Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Pic/Sameer Markande

Making head way

A woman seeks blessings from a Ganesha idol placed inside a replica of a local train, at Ghatkopar resident Rahul Varia's home on Monday. Varia made this decoration using eco-friendly material and even created the idol himself.

RIP, little one

Mushtaque Ansari outside Wadia Hospital in Parel. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

For a couple of years now, Mushtaque Ansari of Mahim has red-flagged potholes in Mumbai, either tweeting about them or reaching on the spot along with like-minded citizens to draw attention to the dangerous craters. On Monday, Ansari who had earned the epithet of ‘pothole warrior' lost his 2.5-month-old daughter Haniya at Wadia Hospital in Parel. The infant had been admitted just a few days ago, for clots in her brain. Ansari had been appealing to citizens for financial help as he was struggling to raise approximately '10,000 a day, medication included needed for his daughter. RIP, little Haniya. All strength to this citizen vigilante-warrior so that he can bear this loss.

Crossing borders

Almost four decades after he started Seagull Books in Kolkata, publisher Naveen Kishore has now been recognised for the immense contribution he has made towards bridging cultural divides through the medium of literature. He has been announced as the recipient of this year's Ottaway Award, which an organisation called Words Without Borders confers on people who work towards promoting cultural understanding through the publication of international literature. Seagull Books has done stellar work in the field of translating the works of African, Asian, European and Latin-American authors into English. Speaking about the honour, Kishore told this diarist, "It's always heartening to have one's contributions to publishing recognised. It's also special because this award comes on the eve of Seagull's 40th anniversary, which we are celebrating next year."

When the news becomes poetic

Chennai-based author and poet Tishani Doshi looks at newspapers somewhat differently than most people. She reads them to mine material for poetry, which she has now compiled into a new book called A God at the Door (HarperCollins India). It attempts to capture the zeitgeist of our times, and Doshi wrote most of the poems for it during the pandemic. "I had been writing poems leading up to this [period], mainly as responses to news items ranging from the comic, to the disturbing, to the absurd. I was thinking about borders - porous and nonporous, inner and outer, micro and macro, the collapse between the you and the I. Part of why so many of my poems are responses to news items is because we are bombarded by the news, and with greater confinement, even more boxed in by the news. The language of newspeak is the opposite of the language of poetry - it bombards and jolts, then deadens and desensitises. I see poems as a way to speak back to these headlines," she shared about her process.

A deeper understanding of Ganesha

Ganeshotsav is underway at the moment, but how much do you really know about the deity being celebrated? If you feel that your knowledge about Ganesha is lacking, the Asiatic Society's Mumbai Research Centre (MRC) has got you covered. They are releasing one video on their YouTube channel every day of the festival, which will share more insight into the Hindu god. Some of the topics include Ganesha in Buddhism, and Ganesha in offbeat destinations. "Different city colleges including Sophia, Sathaye and Wilson Colleges came on board to help with this series, apart from independent researchers such as Ashutosh Bapat," shared MRC chairperson Dr Shehernaz Nalwalla.

Write way for kids

Inculcating the habit of reading in children is vitally important to develop them into well-rounded personalities. And Katha Books, a literary organisation, is aiming to do just that with a poster-making competition called Joy of Reading. They are calling on kids to create a poster that explains what the pleasure of reading books means to them, take a photo of it, and send it over email to constest@katha.org. The deadline for sending in entries is September 17, and the winners stand to gain gift hampers.