08 December,2022 05:36 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Shadab Khan
People enjoy an evening at Mahim beach against a pink-hued sky.
A walk down Khotachiwadi this weekend is highly recommended for an early taste of Christmas. The heritage village in Girgaum will dress up for Khotachiwadi Alive 4.0 Christmas edition. "The reason I am hosting these events is to encourage people to look at Khotachiwadi as an alternate culture and art space," said James Ferreira, resident and fashion designer. "This year, the edition has expanded to more than food, with luxury, home and wellness labels also coming on board," added Rayhaan Varma, Ferreira's business partner. In addition to this, the neighbourhood will also be decked up with lighting and décor to suit the mood. It will begin to look a lot like Christmas.
Art has the power to connect despite differences in language or culture. We were thrilled to learn that Mumbai University professor Sunil Abhiman Awachar's art work, Alphabets of Anti-Caste, is now being hosted at the prestigious Columbia University as an expression against caste discrimination. "I am an Ambedkarite poet and artist. My art always speaks against oppression," Awachar shared. The Alphabet, he revealed, looks at the letters from a new perspective as an attempt to tell the history of the untold. "It conveys the history of women, Dalits and adivasis from a new outlook. A now stands for Ambedkar, B for Buddha," he remarked. The exhibit will be on display at the Lehman Library of Columbia University until the end of the semester.
What were you doing at the age of eight? Atharva Agarwal's answer might well be âwinning medals for the country'. The youngster bagged two bronze medals and a gold in the under-eight category at the recently concluded 4th International Roller Musical Chair Skating Speed Championship 2022 held in Nepal last week. His mother, Shalu Mishra Agarwal told us, "While he has participated in several district and national tournaments, this was his first international tournament. He competed with a fractured hand at the tournament. He had a fracture on Friday, and on Monday, he was out competing in Nepal." Certainly not an easy task, seeing how the Kandivli-based youngster was up against participants from Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. Describing it as a challenge, his mother added that the young boy's determination to participate in the competition with a broken hand left even his coach surprised. "He wants to do well for India in the sport. That is his topmost goal," his mother added. Our congratulations.
Artist Rah Naqvi will set out to explore the unspoken emotions in the margins of expression with their performance at the Kochi Biennale on December 13. The Mumbai-based multimedia artist will be part of the KBF Performance Art Programme this year, curated by HH Art Spaces and Nikhil Chopra. Naqvi (inset) shared that the performance is built around the space of a male salon. "Male salons in India are performative spaces by themselves, allowing for care between male bodies. Grooming is central to the place's tenderness while offering ritualistic gossip and an escape from the typical hyper-masculine gaze," they noted. Stating that the performance explores the unexplored space in-between interactions, Naqvi said, "It seeks inspiration from this space in between - the dance between what is, and is not accepted."
You might just be entering a rocking Christmas season, but for Deepak âChuck' Gopalakrishnan and Berty Ashley, it's been a rocking year. And they are sharing the playlist that made it exactly that on their Telegram channel called @chuckberty. "It's a small channel where our aim is simple - to get fans of rock and metal to discover new music and artistes to love. There's a ton of great music out there, and we love curating. It also forces us to keep ourselves up to date with music," Gopalakrishnan (below) shared. His 2022 music journey led him to new releases including Polyphia's Playing god, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Here ever after, Bloodywood's Dana dan and 50 others, curated in his extensive end-of-year playlist at t.me/chuckberty.
