Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Pic/Nimesh Dave

Break on through to the other side

Staff of a restaurant in Dharavi take a breather from work.

Bricks of love

Potrait of Bhatnagar and his wife

On his 33rd birthday last week, LEGO designer and founder of Indian Film Project, Ritam Bhatnagar came home to a colourful surprise. When his mother, Shikha, opened the room to a portrait of his wife and himself made of 4,000-odd LEGO bricks, Bhatnagar was left speechless. "She must've taken at least eight days to finish this," he told us. Recalling his mother's journey into this puzzle-filled world, he takes us back to the lockdowns when his mother picked it up after getting inspired by his passion. "Initially, she probably took five times more than an average person would, but gradually she figured it out," he said. Further revealing about the complex form of art, he told this diarist, "To create a portrait out of these bricks means first pixelating them, finding the right picture according to the colours available and then assembling them. One misplaced brick or colour can make it fall apart."

City's originals

Muzzammil Hamidani

That is how businessman Muzzammil Hamidani sees himself. "Like people come from villages to the city; for us, the city itself is our village," he told this diarist, adding that his forefathers have lived here since 1880. And thus, to conserve whatever that still represents olden times of the modern Mumbai; he uses his free time to travel around on his cycle, photographing structures and buildings. "It is a miracle that there still exists a bungalow in 2023," he says of his recent collection of old buildings from Grant Road. Hamidani has captured Karim Manzil near Bharat Nagar, which is also dubbed as the ‘White House', owing to its white-washed façade, and Sayeed Building, built in 1915 in Art Deco style, among other buildings. "These buildings are beautiful despite being old and dilapidated. I love to capture them as memories. They remind me of the Mumbai we've grown up in," he signed off.

Sayeed Building in Art Deco style; (right) close-up of Karim Manzil

To new discoveries

A recently released research paper by Asian Journal of Conservation Biology brought to the fore a newly discovered species of gecko (Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820; Squamata: Gekkonidae) in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Among the group of nine researchers and co-authors was BNHS' deputy director Rahul Khot. The species was discovered after running a morphological (external features and measurements) and DNA test, Khot explains. While these species are currently known to be found only in Madurai, Khot thinks that it is a very prominent finding. "Given the current habitat utilisation and development drives, such findings stress on the importance of biodiversity and conservation."

Rahul Khot

Back in Mumbai

One of the paintings in the exhibition; (right) Mathew Krishnau

Based on his childhood memories from Bangladesh, and annual visits to India, London-based artist Mathew Krishnau's first solo exhibition in India started last week in Colaba's Jhaveri Contemporary art gallery. "On a Limb focusses on my paintings of two boys playing outdoors - climbing trees, exploring nature, and sometimes putting themselves in dangerous or precarious positions. The two boys are based on my brother and me. The title also refers to the psychological state of being out on a limb, going too far and becoming unstable," the artist reveals, adding that he has visited Mumbai many times - including in 2010, when he encountered Anish Kapoor's large cross-site exhibition. "It's wonderful to have a solo show in their gallery in Mumbai," he shared with this diarist.