Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Paws and slide

A dog plays on a children's slide at a garden in Churchgate.

Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum to reopen in February

The central hall of the city's oldest museum

You read it here first. The city's oldest museum is all set to reopen its doors to the public in the new year. Confirming the news, Tasneem Mehta, director, Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, shared with this diarist, "We expect to open the main museum building by February 24. External work on the façade will continue but the museum galleries will be accessible to visitors." She added, "Artist Rohini Devasher in the Kamalnayan Bajaj Special exhibition gallery will be a highlight. Devasher has shown here in 2016 in a solo exhibition titled Speculations from the Field, drawing on the museum's collection of geological and astronomical objects, mainly a 19th century Planisphere that inspired a series of star charts created by Devasher and acquired by the Museum. She also showcased her video work Spheres in 2018, as part of the group show, Asymmetrical Objects. Her upcoming solo, One Hundred Thousand Suns, is an international collaboration between Minnesota Street Project Foundation, Gallery Wendi Norris and Project 88, is also inspired by her decade-long interest and research in the natural world and astronomy."

Tasneem Mehta

Additionally, the museum has been in conversation with artist Reena Kallat to present an exhibition in the latter part of the year. Mehta shared, "Our focus continues to be on The Sir JJ School of Art artists who have done exemplary work as well as artists for whom Mumbai has been a muse." She revealed further that collaborations with international museums, as well associations with local institutions will take shape and form in 2024.

Past tense in Matunga

(From left) Nandini Sarkar-Shinde, Rose Marie Savio, Sarah Montague, Deepali Furtado, Aarti Mittal watch on as Savitha Suri shares a nugget on Gujarat's double ikat patola at the Potluck of Nostalgia session. She is holding up Mittal's mother's Paan Bhat patola in traditional red and white. Pic/Shadab Khan

Last Saturday offered an unusual opportunity to the guests gathered at Matunga's craft and textiles outpost Craft Circle, to open doors to rooms they thought they had long shut. The theme of the participatory discussion was nostalgia; "wistful affection for a period of the past", according to the Oxford dictionary. Everyone brought along - or wore - a textile, or cooked a dish that was inextricably linked to a personal memory. And just like that, "handmade" became the hero of the evening.

Mid-day's editor in chief Tinaz Nooshian discusses the sacred fish Ariz in ancient Zoroastrian needlework and sagan ni macchi in Parsi culinary traditions; (right) Rohini Jog of Craft Circle offers Aparna Verma's beri ka gakar, a sort of delicious flatbread made by Marathi families with leftover mawa residue of home-made ghee, to Ami Naik

A Paan Bhat patola possibly woven by an artisan in Patan; a 100-year-old fuscia Konia Benarasi uttariya that a participant's grandmother wore as upper body veil over her nauvari; a graphite toned biscuit-knot crosscut kudai bag hand-knotted by someone's grandmother, perfect for the granddaughter to ferry her laptop once she fixes the snapped handle, and a thorth or Kerala's light bath towel with dyed corners, soft as butter from decades of use. It has cousins in every state - pancha in Solapur, gamcha in Bengal, thundu in Tamil Nadu - because it requires the least expertise to make, offering easy employment even to the lesser skilled worker, we learned from textile researcher Savitha Suri. And then there was a mul saree that reminded the wearer not of summers, but winter afternoons spent on the terrace under the fuzzy warmth of godhadis kantha-ed from battered sarees.

The realisations were many: that not too long ago, everything we owned was hand-made; that the Indian way of life is brimming with tenets now fashionably called green living, and that mapping personal histories is more than just a self-indulgent pastime. It supports inclusivity, recognises cultural diversity and aids inter-generational transfer of knowledge. And if you are a Craft Circle insider, it also offers you a bite of ghee beri ka gakar.

Of pride and no prejudice

Saagar Gupta; Sridhar Rangayan

Well, what's in a name? Apparently, lots. The erstwhile Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, South Asia's LGBTQiA+ film festival, has officially changed its name to Kashish Pride Film Festival. The annual fest will mark its milestone with the 15th edition from June 5 to 9, 2024 at Liberty Cinema in Dhobi Talao. Sridhar Rangayan founder and festival director told this diarist, "The festival started in 2010 when the LGBTQiA+ community was just emerging from the shadows. Over the past 15 years, it has evolved. It is time for the community to take centrestage in society with pride, and that's what is reflected in our festival's name change." Saagar Gupta, director - programming, added, "Pride, as an expression is as much of an individual, as it is of a community and society." This year's festival has the theme, Unfurl Your Pride, which goes with the name change. Gupta said, "It is an invitation to everyone to unfurl their own vision of what pride means to them, whether they are from the LGBTQiA+ community, or the extended families of parents, friends, colleagues and allies."