Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Dollrsquos day outA girl plays with her collection on a bench at Marine Drive on WednesdayA virtual tribute for a legendThe Abbaji Festival is an annual event that is held on February 3 every year to mark the birth anniversary of Ustad Alla Rakha one of the finest tabla players India has ever seen But this edition was held virtually for the first time yesterday given the restrictions born out of the pandemicIt featured a lineup of stellar musicians including the legendrsquos supremely gifted sons Zakir Hussain in pic Taufiq Qureshi and Fazal Qureshi apart from Louiz Banks Sheldon DrsquoSouza who featured in a jazz set at the festival along with Hussain Banks Zubin Balaporia and others told this diarist that it was a prerecorded performance ldquoIt was the recording of the show that we played at Shanmukhananda Hall in Sion last yearrdquo DrsquoSilva inset addedA different biennaleThe cultural calendar of India has got a new addition the firstever museum biennale The Bihar Museum in Patna will be hosting the Bihar Museum Biennale from March 22 to 28 Organised by the Department of Arts Culture and Youth affairs Government of Bihar the event will witness the participation of museums from across India Poland Mexico and Germany among other locations shared Dr Alka Pande in pic project director of the Museum BiennaleVisitors at the Bihar Museum in PatnaIt will also include speakers such as British art historian Neil MacGregor Hilary Knight Director of Digital Tate Galleries UK and Sabyasachi Mukherjee DirectorGeneral of CSMVS Dr Pande added that the biennale has been in the works for more than two years ldquoWe were set to launch in March 2020 as a threemonth affair but it got cancelled due to the pandemic So we decided to do it in a hybrid template with both online and offline events We will have masterclasses by Ira Mukhoty and Manu S Pillai among othersrdquo she revealed She added that the events will be quite engaging ldquoA museum is a laboratory of ideas tying together crosscultural flows which is the rasanubhuti that occurs when you look at an object of historical importrdquo she saidThis chef will fix it for youThese are exciting times for Divesh Aswani who was formerly the head chef at Bycullarsquos Magazine Street Kitchen Aswani had aspired to open his own restaurant before the pandemic played spoiler to his plans But he has now recalibrated his business strategy and launched The Commis Kitchen in Mahim Itrsquos a onestop solution for all sorts of culinary hurdles ldquoI want to provide the means to other restaurants and home chefs to make things that they might not be able to such as handspread pastrami noodles or a really nice range of sauces and condimentsrdquo Aswani shared saying that he wants to play a supporting role for other ventures He added that the space also has provisions for private dinner parties for six people and he plans to host workshops there as wellThe perfect 10 idea for artistsThe folks behind the Khajuraho Dance Festival have started a clever initiative to give as many women artists a platform as possible despite the pandemic They are calling for entries from female sculptors designers and artists of other hues not individually but in groups of 10 Festival director Rahul Rastogi in pic explained ldquoWe will select 25 of these groups with each artist sending in two artworks That means we will showcase a total of 500 artworks made by 250 of them Two people from each winning group will be invited to the festival with all expenses paidrdquo Send in your entries to artmartkdfgmailcom