Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

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

Starry starry night

Firecrackers light up the sky as people celebrate Diwali in Borivali West. 

Jazz notes from Madras

Vasundhara Vee in performance. PIC COURTESY/INSTAGRAM

After a 10-year stint of serving world jazz on a platter to aficionados in Chennai, jazz enthusiasts Edison Prithviraj and Gavin D’Souza, organisers of the Madras Jazz Festival, are set to bring the groove to Mumbai. The two-day festival, starting December  9, will see artistes from France, Reunion Islands and Germany take the stage with homegrown artistes such as Vasundhara Vee and Shreya B. “We are excited to bring our curation to a city that has a deep-rooted history with jazz. We hope people dance, groove and sing along,” Prithviraj told this diarist.

Letters to Jin

Jin of BTS. PIC COURTESY/INSTAGRAM

As the recent news of Jin receiving nearly 3,20,000 letters from ARMY (Adorable Representative MC for Youth) surfaces, Ayushre A Tari (below), founder of Mumbai BTS, recalls sending a letter to the eldest member of the world-famous boyband BTS, too. She thinks it’s just that the character limit has been extended by The Camp, the app that allows Jin, who was admitted to South Korea’s military last December, to receive letters from his fans. “Previously, if you wished to write more, you’d be required to subscribe to the app,” she said, adding that she used another app, WeVerse, which is a popular choice among ARMY, to send the singer a letter. “Here, Jin appears once in a blue moon to react to the letters he receives. We use The Camp, but only to track when he’ll be back. This December, he will complete 12 months in military,” she said excitedly.

Infinity for Rama

Jatayu tries to rescue Sita. Illustration/Ajinkya Bhasme

Illustrator and author Ajinkya Bhasme’s recent infinity illustration, that features the Indian epic The Ramayana in one infinite loop of artworks, is a hat tip to the timeless tales of Rama’s return to Ayodhya.

“This Diwali, I wanted to use social media to promote such engaging Indian scriptures that make for wonderful literature among the youth using an entertaining yet educative approach,” Bhasme said. He took nearly 60 hours to complete the illustration that begins and ends with Lord Rama’s return.

Sounds like poetry

PIC COURTESY/Saranya Subramaniam

In a first for Bombay Poetry Crawl, the community for poem lovers will give poetry a flow that is free of paper in its three-hour workshop at Method in Kala Ghoda this Sunday. “My aim is to subvert poetry, and return to expressing poetry not just on paper but any surface like match stick, dried leaves, face masks (above), and even jewellery,” founder of the poetry community Saranya Subramaniam said, adding that the practise of writing across surfaces is a different art form by itself.

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