Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

The return of Bappa 

An artist at the RV Maduskar Arts workshop in Girgaon works on a Ganesh idol ahead of the Maghi Ganesh Utsav celebrations on February 1. 

Temple city tales

Students visit the ongoing exhibition

Graphic novels are not usually part of college assignments. But the third-year architecture and design students of the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) in Juhu have put up an exhibition that brings together architectural studies with narrative storytelling.  On display till February 2, the exhibition features panels from their study trip to Varanasi. “In our third year, we study how the idea of democracy plays out in spaces and in community through religious practices. We have done this previously with the Ajmer Sharif dargah and temple in Bodh Gaya. This year, we took on the pilgrimage of the Panchkroshi Yatra in Varanasi,” shared dean Rohan Shivkumar. Ninety students followed the journey across 108 temple sites in Varanasi over six days. A student, Gayatri Kale, shared, “We were divided into groups, with each group taking on three to four sites. While we usually display architectural drawings, the journey and experiences were just as important. The graphic novel medium allowed us to communicate it more elaborately.”

Panels from the display

Meet the young storytellers

Nandini Kochar

City-based Nazaria Arts Collective is collaborating with Teach for India and The Akanksha Foundation for a Media Express Fellowship that aims to nurture secondary students in government schools as critical consumers and creators of media. “The programme is designed to help teenagers think critically, consume media responsibly and consider it as a potential career option too,” Nandini Kochar, co-founder, shared with this diarist. With nine sessions spread across three modules, the collective plans to kick-start the curriculum in three municipal schools in the city this Saturday. “We are also planning to expand the programme and conduct sessions in cities like Pune as well,” Kochar revealed.

Guha the guide in Kozhikode

The façade of Mishkal Mosque in Kozhikode

When it comes to finding a guide to help recce the city, one cannot do better than author and historian Ramachandra Guha. At the recently concluded Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, the author was kind enough to help this diarist with some tips on our first visit to the city. Guha insisted, “You must visit the Mishkal Mosque. It dates back to the 14th Century AD, and is one of the oldest mosques on the Malabar Coast.” Describing his frequent visits to the coastal city in the past, Guha added, “I used to love walking these streets. The mosque is a particular favourite of mine.” Needless to say, we took the advice. 

Ramachandra Guha

The Dalai Lama, unplugged

The Dalai Lama. File Pic; (right) Sethu Das

With his amiable smile and worldwide connect, it is often easy to forget that His Holiness The Dalai Lama remains the leader of a people still in exile. His latest title, Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle for My Land and My People (HarperCollins), will be released in March with some new insights on this experience. Drawn from the experiences of losing a homeland, exile and ever-present struggle, the book will also delve into his learnings and suggestions for a way forward. Sethu Das, of Friends of Tibet movement, remarked that the book arrives ahead of The Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday in July. Das shared, “This is likely to be a unique book on the struggle of a land, reminding the world community that there is nothing as painful as losing one’s own native land.”

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