Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Pic/Sameer Markande

Melonaires in the heat
Nothing captures the advent of summer in Mumbai like the demand for watermelons as seen at Thane's Ghodbunder Road on Tuesday.

A buddy steps in

Anyone who has attempted it will know that learning music isn't easy. But to make the process easier, leading music institute Furtados School of Music (FSM) has launched the country's first advanced music teaching technology called Learn Buddy. The platform is meant for school teachers to create an environment that enables students to both read and create music; a teacher needs to select a piece for the class, which the technology breaks down into seven parts. With the National Education Policy 2020 shifting the emphasis from engineering and the medical field, FSM co-founder Dharini Upadhyaya (in pic) said incorporating music education into the curriculum will only assist students in developing self-esteem and acquiring important skills. "We hope to speed up the music learning process in a grade-by-grade manner, with the help of fun and engaging videos. It is a framework that makes the teaching and learning experience more engaging and fun. It also helps in mapping the progress of each student and pursuing international accreditation and certification," she said.

Leopard lore

Pic/Shatrunjay Singh

Kolkata-based social and culture activist Sundeep Bhutoria's name is a familiar one in the arts circuit. But he nurtures a passion for wildlife, too. He's just come out with a new book titled The Bera Bond (Pan Macmillan India) in which he explores a little-known leopard colony in the forests of Rajasthan, where there has been no conflict between leopards and villagers.

Having experienced and embraced the unique coexistence of human and wildlife habitation in Bera, Bhutoria said he thought it best to share the story with a wider audience. "It indeed was a unique learning [experience about] coexistence and harmony that was both beautiful and bewildering," he added.

Adieu, Bhaskar Menon

Bhaskar Menon (centre) helmed Capital Records. Pic/Wikimedia Commons

Of all the Indians who operate behind the scenes in the global music industry, one of the names that stand out at the top is that of Bhaskar Menon. As the first chairman and CEO of EMI Music Worldwide, he was one of the key people who convinced the Indian government to treat music as an educational field in the 1960s, paving the way for rare records to be brought into the country at a time when import duties on foreign products were sky-high. This influenced a generation of beat musicians, who got to hear bands like The Beatles for the first time. Menon passed away recently at the age of 86 at his home in California. His achievements include turning The Concert for Bangladesh performance, an event that sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar had organised in 1971 to raise relief money for the newly formed nation, into an album that multiplied the amount raised. "He was one of the first Indians to head an international organisation, Capitol Records [a subsidiary of EMI] and turn its dwindling fortunes around," shared music historian Sunil Sampat.

Bookmark this list

Only last month, the Parag Honour List that recognises outstanding books in English and Hindi for children and young adults, was announced. "While we always receive a lot of fiction, we hope to get more non-fiction and poetry. Especially in English, there is a dearth of poetry for children and young adults," Swaha Sahoo, head, Parag Initiative, Tata Trusts, shared. This month, they're inviting applications from publishers for the list due in 2022. The deadline is March 31, and the criteria can be viewed at paragreads.in.

App-solutely essential

A Woloo washroom facility

Access to clean and safe public washrooms still continues to be a problem that women face in not just remote areas, but also the financial capital. This leads to several ailments such as UTI and kidney stones, as well as sexual violence. After setting up hygienic washrooms across Mumbai, Woloo, a social start-up, with help from digital entertainment and technology company JetSynthesys, has launched a mobile app that allows women to locate and use their nearest facility. They are also offering free subscriptions to Mumbai's women COVID-19 warriors. Manish Kelshikar, founder and chief strategy officer of Woloo said, "Our mission is to provide hygiene dignity to every woman in India from the age of six to 60 years."