Water hyacinth is a free-floating aquatic plant, also known as “terror of Bengal”, due to its invasive growth tendencies.
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Curated by Jane Borges, Nidhi Lodaya, Mitali Parekh, and Armand Joseph Colaco
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To explore music and cultures beyond borders, composer and multi-instrumentalist Bonny Abraham has started a band called the Bonny Abraham Ensemble. His debut track and its music video was released on June 21, on the occasion of World Music Day. This instrumental song features Sinem Hondroglu, who is part of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Istanbul State Modern Folk Music Ensemble. He plays a Turkish woodwind instrument, ney. Abraham is known to be one of the few Indians who specialises in playing the Arab oud and the Turkish saz instruments. The video, which shows the six-piece band with their exotic instruments such as handpan, oud, saz, ney, daf and barbuka has been shot by Illickal Kallu, in Kottayam.
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Back to the classroom with George Saunders
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While it might be a delight to read Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders of the Lincoln in the Bardo fame, it’s also an absolute treat to listen to him. Even better, attending a master class by him. Saunders, who has for many years been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at the Syracuse University, had last year published A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, an extension of his lectures series. He looked at seven short stories by Russian authors Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, and Nikolai Gogol, and offered a deeper exploration into what makes their fiction so powerful. The audio book is narrated by Saunders himself, with stories read by Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong, and Renée Elise Goldsberry. It is a brilliant experience for students of literature and creative writers as well. He breaks down the short story, page by page, unfolding the many layers of storytelling, from character and setting to plot and movement of the narrative. This one empowers you with tools to tell a good story.
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A song a day
City-based ambient music artist Sugam Khetan has undertaken a new project: Releasing a new song every day, for 365 days. Khetan, who has previously released music under the monikers of 4lienetic and 2 AM, is already more than 60 songs deep into the project. Released under the name Maybe It’s Only Us, all the numbers fit within Khetan’s interpretation of ambient music, influenced in turns by noise and drone. The project is an interesting experiment in seeing an artist being forced to produce new content every day, and the results are often surprising—some tracks spill out of the generally accepted parameters of their genre. The mood is decidedly brooding, and the soundscapes seem sprawling, yet most songs fall within the five-minute mark. There is still much to come, with 10 months left in this year-long project. You can keep up on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and the project’s Instagram and YouTube pages.
Chew tree sap
Unable to pass by anything weird looking without trying it out, this square cardboard pack of Gud Gum (R90) caught our attention at a hip Bandra cafe. Assuming it was jaggery that put the “gud” in the gum, we turned the pack over to find that tree sap was used to make this chewing gum, which also claims to be sugar-free, plastic-free and vegan. It comes in four flavours—charcoal + spearmint, raspberry, strawberry and lemon; each pack contains about 15 pellets. We tried the first two flavours and while the gum is satisfyingly chewy, the flavour runs out pretty quickly, leaving you masticating like a cow. Still, it’s a good hispter alternative to the usual chewing gum.
Available at Greenr Cafe, Bandra
From the Seven Sisters, with love
Buy directly from the artisans of Northeast India with Connecting NER (CNER) and their unique home décor items made using five raw materials, namely cane, bamboo, kauna reeds, water hyacinth, and elaichi stem. Kauna reed is a grass-like plant found abundantly in Manipur and is used to make anything from mats, to hats to bags by the locals. Water hyacinth is a free-floating aquatic plant, also known as “terror of Bengal”, due to its invasive growth tendencies.
The systems of this plant are used to make home décor items such as lampshades, planters, trays, coasters, cushion covers, tissue boxes, table linens, and much more. The site hopes to open Northeast India to the world through its indigenous, heritage crafts. The products start from Rs 1,000.
connectingner.com
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