The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Bipin Kokate
Aiming for the sky
Sairat actor Rinku Rajguru gets into the spirit of Makar Sankranti and flies a kite after the music launch of her upcoming film, at a cinema hall in Dadar on Tuesday. Pic/Bipin Kokate
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Can you imagine a verse situation?
One outcome of the anti-CAA protests across the country is the flourishing of different forms of creativity, be it in the clever posters that people have made, the hard-hitting chants that ring in the air, or various pieces of film, music and spoken word that people have created. One example is Varun Grover's Hum kaagaz nahin dikhayenge, which has gone famously viral. Now, Mumbai-based rapper Slowcheetah has also written a verse that takes potshots at the ruling dispensation.
It's set to the background of AR Rahman's track from Roja, Bharat hum ko jaan se pyara hai. But the musician doesn't rap in the track. Instead, he calmly delivers barbs at the government. Sample lines, "Yahaan na poochhega koi jaat/ Naa mangega kaagzat/ Chal, kar le apni mann ki baat," and "Oi chowkidar, paise chhod/ Izzat thodi kamaale/ Har sacch ki doodh mein paani daale/ Chai toh theek se bana le." Savage.
Topsy-turvy stuff
"Why is the calligraphy on Badshah Akbar's Armour upside down pointing to middle instead of head [sic]?" When historian Rana Safvi made this observation of a display at Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya, she received a flurry of possible explanations, with no definite conclusion.
While some pointed out that it was done so that the seemingly illiterate Akbar could read it when he looks down, one professor argued that he could very well read and write. At the end of it all, Safvi was in agreement with journalist Manimugdha Sharma who said the exhibit was, in fact, the back plate of the cuirass.
Here's why two city ballerinas are twirling with joy
Two little ballerinas from Mumbai must be dancing in joy. Sisters Shreya and Shrirudra Singh are students at the city's Indian Academy of Russian Ballet, and have been selected for a course run by the Bolshoi Ballet Academy (BBA) in Russia, considered a global Mecca for the dance form.
Shrirudra Singh (left) and her sister, Shreya, perform on stage for a ballet recital
Their instructor, Apexa Bhattacharyya, who's been teaching the two girls now aged nine and 10 since they were five years old, told this diarist, "BBA has summer courses across the globe, on completing which students get a chance to audition for a full-time course. We sent video auditions of the two girls, who were accepted at the branches in Italy and Switzerland." Our congratulations.
Winning lines
The Crossword Book Awards were announced yesterday and the winners include Madhuri Vijay for The Far Field; N Prabhakaran for The Diary of a Malayali Madman; Sudha Murty for The Upside-Down King: Unusual Tales About Rama and Krishna; and Twinkle Khanna for Pyjamas are Forgiving.
But unlike other years, the awards show was held at the Crossword store in Kemp's Corner instead of a fancier location. After Kala Ghoda failing to get sponsors, is this another sign of the economic downturn?
Flying Thai in Mumbai
An ongoing exhibition titled Dear Women is earning critical praise for depicting the four stages of trauma through its hard-hitting frames.
Indo-Thai artist Amonwan Mirpuri has used the walls of Kala Ghoda's Method Art Space to create a wall of disruption, acceptance, healing and reintegration — 'turning trauma into triumph'. "It is an ode to women who have lost their innate powers, strength and voice, and have succumbed to exploitation and oppression," she said.
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