Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Shadab Khan

Who needs the mask more?

A driver lounges with his mask pulled down at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, even as the graffiti next to him serves as a reminder to not do that.

What an idea, Darshak!

Darshak Mehta with Greg Chappell

Darshak Mehta is one of the most well-known Indian-born cricket personalities living in Australia. Sydney-based Darshak, 63, is also involved in various charities and was chosen by Greg Chappell to write an Introduction to his last book, Fierce Focus. Recently, Darshak was interviewed by an Australian website, stump to stump.com and his answers revolved around his background in the game - playing as a leg-spinner for Matunga Gymkhana, Dadar Union and of course Cricket Club of India - who he represented on tours Down Under. He was also asked about his format preference and as expected, it is Test cricket. "Everything else is mostly rubbish," he says. But Darshak also had a view on franchise-based Twenty20 cricket and urged the men who run Australian cricket to, "stand up to the BCCI and permit Aussie cricketers to play in the Indian Premier League only on a reciprocal basis, if Indian cricketers are allowed to play in our Big Bash League." Now, that will be a big wicket to claim, but a good idea all the same.

Documentary on cow vigilantism bags international nomination

Twenty-two-year-old Mumbai-based filmmaker Maitreya Sanghvi's college project on cow lynching took on a life of its own, when it was recently nominated for Best Documentary in the Indie Shorts Mag Short Film Festival. Indie Shorts Mag is an international publishing agency, which celebrates the best of cinema. As part of its sixth anniversary, it launched a short film festival, taking in entries from across the world. Sanghvi started working on his film, titled Gau Premi, a couple of years ago, while still in degree college. "After my graduation, I got the time to return to the editing table, and it became the short it is today. The reason for picking the subject for our film was the political climate and the rise of cow vigilantism that followed. With the recent fatal lynching of Pehlu Khan in Alwar on our mind, we decided that this was an issue worth digging into," he says. The documentary follows a group of gau rakshaks in Rajkot, who conduct "raids" on suspected cattle smugglers and dissects how and why they do what they do. Sanghvi says the nomination was an "absolute honour". I really couldn't have expected more."

The power of love letters

Nikhil Katara

Mumbai-based writers Nikhil Katara and Himali Kothari's theatrical production Letters of Love by Readings in the Shed has been selected to be featured in the online line-up of Cleveland-based BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival to be held from July 22 to July 31. In the show, a group of thespians read out the private love letters of famous people, including Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde, and Albert Einstein. "This last year has been so stagnant in terms of performance and being able to put our work out there.

Himali Kothari

Amid that, to be selected for an international theatre festival with the scope of viewers that could be anywhere in the world watching from their homes on their screens is exciting. It motivates us to keep creating with the belief that it will reach the audience," says Kothari. Letters of Love was recorded at the NCPA during its live performance on February 14, 2020. As a part of the Borderlight Festival, the show will be available for online viewing.

Check out this wild, wild podcast

Ishika Ramakrishna

Ishika Ramakrishna and Akshay Surendra have started The Thing About Wildlife, a podcast that brings to life behind-the-scenes stories of ecologists, researchers and educators, digging deep into their lived experiences from the field of wildlife biology and conservation. Their aim is to turn away from facts and figures, and work their way towards deeper conversations not just about animals, plants and landscapes, but also about personal issues faced by these individuals, like early motivations, sense of place, their experiences working in the field and encounters with sexism, harassment, mental health, mentorship and education. So far, they have episodes dedicated to the Asian elephant in which they speak to Dr Nishant Srinivasaiah, a behavioural ecologist who has worked with the animal for over a decade and who has stories to share from his fieldwork, and others on the conservation of otters and inclusive ecology.

Up and up

The New York artiste based in Mumbai, Jay Kila, has released his new EP, No Free Tracks, and it is the first Indian hip-hop EP to be released as NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This three-track bilingual EP has been created by Kila, rapper K-Nav (New Delhi), and producer NLYTN (Mumbai). The EP is meant to spread awareness about the opportunity that the NFT space provides for artistes: to take back control and gain financial freedom. Kila tells this diarist, "We created this EP because we believe that NFTs can provide an answer to the age-old question of how do you earn a living as an artiste. Musicians and content creators are burning themselves out, damaging their mental health trying to get a million streams or views, but that still may not be enough to cover the rent. This needs to change."