Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Jacket dreams are made of theseAyushmann Khurana lets out a yawn and Jitendra Kumar gets his glasses fixed while sporting snazzy printed jackets at a Juhu fivestar on Tuesday PicSayyed Sameer BediBabel Bombay and MumbaiWhen poet Ranjit Hoskote looks at artist Sudhir Patwardhans works on Bombay he thinks of the people in the paintings and the many languages they speak To Hoskote Mumbai is a crucible of languages one that deserves to be celebrated through poetry Today he will convene a session of poetry at NGMA mdash where Patwardhans retrospective is on view mdash with poets Gieve Patel Kamal Vora Sampurna Chattarji Prafull Shiledar Hemant Divate Mustansir Dalvi and himselfHe told this diarist Its meant as a celebration of the many languages of the city Sudhir Patwardhans work is a celebration of the city and its strengths and its crises For me as someone who has viewed his work for a long time as a poet I also look at the many languages of the people in his paintings We see the city as the Tower of Babel When you live in Bombay you are naturally influenced by multiple languagesThere will be poetry in Marathi Gujarati and English in addition to translations from Urdu Kashmiri and BengaliCoasting into 2023 in the cityThe official account of Mumbai Coastal Road Project gave people a glimpse of what the city will look like after the project is completed in 2023 They posted a sixminute video on YouTube that introduced the south section of the project that stretches from Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Sea LinkAlthough people praised the editing of the video many raised their doubts about whether the organisation will actually be able to accomplish its goal Please dont show hopes and dash them a comment readIconic notes of protestThe protestors at Shaheen Bagh have become a beacon of resilience in the face of adversity A fouryearold child has died of the harsh Delhi cold But his mother is already back at the venue A man shot a warning bullet in the air But the people refused to move Its in fact become the longest protest against the CAA and NRC having now entered its 52nd day with there being no signs of stopping Even performing artistes have started stepping inPicAFPA programme called Artists Against Communalism is being held there at present and day three saw the legendary Shubha Mudgal perform live yesterday Mumbaikars who will perform include Saba Azad and Ankur Tewari Indie poster boy Prateek Kuhad too has lent his support Thats quite an impressive list of artistes standing up for a causeCeleb calendar for Raja Ravi VarmaRecognised as one of the greatest painters in Indian art history Raja Ravi Varma effectively fused the styles of European realism and Indian folk His work is now the inspiration for celebrity photographer G Venket Rams 2020 calendarFeaturing actresses like Shruti Hassan Samantha Prabhu and Ramya Krishnan posing as women from Varmas paintings the calendar has been created for the charitable trust Naam founded by Suhasini Maniratnam Were certainly looking forward to more such canvasses being captured by Ram in the futureJust kidding with storiesA unique free festival for NGOs kicked off yesterday at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum Organised in collaboration with the Akshara Foundation the Story xpress festival brought together storytellers authors and for the first time dancers tooAmong some of the participants was NCPAs head of dance programming Swapnokalpa Dasgupta who took to the stage to tell a story of Lord Krishna and the three demons through an Odissi piece Storyteller Geetanjali Shetty conducted a workshop on Egypt while author Sakshi Singh launched a book titled Ret Mein PaonOver 200 kids from NGOs attended the storytelling festivalCofounder of the festival Radhika Kundalia told this diarist We had 225 children in attendance and they were delighted because all of this is new for them The plan is to continue exposing kids to new forms of art to encourage them to think differentlyCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates