Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Pic/Kirti Surve Parade

Door-to-Door Service

Two security guards mirror each other as they stand outside adjacent establishments on Turner Road in Bandra.

Jamming with Jimmy and Willow

Mohini Dey (left) performs with Willow Smith (right) on the Tiny Desk concert. Pic Courtesy/YouTube

It took us by surprise when we caught bassist Mohini Dey on NPR's Tiny Desk alongside Willow Smith last week. "It was cooking inside me. They [Willow's team] reached out to me when I moved to Nashville earlier this year. We rehearsed only for a week," the former Mumbai resident shared, over a phone call from the sets of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where the band later performed. "This was my first time playing with Willow, and it was such fun and freeing. She is making some big moves," Dey remarked. The bassist is making big moves herself, with a trip to Zurich to team up with songwriter Simon Phillips followed by a tour of Brazil, Japan and China. "You will see me back in Mumbai in June," she signed off.

Mumbai's birds are calling

(Left) The book features many birds like the night heron that can be spotted in Dadar Parsi Colony; (right) an illustration of the grey hornbill on the cover of the book. Illustrations courtesy/Sushmita Karmakar

Amid the groans from pedestrians grappling with Mumbai's soaring temperatures, birders are having a field day tracking faint chirps lost in the daily hubbub. If you happened to be at the book launch for Of Feathers and Wings by Katie Bagli and Zarin Virji last weekend, you'd be aware that a whole world of avian species nesting in our leafy neighbourhoods comes to life in the summer. "It is a good time to spot birds. Those mentioned in the book are inspired from the ones I spot in the area I reside in - Dadar Parsi Colony. The idea was to show that while some go about mindlessly cutting the trees of the city, there is an entire ecosystem that bears the consequences of their actions," said Bagli. The book is divided into 16 short stories. Each of these features a species of bird and trivia. "All herons, for instance, have a special power down feather underneath their breast feathers. These birds never moult the down feathers; it keeps growing all their lives. The tips of these feathers, however, get easily crushed into dust that reminds one of talcum powder," Bagli shared. Within the pages of the book, you will spot blue rock pigeons, house sparrows, Shaheen falcon, rose-ringed parakeets, black kites and other species. Copies are available at e-bookstores.

Katie Bagli

A Met library card

A page from the gallery's catalogue for an Areez Katki exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Thomas J Watson Library now includes a collection of the city gallery, Tarq's catalogue of exhibitions. "We always create a detailed catalogue for exhibitions, and send it across to curators. We were surprised when The MET got in touch with us to add these to their digital library," shared gallerist Hena Kapadia. This expands the reach of the gallery. "More people can now access the catalogues, and particularly, the artists. It will be read by academics to whom we otherwise would not have had access to," she said.

Hena Kapadia

Prepare for changing tides

From a shark in Palghar, to dolphins somersaulting in the Bandra waters, the city marine life has been a talking point. But the Coastal Conservation Foundation of India (CCF) is focussed on a different issue. The team held a workshop with the officers of the Mumbai range of the Mangrove Cell of Maharashtra to educate first responders on marine mammals stranding. Pradip Patade, co-founder, CCF, remarked, "March onwards, we begin to spot a number of marine mammals beached on the coasts every year. These sessions were an effort to underline rehabilitation and treatment scenarios." The workshop last week was an extension of the foundation's ongoing research on cetaceans. Shaunak Modi, co-founder (inset), added, "The winds begin to change, and seas get rougher by monsoon. The workshop was an effort to be better prepared."

Turn a new record

Shoppers browse for records from the collection at the event

Last weekend, The Revolver Club took its archive of classic records to Pune for the first time. Going forward, the Mumbai-born music community will also introduce their popular event, Recordwala, to other cities on weekends. "Apart from our listening sessions, we would like to introduce a cultural network, where our target would be catering to music collectors," organiser Mihir Lapalikar told us. The Pune chapter displayed a collection of vinyl records, turntables and equipment for sale. "We will focus on the classics that people might want to start building their collection with, like The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd or Abbey Road by The Beatles," he said, adding that the number of listening sessions in Mumbai might also scale up.