Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Kuchh pooch na hai kyaA pet armed with rain gear on cyclonic Monday catches the gaze of a stray at Five Gardens in DadarCall of dutyMayor Kishori Pednekar inspects the area around Gateway of India on MondayldquoWe canrsquot do work from home we are on the field for you stay at your home take carerdquo With this tweet the Mayor of Mumbai Kishori Pednekar showed how to walk the talk once again this time on a day when the city was reeling from the most severe cyclone to have hit it in a century Unlike her immediate predecessors Pednekarrsquos handson approach is there for all to see From warning maskless commuters to supporting her fraternity she is a former nurse across Covid19 hospitals and her daylong patrolling yesterday across rainravaged Mumbai itrsquos all in a dayrsquos work for herWoman powerldquoWhen any one of us has an ambition a thought that runs contrary to the status quo there will be naysayers More so when itrsquos a woman who is expressing such a view perhaps because restrictive rules are higher on them than on men In Colors White we are saying to a woman lsquoLet your soul guide you When you break the mould detractors will discourage Keep going on the path you believe in Find your truths and you will find peacerdquo Thatrsquos what Bengalurubased Bharatanatyam exponent Savitha Sastry shared with his diarist about the message behind Colors White part of a trilogy of dancebased films that has now won the Best Director award at Rosarito International Film Festival in Mexico Sastry made the film with her writerdirector husband AK Shrikanth and it is available on YouTube for people to view across the world Our congratulations to the duoHerersquos why Lydian is overjoyedMusic legend Stevie Wonder celebrated his birthday last weekend and British sensation Jacob Collier mdash a multiinstrumentalist who has a selfconfessed lsquomusical crushrsquo on Wonder mdash organised a global challenge where he compiled a set of harmonies asking musicians to use them as the base to record their version of Wonderrsquos track Overjoyed Several Indian musicians including singers Benny Dayal and Vasundhara Vee took part in itBut the person this diarist was most surprised to hear was Lydian Nadhaswaram the 15yearold piano prodigy who doesnrsquot generally sing at his concerts Yet the sort of control that he displayed while singing Overjoyed showed his immense potential as a vocalist too Sathish Varshan the youngsterrsquos father shared ldquoLydian can sing really well but he is shy since his voice hasnrsquot cracked yet and itrsquos thus difficult for him to reach high frequencies But you will definitely hear him sing more often in the future since he has an incredible voicerdquo We canrsquot waitReality checkThe Internet has changed our lives so much that itrsquos hard to tell which is more real mdash our online lives or offline ones Natasha Malpani Oswal founder of production house Boundless Media has tried to capture this dichotomy in an alternate reality series called Brave New World which has been selected for the IndoFrench International Film Festival 2021 and Port Blair International Film Festival 2021 ldquoThe series takes a satirical look at how media impacts our livesrdquo she sharedArt plays its part to provide reliefGanesh Haloi untitled 2007The Indian art community has come together for an initiative called Art Rises for India organised by auction house Saffronart Itrsquos an online fundraiser that features over 120 works of modern and contemporary painters including Ram Kumar and Amrita SherGil All proceeds from the sale will be donated to NGOs including Goonj and Khoj ldquoThis fundraiser has come together thanks to the generous donations of several artists gallerists and collectors We hope to raise a significant corpus of funds and do our small part in helping those in needrdquo said Saffronart cofounder Dinesh Vazirani Log in to saffronartcom on May 19 to purchase a piece