Babel, Bombay and Mumbai Jacket dreams are made of these Ayushmann Khurana lets out a yawn and Jitendra Kumar gets his glasses fixed while sporting snazzy printed jackets at a Juhu five- star on Tuesday. PIC/ sayyed sameer abedi Coasting into 2023 in the city Celeb calendar for Raja Ravi Varma Just kidding with stories A unique, free festival for NGOs kicked off yesterday at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Organised in collaboration with the Akshara Foundation, the Story u2018 xpress festival brought together storytellers, authors, and for the first time, dancers, too. Among some of the participants was NCPAu2019s 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 Paon. Co- founder of the festival Radhika Kundalia told this diarist, u201c 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 differently.u201d Iconic notes of protest The 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 six- minute video on YouTube that introduced the south section of the project that stretches from Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Sea Link.
Although people praised the editing of the video, many raised their doubts about whether the organisation will actually be able to accomplish its goal. u201c Please donu2019t show hopes and dash them,u201d a comment read.
Recognised 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 Ramu2019s 2020 calendar. Featuring actresses like Shruti Hassan, Samantha Prabhu and Ramya Krishnan posing as women from Varmau2019s paintings, the calendar has been created for the charitable trust Naam, founded by Suhasini Maniratnam. Weu2019re certainly looking forward to more such canvasses being captured by Ram in the future.
The protestors at Shaheen Bagh have become a beacon of resilience in the face of adversity.
A four- year- old 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. Itu2019s 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 in. A 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.
Thatu2019s quite an impressive list of artistes standing up for a cause.
When poet Ranjit Hoskote looks at artist Sudhir Patwardhanu2019s 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 u2014 where Patwardhanu2019s retrospective is on view u2014 with poets Gieve Patel, Kamal Vora, Sampurna Chattarji, Prafull Shiledar, Hemant Divate, Mustansir Dalvi and himself. He told this diarist, u201c Itu2019s meant as a celebration of the many languages of the city.
Sudhir Patwardhanu2019s 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 languages.u201d There will be poetry in Marathi, Gujarati and English in addition to translations from Urdu, Kashmiri and Bengali.
pic/ afp The retrospective at NGMA Over 200 kids from NGOs attended the storytelling festival
