Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

Art meets travel

The pandemic restricted free movement and it made us want to travel more. Based on that, Goethe-Institut, along with St+art India, has taken the idea of travel a step further. Their recent call for submissions, Artist Callout, presents a chance for artists who can interpret travel from a broader perspective. The selected artists, one from anywhere across India and one from Germany, will work on murals in Chennai and Delhi. “The proposal is part of Graphic Travelogues; we started this during the lockdown. For the first edition, we got global artists and illustrators on board. Our second edition was centred around culinary escapades,” Richi Malhotra (in pic), publicist at Goethe-Institut, India, told this diarist, adding that the focus in the third edition is on murals. Mumbaikars, too, can send in their applications and you can visit @startindia on Instagram before December 6 for more information.

Answering an age-old question

A still from the video for the song, which is six minutes long

With the central government mulling the idea of raising the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, NGO Oxfam has joined hands with women-centric multimedia platform Agents of Ishq (AoI) to release a music video titled #SorryThankYouTataByeBye that asks a pertinent question – shouldn’t women from different walks of life be consulted before this law is passed? Speaking about the playful video, AoI founder Paromita Vohra shared, “If a song gives you pleasure, its ideas are more likely to become your ideas, and ideas change the world.” 

Star in the kicten

Bong Eats is a popular food channel on social media that has started a series called Rannaghore Ke, where they call upon famous people to showcase their culinary prowess. The second episode aired recently featured Nobel Prize-winning economist Abhijit Banerjee, who shared how he’d been interested in cooking since his childhood, and how his hand mannerisms in the kitchen mimic those of his mother’s. And going by the coconut-crusted prawns he whipped up, Banerjee is clearly a man of multiple talents.

Get a breakthrough

Breakthrough India is a programme that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts kicked off in 2020, giving shortlisted talents across the fields of film, television and gaming a chance to be mentored by global experts for one year, apart from gaining access to global networking opportunities. The deadline for submitting applications for the next edition of the programme has now been extended to December 6 from November 30. “As India is such a melting pot of talent, it’s the perfect place to foster the creative and cultural exchange which BAFTA Breakthrough is designed to nurture,” shared Tim Hunter, BAFTA’s executive director of learning and talent. Visit bafta.org if you’d like to send your entry.

An indie-pendent music award

The Indies are an awards ceremony that celebrates independent music from across the country. It was started last year, during the pandemic, and the nominees for the second edition scheduled for next month have now been announced. The shortlist features a host of veteran acts like Thermal And A Quarter (TAAQ), who have garnered a maximum of six nominations across categories for their album A World Gone Mad, along with city-based progressive rock act Protocol, who has been nominated in six categories as well. Other Mumbai acts in the running include Sandunes, Tejas, Mali, and Bombay Bandook. Speaking about A World Gone Mad, TAAQ front man Bruce Lee Mani told this diarist that the album was first conceived in 2016. “It was supposed to come out in 2019 but that got delayed to 2020, by when the world had actually gone mad, which was a coincidence,” he shared, adding, “The album has a dark sound and, generally speaking, has been called creepy.” Our best wishes to all the nominees.

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