Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Pic/Bipin Kokate

Rising up back on their feet

Youngsters make their way up a wall after taking a dip in the sea near Banganga Tank in Walkeshwar on Wednesday.

To his guru, with love

"I was working with a huge baggage." That's what tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh told this diarist while explaining the immense responsibility he felt while composing the music for a film called Avijatrik (The Wanderlust of Apu). His feelings are understandable. Avijatrik is a sequel to the Apu trilogy, Satyajit Ray's masterpiece, which the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar (inset) had composed the music for. Those are huge shoes to fill, but Ghosh has evidently done it with aplomb, considering he has now picked up the Best Composer award at Montreal Independent Film Festival in Canada for the movie's soundtrack.

Ghosh (below) shared, "[Director] Shubhrajit Mitra filmed it keeping in mind Ray's sensibilities, shooting it in black and white. I think the challenge was to adhere to what had already been achieved by Ray as a benchmark, and keep his own voice as a filmmaker at the same time. It was pretty much the same for me, because Pandit Ravi Shankar was my guru. I have done other films with world music, but I couldn't do that here. The one thing I decided was to focus almost 90 per cent on Indian classical music, with nuances of folk and a touch of western classical."

Back on stage

Through the lockdown, the Bombay Theatre Company (BTC) made waves for hosting live plays on a rather unusual platform for theatre - Instagram's IGTV. Only in February, did they manage to pull off an international production featuring American actors and on April 25, they're preparing for their first physical production at Veda Factory, while hoping that another lockdown doesn't play spoilsport. The play titled The 6pm Struggler has BTC founder Raveesh Jaiswal exercising multiple roles - that of a writer, director and performer. Inspired by Jaiswal's own journey, it's a one-act play that revolves around the dilemma of passion versus profession. "This was due to be staged in April 2020, but was halted due to the lockdown. Although there is much uncertainty, rehearsals are underway," he told us. We wish them good luck.

This skier faces a slippery slope

Gauri Devidayal met Arif Khan when she had gone for a skiing trip to Gulmarg

Gulmarg is a favourite holiday destination for restaurateur Gauri Devidayal, and over the years, she has developed a deep bond with a tea-shop owner there named Yaseen Khan. But it's only this March that she realised that his son, Arif, is a champion skier who is attempting to represent India at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

But he is facing a financial crunch. Devidayal has thus started a fundraiser for him with other well-wishers. "We are nowhere near the target yet, but the idea is to spread awareness," she shared. Log on to gogetfunding.com to lend a hand.

Khanna khazana

What more encouragement can one want for a culinary venture in New York than for ace chef Vikas Khanna to dub it as a "new era for Indian cuisine"? That's how he described Sona, the new eatery in NYC that actor Priyanka Chopra launched recently with chef Hari Nayak and restaurateur Maneesh K Goyal. The restaurant is already the talk of the town, what with Chopra's celebrity status lending it a celebrity tag. "Priyanka has broken every barrier in the US to showcase the power of an Indian woman who is the queen," Khanna said.

Calling all children's publishers

Children reading at Parag centre

Parag is a New Delhi-based platform that fosters the habit of reading among children and young adults. Every year, it publishes the Parag Honour List, which is a curated collection of titles meant for those age groups, published that year. Today is the last call for entries for the 2022 edition, and the organisers are hoping for a better response than what they received last year. "We are hoping that now that things are likely to be more settled, publishers will have the chance to get back on their feet and that they can contribute entries to the next edition in a larger way. Specifically, we are hoping to see a wider set of entries from Hindi publishers," said Parag head Swati Sahoo.