Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

A leg-up in life: A masseur helps a morning walker relax his muscles at Shivaji Park in Dadar on Thursday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

May the best woman win

Established to recognise the literary achievement of female writers, the Women's Prize for Fiction has released its longlist for this year. Sixteen titles made the cut; we're happy to see a familiar name. Avni Doshi features in the list for her debut novel Burnt Sugar, which was also nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Other longlisted books include Summer by Ali Smith and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi.

Booker Prize-winning novelist and chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo said the list represented a "wide and varied range of fiction by women that reflects multiple perspectives and narrative styles." The shortlist will be announced on April 28 and the winner, on July 7. Watch this space to find out who bags the top prize.

The high cost of fashion

Today, the fashion industry contributes roughly 20 per cent of the world's industrial water pollution. The manufacturing of a cotton shirt and denim jacket consumes enough drinking water for one person for six years. It's facts like these that photographer Prarthna Singh's recent series for The ReFashion Hub, a collective that raises awareness about water wastage in the fashion industry, highlights. The 10 photographs capture common clothing items and narrate themes of utility, consumption and discarding. "I was struck by how little we think of how our clothes are made or where they might end up. The black-and-white images communicate a quiet moment of reflection and recognition," Singh said.

Art for a cause

On March 10, a charity art raffle and sale is being organised to raise funds and awareness about discrimination and violence against girls and women. Titled A Win For All, the event will feature a curated section of artworks by known artists including Michelle Poonawalla, Seema Kohli, Satish Gupta and Kisalay Vora, among others. Of these, Poonawalla's piece Flutter Fly (in pic) uses a motif that represents metamorphosis, and both beauty and freedom. "Here, the butterfly is a pertinent symbol of hope as we look towards a better future for women and of feminine strength and beauty as well," she told this diarist. Proceeds from the sales will be directed to a non-profit named Breakthrough.

A song and dance

It's a big day for popular dance crew MJ5. The quintet is re-launching itself as a boy band with Bawaal, their debut track that launches today. It's a Hindi track with EDM influences, which has an accompanying video shot in the Maldives. MJ5 consists of R Kartik, Himanshu Gola, Rohit Singh, Vishnu Kumar and Dennis Anthony, five college friends from Mumbai who formed the crew in 2013, gaining limelight after winning a TV reality show that year.

Speaking of the shift towards music, Kartik shared, "While our dance work has largely been influenced by artistes including Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars, we are also fond of BTS and the cult legacy they have formed as a boy band in the millennial age."

Making music on the move

The biggest challenge for folk artistes in India is a lack of visibility and hence, recognition. An initiative named Anahad Foundation hopes to change this by giving artistes a wider platform to showcase their skills. "We're working with folk musicians across the country to produce music videos, which they can use to showcase their art at no cost," managing director Shruti Roy (in pic) said. The team travels to the artistes' villages to record them, which hasn't been an easy task, with sporadic availability of electricity, and a lack of earthing and high temperatures causing vital equipment to shut down.

Founder Abhinav Agrawal joined hands with Gael Hedding, a two-time Grammy award-winning engineer from Mexico to create a mobile kit, appropriately named the Backpack Studio. The kit runs on batteries, eliminating the need for electricity. Even the mics have been selected so that they are not visible in the videos. This innovation will guarantee high production quality, just like a big-city professional music studio, Roy asserted. That's music to our ears.