'12 Artists. 12 Hours. Once in a lifetime Event in Mumbai'

If you belong to the art circle of Mumbai, you have probably heard about this 12-hour-long “art ritual” called ‘Midnight Tea' which will begin at midnight on Saturday, December 22, 2012 at the Tao Art Gallery, Worli and conclude on Sunday, December 23, 2012 at Lakeeren Gallery, Colaba.

For Mumbai Ceremony, there is a broad theme of the elements that one can relate to: Fire, Water, Earth and Air.

The cycles of Fire and Water will be performed at Tao Art Gallery whereas Air and Earth will take place at Lakeeren Gallery, Colaba.

For each 3-hours-long cycle, the participating guests will receive special roles and assignments that will allow them to connect with each other using tea, time and technology.

Image source

It will be interesting mix of predetermined and improvised performances, readings, interventions and the like. There will be fashion designers, textile artist, photographers, writers and game designers.

"The project is built around the traditional Japanese tea ceremony where more than one person can explore the relationship of giving and receiving. We're all projecting ourselves into the world, and if with the help of some instructions we could get all our perspectives to coalesce for at least the duration of the tea ceremony, then that would be amazing. I really believe that at any point in time, people can come together and make magic happen," explains Marin, who has adopted Miko Kuro as her Japanese name.

 Interested parties can RSVP through the event’s website (www.mikokuro.com) or watch the proceedings which will be live-streamed online.

If you want to be part of this fantastic collaboration RSVP here: http://redbird.wix.com/mumbai12#!home/mainPage

Spectacular Red Bull Soap Box Race at Bandra.

What were you doing on Sunday morning at 11am?

If you had come to Bandra, you might have witnessed the most spectacular show in Bandra of Red Bull Soap Box race, the first of its kind at ‘Mount Mary Circuit’.

There were 70 soap boxes participating in this race, all imaginatively man-made, human powered and competed against the clock in a downhill race course, featuring bumps, jumps and curves.

The soapboxes were in the shape of vada pav, pizza slices, snails, animals, private ships, etc. You had to be there to experience the excitement with the crowd of more than 10,000 people and watch each soap box race down the ‘Mount Mary Circuit’.

It was a day of song, drama, creativity and bumpy rides.

And there were attractive prizes too….

Dabbawalla stole the show with their soapbox designed as food dabba and won the first prize of a paid visit to Red Bull HQ at Salzburg, Austria.

Team Tritech, who rode a radio controlled car, won a fully paid experience for Sunburn Goa 2012

Feni Talks team, who rode downhill in a Feni-bottle, won a free entry to the most happening New Year party in town with friends.

Red Bull Soapbox Race has travelled in 77 cities across 40 countries.

What is Red Bull Soap Box ?

Fuelled by creativity and competitive fun, Red Bull Soapbox Race is a non-motorized racing event. Each soapbox must be powered by gravity and imagination, which means no stored power or external energy sources allowed.
The task is to design and build imaginative, human-powered soapbox machines and compete against the clock on a downhill race course featuring jumps, bumps and curves.Teams will be judged on three criteria: speed, creativity and showmanship.

Exhibition on Egyptian Artifacts and Mummy,

image source

If you are in South Mumbai, be sure to visit ‘Prince of Wales Museum’ (now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) at Kala Ghoda to see an interesting exhibition on Mummy called ‘The Inside Story’, that unravels the mystery of the Egyptian Mummy.

 The tour is interactive with the exhibition guide leading you through different Egyptian artifacts, happy to give you a deeper insight on Nesperennub, a priest of the temple of Karak, near Egyptian city of Lusur, "who has himself has been the subject of such a process of discovery, and subsequent scans, along with a detailed inscription left by his son, and have allowed historians to piece together the life of this Thebean resident".

 The exhibition will be displayed for four months and Indians will get an opportunity to encounter a real Mummy.

 Visitors also get to see the ‘Virtual unwrap’ of the mummy in 3d film.

 There is an interesting article on Economic times as well.

