Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Love in the time of social media

Actor Richa Chadha poses with a social media frame as beau Ali Fazal looks on at an event in Juhu on Thursday evening. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Kat's hit bull's eye

When Katrina Kaif launched her range of beauty products, some were raving about the quality and pale options, while others were on the fence about its durability.

But her new range of liquid eyeliners has everyone cheering her venture, including Mumbai-based designer Nishka Lulla, who gave her products a thumbs up with an appreciative post. "I usually struggle while applying eyeliner - it's difficult to get right. But the Kay option has a brush. The subtle indigo blue they have to offer is quite great."

Mauro Colagreco in Mumbai

Flying down celebrity and Michelin-star chefs to curate luxurious dinner experiences in India seems to have gained a lot of momentum in the last few years. From Nigella Lawson, Heston Blumenthal, Marco Pierre White, and now, Mauro Colagreco, the genius Italian Argentine chef who heads the three Michelin-star restaurant, Mirazur in France. Mirazur was also voted as the best restaurant in the world by the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2019. Colagreco will be offering a nine-course meal that best represents the philosophy of the award-winning restaurant.

Masters of Marriott and Culinary Culture will be bringing Colagreco to The St Regis Mumbai on March 7. While you might not get to try his pigeon from Marie Le Guen with wild strawberries, Colagreco will be offering other signatures such as the fish lotus, goat cheese ravioli, and smoked eel and caviar tartlet amongst others. He will also debut a new dish inspired by his trip here, and plans to use local ingredients and cooking techniques.

Bringing Kolami alive

Today is International Mother Language Day. It's an event that not-for-profit publisher Pratham Book's initiative StoryWeaver observes every year. This year, they invited volunteers to host reading sessions for children in their mother tongue from from their digital repository of multilingual storybooks between February 14 and 23.

A reading event in Yavatmal

They also announced the release of open digital libraries in 16 minority languages that have limited or no children's literature - like Kolami, an underserved, tribal language spoken in parts of Maharashtra and Telangana. Suzanne Singh, chairperson, Pratham Books, said, "Children love stories and they are an important part of their growth and development. They need storybooks that they can relate to and that are in languages that they speak and understand."

Yeh dikha diya

Aditya Joshi, a 23-year-old artist and architect, has designed a T-shirt with 'Hum Dekhenge' printed on it, which the likes of Imaad Shah have purchased to show solidarity with the anti-CAA protesters. But he has gone a step further by morphing photos of Bollywood celebrities like Abhishek Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan wearing the same T-shirt, to mock their silence ov­er the protests.

"It's ironic because these are the celebs we look up to, and they haven't spoken up in these times of turmoil," Joshi told this diarist about his tongue-in-cheek effort.

Jazz from New York in Mumbai

It's an exciting time to be an Indian musician in another land. Like Delhi boy Shubh Saran, whose intricate compositions fuse sounds from modern jazz, neo-soul, and rock with classical and contemporary Indian music.

Now based out of New York, Saran is bringing a unique blend of jazz, rock and future fusion with New York duo Sungazer comprising boys YouTuber and bassist Adam Neely and drummer Shawn Crowder, to Mumbai in early March at G5AFoundation for Contemporary Culture.

"My band had an incredible time touring India in 2018. Since then I've been back for a few solo workshops," shared Saran. Neely added, "I am thrilled about my debut. Shubh told me about his last tour and the overwhelmingly warm and positive reaction they had has me enthused. We are dedicated to creating an ecosystem where different artistes are can come together to create new work that is bold and experimental. With Subhgazer, the two bands are doing exactly that and we're quite excited about it," Ishan Benega, associate artistic director, G5A, told this diarist.

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