Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

A Delicate Balance: A daily-wage worker juggles his familial and work responsibilities as he walks down a street in Sion. Pic/Sameer Markande

Big in America

Novelist Samit Basu's The City Inside has been acquired by Tordotcom Publishing, a leading science fiction and fantasy publisher. The story, Basu shared, is a rewrite of his 2020 title Chosen Spirits, which was a finalist for the JCB Prize for Literature. "The novel is set in Delhi, 10 years from now. It follows two young people who are trying to live their lives in a reality marked by surveillance, distraction and chaos," he said.

No aaram for aam this year

Even as mango lovers in the city are eagerly digging into the season's early spoils, Gaytri Bhatia, environmental analyst and founder of Vrindavan Farm, a sustainable organic farm located in the outskirts of the city, warns that the city may receive much less than its usual share of mangoes due to weather pattern changes.

"Mango trees are very fickle and vulnerable to weather changes. While it is normal for mango trees to flower and a lot of those flowers to not turn to fruit, this year has specifically been marked by unusual weather. Extreme temperature changes between day and night nipped the first round of flowers in the bud. Although lush, the second flowering was met by unseasonal showers in February, which caused them to burn out and contract fungus," she told us. The third flowering was small, and the weak fruit were knocked off by strong winds.

Now, the farm is witnessing the fourth flowering, which will bear fruit during the monsoon. These fruits will be more susceptible to flies. The flies lay eggs in the fruit, which makes the final produce ridden with worms. "By now, we should have been seeing almost mature-sized fruit, but we're a long way from that. The yield is also much lower than the past years," observed Bhatia. Many mango farmers from Ratnagiri responded to Bhatia's post, noting that they had experienced absolutely no flowering this year, while one from Bengaluru reported delayed flowering, but a promising crop.

"In recent years, both the heat and cold have progressively become extreme, which has negatively affected several other plants as well," Bhatia said.

Back with a tune

Evergreen hit-maker Baba Sehgal recently dropped a brand new anthem on his social media pages. Aptly titled Return of Corona, the song features Sehgal's signature catchy beats. The simple lyrics drive home the role that the public's irresponsibility and ignorance has played in the recent spike in numbers. "While I have been releasing several songs through the last year, I wanted to do my bit to encourage people to stay safe, especially with cases and the death rate rising every day. I decided to add a dose of humour," he told this diarist. From flouting social distancing norms to holidaying in the Maldives, no errors of judgment have escaped Sehgal's lyricism. The music video has been shot entirely at Sehgal's home. Check it out on instagram.com/babasehgal.

It was all yellow

Coldplay's iconic song is possibly an apt way to describe Mumbai's streets in the summer, which are covered with yellow flowers. With social media flooded with pictures of these blooms, this diarist reached out to naturalist Renee Vyas to learn that they are called Peltophorum pterocarpum, or copper pod. "These flowers are usually seen in the summer. They are also called peeli gulmohar, because the leaves look like gulmohar. They have a beautiful fragrance too," Vyas shared. The naturalist added that the species is native to eastern Asia and the Andamans "but it's planted all over India because of the beautiful coloured flowers," she informed.

Messy matters on Bandra's streets

Mumbai's burgeoning street art scene was dealt a blow by a campaign launched by Budweiser to celebrate Lionel Messi. The brand commissioned a few murals at Bandra's Chapel Road and, in the process, painted over existing iconic street art.

These include the Anarkali-Madhubala murals by Bollywood Art Project (BAP) and graffiti by Zake and Flyin Munki. Ranjit Dahiya, artist and founder of BAP, revealed that it was only after concerted efforts by street artists and collectives such as St+art on social media that he was contacted by the brand, who apologised to him and promised to commission him to recreate the original murals adorning the walls.