 You are not allowed to take pictures although you can take a visual tour of the exhibition here at demotix.com

 

The Day Mumbai Came to a Standstill……

On normal days it’s a crazy street

With hawkers running across the street

Carrying their wares in bundled wrap

Waiting till police van disappear

Back they are on the spot

Shouting and peddling, to sell their lot

There is heavy traffic with blaring horns

Snaking through path in between the crowd

There is noise, there is dust, plastic bags

In midst of feet, carefully we walk.

This is life on Mumbai streets

That moves at its' fastest pace

But now it seems like a ghost city, Men on bike forcing the shop keepers to drop down their shutters, I met a woman on the road who complained that cinema house stopped the movie mid- way and people were asked to go home, I went to market and vegetable sellers were quickly selling all the vegetables at Rs30, there were no hawkers,...no autos on roads, buses were overcrowded, everybody walking at fast pace, Saturday night, in the city that never sleeps, 6pm looked like 2am...Mumbai was mourning for Bal Thackeray out of fear

Bal Thackeray, the man who could bring Mumbai and the entire State of Maharashtra to a standstill by a single command and whose ethnic and communal rhetoric added a strain of perpetual menace to an already fraught metropolis, died on Saturday, November 17. He was86.

On the day of the funeral, more than 2 million people walked silently towards Shivaji Park, while the rest of the city came to a stand-still.

My maid did not turn up for work, but the masseurs dared to walk down the lonely street to earn their hourly wages. People who work from home were not affected but only distracted. There are some families in Mumbai who depend on their daily wages to feed their family and bandh like these affect them a lot, because bills have to be paid irrespective of they making a sale or not.

With no TV, no cinema or any other entertainment, most of the people were on social media venting their emotions, some good, some bad and some very evil.

For me, Sunday was the quality time with my family, we had the whole family under one roof eating HOME COOKED food all Sunday, Bombay bandh was a blessing in disguise...... tomorrow is another day.

Lady Sea Link Dressed in Pink

My friend and I regularly go to Carter Road for evening walk. When tired, we sit on those benches facing the sea. The Bandra-Worli sea link is visible from this point. Last week at around 7:30pm, the sea link was suddenly flooded with pink light.

It looked beautiful, and I got curious. We decided to go for a short drive to Bandra reclamation for a closer look.

I was told that Estee Lauder had taken the task of lighting up the sea link every day between October 5^th to 12^th, in its bid to create awareness about Breast Cancer and to stress on the importance of its early detection.

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link thus joined the league with around 600 international landmarks that were illuminated for this cause.

The campaign works closely with local organization of the region and in Mumbai; it was involved with the Women’s Cancer Initiative- Tata Memorial Hospital and Ogaan Cancer Foundation.

It was a beautiful sight to witness and other  monuments must have looked equally beautiful too.

Burj Al Arab ..Image source

The Arena, Verona, Italy Image source

Tokyo Towers Image source

It would have been a difference experience though, had I got a chance to drive through the sea-link during the week. I had even planned to return to Bandra from South Mumbai but getting caught in the traffic jam was the risk I was not willing to take

Well…next year perhaps…

Bad Poem on Mumbai

If you visit Mumbai, you will never be sad

Mumbai infrastructure is not really bad

You will be happy to walk on its broken roads

Your health problems cured through bumpy zones

Sit in an auto rickshaw, ride through potholed roads

One by one they come out, your kidney stones

No need to go for a massage or to a spa

Travel in Mumbai locals and get yourself squashed, aha!

If you find no room in the town to stay

Under the bridge there is ample space

Mumbai is the urban town,

You can walk in your night gown

During the day or late night

There are always bright lights

Mumbai Infrastructure is not really bad

Its perfect for backpackers

Who like to go on trek

You know?

Mumbai in deep waters

Mumbai is the great city to live in but such a pain during the rains.

I like to escape rainy season every year, and plan my holidays to some other country if I can help it, because although it may not rain for 4 months continuously, but there is always one day during the rainy season when it rains in such a way that the whole city is paralyzed.

Pic:Suresh K K

There has been very low rainfall during this rainy season but then came the downpour, in wholesale.....

This year, I watched Mumbai from Spain and I see Mumbai in knee-deep water…more pictures are in Midday Paper

Happy that I escaped this year from being marooned on the flooded streets of Mumbai……..