The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Ashish Raje
Paw-fect support
An indie tries to draw the attention of a man while two others wait by a street corner in Fort.
Indian rock music revived yet again
After almost more than four decades, the pioneering 1970s rock band Human Bondage, founded by Henry Babu Joseph (left, top) will come together once again with composer Rajeev Raja (left, bottom) for a tribute to the band’s final chapter in Mumbai on February 6. The shows revisit the band’s music through a contemporary jazz-fusion lens, celebrating India’s early rock movement and the city’s long-standing love for live performance.
In conversation with this diarist, Henry Babu Joseph said, “This reunion has been incredibly emotional for me. Bringing Human Bondage’s music back has been a beautiful journey already. The set list will feature classics, like Bertha by Grateful Dead and Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, and we can’t wait for audiences to experience the energy.” Rajeev Raja concluded, “I’m thrilled to share the stage and bring their music alive again. Audiences can expect classic rock, rock and roll and the blues, rooted in the Human Bondage sound, and powered by the contemporary energy of my band, the Rajeev Raja Combine.”
Craft beyond paper
Kate Malone with her masterpiece; view of the studio in Byculla. Pics courtesy/Dot Line Space Art Foundation
British ceramicist Kate Malone is all set to come to Mumbai on February 2 to lead a live demonstration, followed by a lecture and presentation at Studio White & Gray at Byculla, presented by Dot Line Space Art Foundation. Titled All things ceramics, the session will allow participants to engage directly with clay as a medium. The workshop foregrounds the clay festival initiated by the foundation before Covid-19, with the sole aim of reviving rural Indian pottery traditions.
Gourmoni Das
Known for her monumental ceramic works inspired by vegetables and fruits, Malone will discuss the possibilities of ceramics that move beyond fixed shapes and conventional forms. Gourmoni Das founder and director of Dot Line Space Art Foundation told this diarist, “It’s an honour to welcome Kate at the studio. This is our way of giving young ceramic enthusiasts the opportunity to learn and mould the medium in ways they choose.”
Love is in the air
Farhad J Dadyburjor
There’s a new book in the pipeline that centres on queer romance, offering a refreshing piece of literary content for the discerning reader. City-based author Farhad Dadyburjor’s novel, Queerly Beloved (Penguin Random House India) is set to release on February 14. Amidst themes of trauma and tragedy that commonly mark queer stories, it offers a positive outlook.
Set against the backdrop of upper-class Mumbai, with all its liveliness and glamour, the story is a romantic-comedy drama; its ‘big, fat Indian wedding’ trope for a queer couple is something new in Indian publishing. We can’t wait to see how this shaadi turns out.
Art that withstood tremors
(From left) Ruins to Resurgence by Ismail Khatri, The New Kutch, and The Day Everything Fell by Kala Raksha Foundation; a close-up of The New Kutch. Pics Courtesy/CSMVS
Marking 25 years since the Bhuj earthquake, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) has opened Resurgence, a textile display exhibition celebrating the resilience of Kachchhi artists. The earthquake severely affected artists from textile centres like Bhujodi, Dhamadka, Anjar, and Khavda around Bhuj, resulting in the loss of their livelihoods. Alongside independent artists like Ismail Khatri and artists from Kala Raksha Foundation, the craft has been revived. “The textiles on view narrate stories of survival and resilience, while retaining traditional values. The works reflect deeply personal journeys of each artist. This exhibition is a way for them to uniquely narrate their journey, taking pride in their art, with stories rooted in the history of the region, their community, and the nation,” explained curator Nilanjana Som.
Nilanjana Som
A century amidst nature
Untitled artwork; Nalini Mehta with her piece. Pics Courtesy/Namrata Shroff
Carpe Diem, wrote the poet once upon a time, and Nalini Mehta is doing just that. The 100-year-old artist broke out of her 14-year-long hiatus to open her exhibition, A Passion Blossoms, at the Great Eastern Mills in Byculla yesterday. Curated by her granddaughter Namrata Shroff (inset), the exhibition captures Mehta’s lifelong love of nature. “Nature has always been my raison d’être. Flowers, plants, birds, and all living things stay imprinted in my memory so vividly that I don’t work with sketches. Even at this stage of my life, what keeps my passion alive is the quiet wonder I have always felt for nature’s endless beauty. As long as it continues to bloom, so does my desire to create,” she told this diarist.
Namrata Shroff
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