkazi has penned it, and he writes about how Roshen Padamsee marrying Ebrahim Alkazi in 1946 shaped the destiny of Indian theatre. The author shared, "Writing this book was like opening an old cupboard stuffed full with memories."

Raising a voice for Mollem

The Goa government passed three humongous infrastructure projects last year - namely a transmission line, highway and railway project - which pose a significant threat to the ecology of Mollem National Park, an important green lung in the state. This led to widespread protests with activists and citizens filing petitions against the government's plans. A film called My Mollem: Goa's Green Heart, now acts as a tool that will make the clamour of protest grow louder. It features a child narrating the importance of the area, and locals voicing concerns about their loss of livelihood. "The film seeks to focus on the plight of the most vulnerable sections of the local communities," a representative of Future Films, the collective behind the film, shared with this diarist.