Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Peck the odd one outA rooster makes for an unsual copassenger for a man on his bicycle at Thakur Village in Kandivali on TuesdayReel deal about tabla and sitarIn 2017 Zakir Hussain approached Mumbaibased filmmaker Sumantra Ghoshal with a request ahead of a concert that the tabla maestro was scheduled to perform at G5A auditorium in Mahalaxmi with sitar virtuoso Niladri Kumar Would Ghoshal acquiesce to make a film about the concert ldquoI said that I will do it though I wasnrsquot terribly interested in recording concerts But I also said that I would make something that I wanted to explore and Zakir being Zakir he said lsquoOkayrsquo because he is so secure in his talentrdquo Ghoshal inset told this diaristThe resultant film The Space Between the Notes has now been selected for screening at the New York India Film Festival next month apart from being nominated in the Best Documentary category About one of the themes he eventually touched upon Ghoshal shared ldquoWhat I wanted to explore via the gift of the concert that Zakir presented to me is the relation between Indian classical musicians who donrsquot quite know what they are going to play beforehand but nonetheless end up performing for three hours I wanted to find out what propels them to play off each other like jazz musicians also dordquo Now that makes for a fascinating subjectOn the tableExjournalist Peter Griffin has launched a new series of conversations on YouTube called Table Talk In it he invites people from different walks of life to talk about their relationship and experiences with food such as theatre personality Kirtana Kumar who moved from Bengaluru to live fulltime on a farm ldquoAn upcoming episode features anthropologist Dr Kurush Dalal talking about what ancient Indians aterdquo Griffin sharedAn unfortunate chapter for cityrsquos bookloversThe damaged bookstore after the ficus tree left was uprooted PicFacebookOf all the tragic incidents that took place because of Cyclone Tauktae on Monday the bookstore at Prithvi Theatre in Juhu being damaged will disappoint bibliophiles the most The shop was dealt a blow when the ficus tree located within it was uprootedThespian and Prithvi regular Makarand Deshpande shared ldquoIt has some really quality books whether itrsquos novels or texts for research In fact I think that all the books in my house are from that shoprdquo Herersquos hoping that we see the space back in action in its original avatarWhen help is just a click awayHerersquos your chance to lay your hands on prints that some internationally recognised photographers have created and contribute to a good cause at the same time Delhibased arts platform Offset Projects has started an initiative called Together for Covid19 Aid for which they contacted a bunch of noted shutterbugs including Ronny Sen and Sohrab Hura asking them to contribute prints that can be sold to the public The money thus collected will be donated to the NGOs Hemkunt Foundation and Swabhiman Society ldquoWe wanted to raise funds in a manner that is not limited by artmarket dynamicsrdquo shared Offset Projects founder Anshika Varma Log on to offsetprojectsin by May 30 and choose a print that you likeNaushad on rewindFrom Chhod babul ka ghar to Pyaar kiya toh darna kya music director Naushad Ali or Naushad has given us innumerable hits This weekend the Asiatic Society of Mumbai has organised a tribute to the music icon ldquoItrsquoll be hosted by Kaka JP a veteran of Bollywood music particularly the Golden Era Hersquos one of the founders of the Naushad Sangeet Samiti Kaka has a huge collection of original tracks from which hersquos culled out some memorable pieces by Naushad which hersquoll present with memorable anecdotes about the music director and his creationsrdquo shared vicepresident Yogesh Kamdar Tune in to their YouTube channel to rewind the years