Ruddy for adventure

Rohan Chakravarty

Curated by Kasturi Gadge, Nidhi Lodaya and Nasrin Modak Siddiqi

Cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty's book Naturalist Ruddy: Adventurer. Sleuth. Mongoose (Penguin Random House) combines his interest in wildlife and cartoons. The detective story follows Ruddy, a mongoose who is not only a detective but also a naturalist on a trail to solve cases in the Kanha National Park and other wildlife areas in India. "I needed a protagonist who is also a predator and a part of a world that is smaller and a mongoose was the perfect fit," he says, adding that while tigers are more popular in India, they don't observe things as acutely as mongooses. He turned to his backyard to observe the microhabitats of insects. "The first thing I did was buy a book on ants because ants were everywhere and the more I understood ants, the more I understood about things that eat ants," he says.
amazon.in

Get motivated

Vikas Singh, founder of fitness startup Fitpage, is an avid long-distance runner himself and has started a weekly podcast for like-minded people to learn, train and move better. "Indians are increasingly turning to running as a fitness activity. However, the misinformation often leads to injuries, demotivation and poses health risks. To address these, and to help beginners and experienced runners alike, I started the podcast Run with Fitpage," says Singh, an experienced marathoner and certified coach.

The podcast has world-renowned Olympians, researchers, coaches, exercise scientists, athletes, nutritionists and physiotherapists discuss the science of training, recovery, nutrition, weight loss, racing and injury prevention. On it, one can learn the basics of getting started with running, how to progress and set the right running goals with international coaches like Rick Prince, founder of America's leading online coach certification programme UESCA, Jason Fitzgerald, USA track and field-certified coach and Ian Sharman, Oregon-based USATF-certified ultra-running coach. "The podcast also has detailed episodes on the science of running with Daniel Vaz, head coach of Nike Run Club, India, the 80/20 training methodology with endurance coach Matt Fitzgerald and the science of the McMillan calculator with exercise scientist Greg McMillan," adds Singh.
On Spotify, Gaana and JioSaavn

Rickshaw rhymes

"Helpless in Hassan, hellraiser in Bangalore," reads one sign. Pic/@poetryauto, Instagram

College friends Kaustuba KV and Vikas Gorur started Instagram page Auto Poetry in 2017 to document poems found on the backs of auto rickshaws, trucks, cars and two-wheelers in India. "We always saw chuckle-worthy lines, mostly about failure in love. But once in a while, we would see some deeply philosophical poems, one of which got us to start the account," says Kaustuba. As most would miss these, the duo is capturing them for the world to see. "We think of our efforts as recording a part of our culture than simply running a humour page."
@poetryauto, Instagram

Postcard from Madras

In the early days of the pandemic, a wild seed of a project took root. A trio of friends - writer Ashna Lulla, photographer Vignesh Shivkumar, and curator Priya Renga - were working on a photoshoot. Shivkumar tells us, "One evening on location at this modern terrace garden, Ashna wondered aloud if other homes truly encapsulated what it meant to live in a city like Madras, where the chaos of a big city was accessible, alongside the tranquillity offered by its expansive coastline.

This marked the beginnings of With Love, Madras." The project has the trio travel through homes that came up when Chennai was still Madras, curating stories, memories and photos. "We hope to highlight the involvement of each home owner and how that was formative to how the house shaped up.

Ashna Lulla, Vignesh Shivkumar and Priya Renga

Madras as a city has been conservative; most of these treasures remain undiscovered. We hope to change that with our upcoming book - With Love, Madras," says Lulla. While people were welcoming, the challenge, says Renga, was identifying "homes with different personalities, architectural characteristics and geographic locations that represented a slice of the city."
@withlovemadras, Instagram