31 December,2020 10:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Bipin Kokate
Three friends take a selfie in a responsible manner on Marine Drive.
Vinita Agrawal; Sukrita Paul Kumar
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"Appreciating poetry is as much an art as writing it." A new initiative by city-based poet Vinita Agrawal and Sukrita Paul Kumar, a poet an academician from Delhi, promises to live up to its tagline. Titled Ruminating Poetry, the aim is to acquaint people via monthly sessions by poets about the finer aspects of poetry appreciation. The event will be inaugurated this Saturday and each session will be hosted online by Kritya, an international journal of poetry. "We'll start off by talking about why poetry needs to be appreciated, how we need to understand poetry and if there is a right way to do that at all. It's also about delving into the actual meaning and resonance of words in a poem, and understanding the poet through various dialogues and discussions," Agrawal told this diarist. Although the line-up isn't finalised yet, sessions with other accomplished poems on board will take place post February. We like the rhyme of this.
Premium auction house AstaGuru is all set to enter the New Year on a grand note. They will be presenting an auction on furniture and décor on January 27 and 28, and will make it a standalone segment, adding to existing categories of modern and contemporary art, vintage heirloom jewellery and fine silver, etc. The sale will include 50 lots comprising chandeliers from the world-renowned manufacturer Osler, French furniture, satsuma vases from Japan, fine European style marble sculptures, vintage silver and candelabras, among other things. "Our sourcing and curating process is research-based, and therefore the lots that are finally presented through our sales, truly represent the best of the respective segments. We estimate a growth of 15 to 20 per cent with regards to new bidders in each segment," CEO Tushar Sethi shared.
Sana Saeed, Meghna Kamdar and Saby Gorai
An AI-based health and fitness app is launching a month-long virtual fitness festival titled FitFest '21. The festival, which will kick off with a digital dance party on New Year's Eve, will feature numerous activities including daily live workouts, cooking sessions, courses on diet and fitness, celebrity masterclasses, and health quizzes. The roster features prominent chefs such as Meghna Kamdar and Saby Gorai, as well as celebrities including Sana Saeed. "The year 2020 has changed the way fitness is being delivered, with consumers moving away from dedicated spaces such as gyms, studios, and even parks and adopting online fitness services. We saw an incredible surge in our user base in the last year, and decided to start this initiative to encourage people to re-focus on their fitness goals in 2021. Our goal is for fitness to be accessible to all; participants can join at no cost. Additionally, we will be sharing inspiring interviews with users and coaches who have achieved remarkable transformations during the past year," said Tushar Vashisht, co-founder and CEO of HealthifyMe.
A multi-national e-commerce company released data to show how books, e-books and audiobooks sold on their platform fared this year in the country. And not only was Maharashtra one of the top 10 reading hotspots in India but it seems like Mumbai's bibliophiles were on top of their game, too; if you had to stack the number of pages of literature and fiction ebooks they read, it would be equal to the height of 7,148 Gateway of India-s.
While Think Like A Monk by British motivational speaker Jay Shetty emerged as the top new release of the year, titles by Sudha Murty, Ruskin Bond and Paulo Coelho made it to the list of most gifted books this year.
In the latest edition of her History On A Plate classroom series, Historywali aka Shubhra Chatterji (in pic) has invited Aparna Pallavi, who has lived and worked with the indigenous communities of central India, to share insights from her explorations. The discussions in January will revolve around the Mahua tree, through which participants will get to dive into tribal cuisine, culture, and other important conversations centred around indigenous communities. "The Mahua tree is represented as the Tree of Life in Gond paintings. Every part of the tree is used: the flowers are eaten both fresh and dry, the fruit is used to make oil, and the leaves are used to make plates. The four sessions, scheduled on consecutive Saturdays, will also explore how the pressures of development and modernisation have negatively impacted the consumption of Mahua. We will also explore the element of shame around the use of Mahua as food, which arises from outsiders being disdainful about indigenous foods and locals aspiring to eat as we do in urban centres," she shared.
