Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Pic/Atul Kamble

Run, baby, run!

Parents cheer their kids at a race during the annual sports meet at Poinsur Gymkhana in Kandivali.

Feline good this Valentine's Day

For every entry, the café will scoop cat litter, top it with a note about the participant's ex, and trash it

Remember that good-for-nothing ex? Versova's Cat Café Studio wants to help make them a little useful this Valentine's Day, to their cats and to you. When they take out their cat litter this week, it'll have your ex's name on it. You can trash the past with a donation of R200, of which the proceeds will go to The Feline Foundation to care for injured cats and sterilise stray cats. You can even customise a note and choose to leave it anonymous. These notes, poop and all, will find their way to the café's Instagram stories for a final celebratory send-off. They're aiming for 200 scoops, in case you want to trash a poop-y ol' lover. Lamya Kapadia, brand manager, shared, "We wanted to spin this idea into something more positive like donating to the care of cats so that at least your ex was good for something."

Here's what the youth want from BMC

The city might be divided over the recent BMC budget, but this diarist was pleased to learn the youth of Mumbai are sitting up, taking note of the civic body's actions, and demanding all the right things. Ahead of the budget, Ministry of Mumbai's Magic, a community-forward platform, reached out to 18 to 35-year-olds and asked them to share suggestions for BMC's budget. The group submitted over 90 such suggestions, including some leveraged from their reports. Project lead Vincy Abraham revealed that these comprised dust control management and enclosed construction sites, expenditure on pedestrian-friendly streets, charging infrastructure for EVs, and waste management and air quality. "Suggestions such as the ones on dust control and charging infrastructure for EVs have made it to the Commissioner's announcements, but we haven't seen anything major on bio-diversity [except for tree planta-tions] so far, which is a miss as green spaces are crucial to ease pollution," she said.

Kala of crypto

Hetal Shukla's #cryptokalacar makes use of keyboards discarded as e-waste

For nearly 12 years, Hetal Shukla's car installations have been synonymous with the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. The artist returned with his ambassador in a new avatar this year - #cryptokalacar. "NFTs have disrupted the art market. This is the first time an artist has been empowered to communicate with his buyers and sell his art independently. I want to create a conversation around NFTs, which inspired me to create this work," he told us.

Hitting a note

Shalaka Pai and Phalguni Desai

From pay disparity to lack of representation and rampant mansplaining, women and queer professionals in the music industry experience sexism in multiple ways that rarely find a space for discussion. An initiative by MAP-AMP and the Goethe-Institut Mumbai aims to chronicle these experiences through a series of short animated films titled, Where Are We?: Women and Queer People in Mumbai's Independent Music Scene. It brings together voices of multiple professionals including Nush Lewis, Parizad D and Mae Mariyam Thomas. Creator Shalaka Pai shared the films which will be out soon are categorised thematically. "One looks at problems in the industry; another looks at how a lot of the decision-makers are men; there's one episode on representation of women and queer people, among others," Pai said. Programme co-ordinator Phalguni Desai added, "We're putting this out in the hope that it makes the discussion accessible and so people realise that these issues still exist."

Cutlets, community and a cause

If you were on Khar 12th Road yesterday, near Gayatri Mandir, you are likely to have sniffed some delectable chicken patties, chicken samosa, prawn cutlets and kheema pav. With the city's Pathare Prabhu community bringing Anand Melava back after two long years, women from the group were particularly excited to showcase their food, handmade artefacts and jewellery. Saya Navalkar, president of the 108-year-old trust, Pathare Prabhu Mahila Samaj, shared with this diarist, "This was our 21st edition. The spirit of this fun fair first kicked off in 2000 and since then, we have tried to create a significant platform to represent a niche. Our focus has been the women of the community." This year, the platform also opened its doors to the efforts of the specially abled children from Kshitij, an NGO. "We took this opportunity to display their creations such as candles, totes and other knick-knacks. It's the first time that we demonstrated products made by an NGO, but it's all for a good cause," Navalkar said.