Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Photo/Atul Kamble

Mom's eye view

Mothers watch keenly from afar as their wards compete in the B-U-16 MSSA table tennis tournament at Maharashtra Kamgar Kalyan Mandal Hall, Elphinstone Road

Mumbai police in the spotlight

Veteran photographer Pravin Talan has, over the past decade, shot almost the entire gamut of special forces, and yet, he says it's the Mumbai Police calendar that excites him the most. This year, for the first time, women cops grace the cover. "It's been seven years since I launched the first 16-page calendar and I thought there will be nothing new to showcase the next year, but year after year I find new exciting and fascinating aspects of the force as they continue to evolve with times.

This year, we have included lesser appreciated acts of the police such as animal rescue, and how they handle people on sea fronts, and also shot the Nirbhaya squad. For me it's not just a calendar, but a journey into the heart of this fabulous city, through the eyes of its unmatched police force."

Series… play some West Indian grit!

Nicholas Pooran, who led West Indies in their last two ODIs

India and West Indies have now competed in 11 ODI series on Indian soil and the hosts have done enough to prove that they have been well and truly superior over the years with an 8-3 record. India have been claiming the silverware since 1994-95 save the 2002-03 series when the visitors secured a 4-3 win in a closely-fought battle. There was a time when it was rare to win a game against the mighty West Indians. Look at the scorelines in the first two series played here - West Indies win 5-0 in 1983-84 and 6-1 in 1987-88. India have won the last seven series on these shores which will not be sweet music to the ears of the likes of Sir Clive Lloyd and Sir Vivian Richards. How we hope the current crop of West Indian cricketers turn out to be half as good as these legends. Sure, we'd love to see India keep on winning, but where's the fun without a keen contest? Hopefully, the T20 contest won't be so one-sided.

Yoga struggler no more

We have been watching and following photographer and producer Atul Kasbekar's yoga journey on Instagram, and we are in awe. He has been sharing how yoga is changing his body and mindset. When this diarist asked him how he's feeling about this journey, he said, "I used to be very competitive, especially in sports. With yoga, I have realised, it's a slow and steady contest with yourself and not with others. It's you vs you. It just explained to me in a deep way - it's a constant struggle and a beautiful one at that. I have always been fairly fit, but that was a gym body, but now I am leaner, and six-seven kilos lighter. I am probably fitter now, than I have ever been, except maybe in my 20s. It's a very glorious feeling to be honest."

A new ‘destiny'

Pic/Instagram

Digital creator, Sejal Kumar who has around 8,40,000 followers on Instagram released her latest original track Destiny on February 11. It's in collaboration with our favourite Colaba girl, Natania, who helped Kumar in writing it. Within a day, the music video, which sees Kumar sing it out in a pink frothy setting, got 27,000 views on YouTube, thanks to Kumar's already established persona as an influencer. Talk about creating a brand.

Exploring environment and conservation through art

The conversation around environment and conservation has received the much-needed impetus with a new exhibition curated by poet and translator Ranjit Hoskote and artist, photographer and environmental campaigner, Ravi Agarwal. The State of Nature is an exhibition-conference-literary forum project that Agarwal has been pursuing since long, says Hoskote. "It has taken different forms already. It began with a conference in 2018, followed by a series of lectures over 2019 and 2020. And then Agarwal invited me to be part of this new phase of his pursuit," he adds. Ecopoetics has been a major preoccupation of Hoskote, making him an ideal collaborator. The show, which began this week, and will continue for the next three months at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya (CSMVS) will bring 17 artists together. "It's not an exhaustive anthology, but more of an invitation to people to see how artists are dealing with the environment. It also addresses the complexity of the issue. Sometimes, when you talk about the environment, you get the idea that it's all about separating your garbage and being suspicious of plastic. But, on the ground it's also closely linked to caste, gender, class and regional asymmetries. For our artists, these are very key questions. So, the environment is not seen as some abstract issue, it is embedded in all these other complex situations." While the three-day conference around the project ended on Saturday, there will be a series of literary discussions over the next few weeks that will see poet Forrest Gander and architect Rahul Mehrotra speak on a range of issues.