Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Making head wayA woman seeks blessings from a Ganesha idol placed inside a replica of a local train at Ghatkopar resident Rahul Variarsquos home on Monday Varia made this decoration using ecofriendly material and even created the idol himselfRIP little oneMushtaque Ansari outside Wadia Hospital in Parel PicPradeep DhivarFor a couple of years now Mushtaque Ansari of Mahim has redflagged potholes in Mumbai either tweeting about them or reaching on the spot along with likeminded citizens to draw attention to the dangerous craters On Monday Ansari who had earned the epithet of lsquopothole warriorrsquo lost his 25monthold daughter Haniya at Wadia Hospital in Parel The infant had been admitted just a few days ago for clots in her brain Ansari had been appealing to citizens for financial help as he was struggling to raise approximately 10000 a day medication included needed for his daughter RIP little Haniya All strength to this citizen vigilantewarrior so that he can bear this lossCrossing bordersAlmost four decades after he started Seagull Books in Kolkata publisher Naveen Kishore has now been recognised for the immense contribution he has made towards bridging cultural divides through the medium of literature He has been announced as the recipient of this yearrsquos Ottaway Award which an organisation called Words Without Borders confers on people who work towards promoting cultural understanding through the publication of international literature Seagull Books has done stellar work in the field of translating the works of African Asian European and LatinAmerican authors into English Speaking about the honour Kishore told this diarist ldquoItrsquos always heartening to have onersquos contributions to publishing recognised Itrsquos also special because this award comes on the eve of Seagullrsquos 40th anniversary which we are celebrating next yearrdquoWhen the news becomes poeticChennaibased author and poet Tishani Doshi looks at newspapers somewhat differently than most people She reads them to mine material for poetry which she has now compiled into a new book called A God at the Door HarperCollins India It attempts to capture the zeitgeist of our times and Doshi wrote most of the poems for it during the pandemic ldquoI had been writing poems leading up to this period mainly as responses to news items ranging from the comic to the disturbing to the absurd I was thinking about borders mdash porous and nonporous inner and outer micro and macro the collapse between the you and the I Part of why so many of my poems are responses to news items is because we are bombarded by the news and with greater confinement even more boxed in by the news The language of newspeak is the opposite of the language of poetry mdash it bombards and jolts then deadens and desensitises I see poems as a way to speak back to these headlinesrdquo she shared about her processA deeper understanding of GaneshaGaneshotsav is underway at the moment but how much do you really know about the deity being celebrated If you feel that your knowledge about Ganesha is lacking the Asiatic Societyrsquos Mumbai Research Centre MRC has got you covered They are releasing one video on their YouTube channel every day of the festival which will share more insight into the Hindu god Some of the topics include Ganesha in Buddhism and Ganesha in offbeat destinations ldquoDifferent city colleges including Sophia Sathaye and Wilson Colleges came on board to help with this series apart from independent researchers such as Ashutosh Bapatrdquo shared MRC chairperson Dr Shehernaz Nalwalla Write way for kidsInculcating the habit of reading in children is vitally important to develop them into wellrounded personalities And Katha Books a literary organisation is aiming to do just that with a postermaking competition called Joy of Reading They are calling on kids to create a poster that explains what the pleasure of reading books means to them take a photo of it and send it over email to constestkathaorg The deadline for sending in entries is September 17 and the winners stand to gain gift hampers