The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Sameer Markande
Hitting the snooze button
A security guard takes a nap outside a retail store in Juhu on Friday.
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Jerry’s back, for better or verse
Jerry Pinto is a man who wears many hats, including that of a journalist, novelist, translator and poet. In 2003, he released his debut collection of poetry titled Asylum and Other Poems. But this month, fans of his poetry are in for a real treat — not only is publisher Speaking Tiger reissuing his first work of poetry which has been out of print for a while, but also releasing a new collection called I Want a Poem and Other Poems. Although one can expect variety with the themes, Pinto, as always, is leaving a lot to the reader’s interpretation: “We present word artefacts which are actually the remnants of the first shift in consciousness that produced the desire to write a poem. It is the attentive reader who will make these into poems and then they will come back and tell me what my themes were, what my concerns were,” he said.
Hitting a century
Lavani artiste Shakuntala Nagarkar. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
From starting out as a research idea back in 2004, to staging 100 packed shows and pushing lavani back into the state’s cultural consciousness, Sangeet Bari has come a long way. In these gloomy times, this diarist is happy to hear that their 100th show on Thursday ended with surprises and celebrations, both onstage and backstage. Bhushan Korgaonkar, who wrote the production, revealed that they only realised that they were hitting a century, when someone pointed it out to them.
Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah
“Our favourite actors, Ratna Pathak Shah, Naseeruddin Shah and Atul Kulkarni were in the audience, and they walked on to the stage and then stayed for the cake-cutting. It was wonderful,” he told this diarist. Korgaonkar added that the journey so far has turned the cast into a family. “When we had started research in 2004, if someone would’ve told us that in 2014, we’d have a show, and that it would continue like this, we would have never believed it. It’s been a fantastic journey,” he noted. We wish them luck for the future.
A muted Navroze
The week leading up to Navroze is when Kurush Dalal and his wife, Rhea, would usually have their hands full, handling a deluge of orders placed with Katy’s Kitchen, the Parsi eatery they run that can be reached on 9820136511. They expected the same situation last year, especially since the festival fell over a weekend. But that’s the same weekend that the lockdown was announced and ever since, the Dalals have had to deal with a nightmare when it comes to handling the back end of the business. They eventually turned the eatery into a smaller, home-catering affair, meaning they can take only a limited number of orders this Navroze, which falls this weekend. “I thought of taking up another place on rent this March, but then the [COVID-19] numbers started going up again,” Dalal told this diarist. The point is that there are many small eateries like his for whom the nightmare of the pandemic is still far from over. That’s something we need to recognise.
Stories for Saturday
Launched in October 2020, Goshticha Shaniwar was a five-month long initiative by non-profit Pratham Books for children in Maharashtra to facilitate learning through stories. It impacted the lives of 25 lakh children, and to celebrate the success the non-profit is teaming up with the State Council of Educational Research & Training, Maharashtra (SCERT) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), UNICEF for an online symposium today, on World Storytelling Day (March 20).
“We hope to highlight the strengths of conceptualising, implementing, and monitoring a reading programme in close partnership with all its stakeholders,” chairperson Suzanne Singh shared. Log on to SCERT, Maharashtra’s YouTube channel at 11 am to tune in.
The winning brush stroke
As part of the 12th KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, a contest in memory of designer Wendell Rodricks was held to design the official festival poster. And we are happy to report that the accolade went to a Mumbaikar. Graphic designer Ajoy Kumar Das’s design was picked as the winner by Rodricks’s husband Jérôme Marrel, out of 50 submissions. About the honour, Das said, “When I saw the theme for this year, ‘Unlock with Pride,’ the idea resonated very strongly with me. I attempted to design a minimalist, yet meaningful poster. I’m happy that my entry has been selected for the second time.”
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