Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Scaling new heightsA group of people will prove today how there isnrsquot any mountain high enough literally speaking even for the specially abled Fifteen of them assisted by 20 ablebodied volunteers from the NGO We the People will scale Maharashtrarsquos highest peak Kalsubai in order to raise awareness on Republic Day about protecting the environment Vinod Rawat who lost his leg when he was six years old and who is the leader of the group told this diarist ldquoWe have around six people without eyesight and one person with cerebral palsy We start at 5 am and like I always tell people I might be slow but Irsquoll keep my flow I wonrsquot stop till I reach the toprdquoDozen voices for democracyToo Much Democracy is a collection of poems and a sociocultural commentary written by Ajay Singh and performed by Nakuul Mehta And on Republic Day arts platform Kommune has launched the first edition of this YouTube poetry show lyrically touching upon everything from the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the ensuing media trial to the virus the vaccines and the shrinking space for democracy across the worldldquoThe idea for doing a full blown 27minute poetry special came after a few of our poems found some resonance with the audience on social media The 12 poems while complete pieces in themselves are also part of a larger whole that when combined together tells the story of the state of our democracy in 2020rdquo shared Mehta in pic The aim he added is not to cater to a set of audience based on their ideology ldquoThese are not antiright or antileft poems mdash these are poems of democracy as we see it today full of chaos and with all its idiosyncrasiesrdquo he told this diaristBritishIndian poet bags TS Eliot PrizeIn a boost to the Asian literature community BritishIndian poet Bhanu Kapil won the prestigious TS Eliot Prize for Poetry for her collection mdash How to Wash a Heart Pavilion Liverpool University Press mdash yesterday She becomes the first poet of Indian origin to be conferred with Britainrsquos highest award in poetry that carries a prize money of pound25000 Kapil whose Indian parents migrated to the UK was educated there and moved to the US for further academic pursuits Author of six written works before this the jury found her collection hardhitting for its focus on inclusivity and hospitality in another countryBeery good womenIn a step towards her dream to build an initiative along the lines of the Pink Boots Society in the US which supports women in the alcohol industry beer enthusiast Chatty Girija in pic who anchors the podcast Cheers Chatty has announced the Good WOmen Beer Podcast that features 10 women from the industry ldquoThey do the same amount of heavylifting as men I felt their experiences should be highlighted as women are mostly associated with the hospitality side not hardcore brewingrdquo Cheers to thatOn holdThe publishing industry has always been one of the most vulnerable with censoring bans and injunctions pulling the plug on many important books This time it is investigative crime journalist Leena Dhankarrsquos The Rxxx School Murder Juggernaut Books which was initially slated for release this week The publication of the book has been put on hold after the High Court passed an interim injunction in response to a plea by the St Xavierrsquos Education Trust which manages the Rxxx International School The plaintiff according to the High Court order ldquois only alarmed and offended by its titlerdquo and is ldquonot privyrdquo to the bookrsquos contents as it was yet to be released The title looks at the sensational case of a Class 2 student who was found murdered in a bloodsplattered bathroom of his school in Gurugram on September 8 2017 Dhankar had been covering the murder since Day 1 and was privy to the bizarre coverup and destruction of evidence and the framing of an innocent bus conductor by the police ldquoThe book is the product of years of reportage and work including hundreds of hours of interviews with the main players of the case All the sources on which the book is based are detailed in an exhaustive 28page note at the end of the book Our intention was not to cause undue harm to anyonersquos reputation but merely to report the facts as they stand Our belief was that the case is widely known as the lsquoRxxx School Murderrsquo as evidenced by the innumerable newspaper and television reports that use this phrase which is why the book was titled as such The court however felt that such a title could lead to an identification of the juvenile accused in the case who has not been named in the book and compromise an order of the Ld Additional Sessions Judge Gurugram and therefore granted an order restraining us at the first hearingrdquo Juggernaut Books shared on Monday