Mumbai Diary Saturday Dossier

Musical Event for Braille Literacy Month

Ongoing Braille Literacy Month activities in the city will feature a musical event this evening at the Panini Auditorium in Thane West. Visually impaired flautist Kiran Vinkar, praised by Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam, and Salim Merchant, will perform at a special socio-cultural event for artists with visual impairments.

This event is organized by Team Vision and the Atulya Inclusive Cell of the Joshi-Bedekar College. It will also include an award function for volunteers who have excelled in empowering people with vision loss. “The event also marks the release of a new audiobook platform that will allow users with UDIDs (Unique Disability IDs) access to a large library of audiobooks,” said member Siddesh Nayak. For more information, contact @team.vision.

New Writing Season in Mumbai and Delhi

Writers in the city may want to take note. The National Centre for Performance Arts (NCPA) has partnered with the Soho Theatre, London, for a new writing season in January. This partnership will begin tomorrow with an interactive workshop led by Max Elton and Pooja Sivaraman from Soho Theatre.

On January 13, the venue will host a staged reading of the 2024 Verity Bargate award-winning play, Little Brother, by Eoin Mcandrews. Directed by Rachel D’Souza, the reading will feature performances by Amba Suhasini Jhala, Dheer Hira, and Shantanu Ghatak, among others.

Clowns Without Borders Performance

Today, six trios of clowns will perform Offence 2.0 in Andheri. This performance is the result of a two-month clowning camp in Palghar. “The global collective was founded to bring laughter to those who need it the most,” said Rupesh Tillu, founder of Clowns Without Borders, India.

For the past couple of months, they worked with 19 artists from across India. They performed in Zilla Parishad and Adivasi hamlets in Palghar and will now bring a mirror performance to Andheri. “The job of a clown is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted,” Tillu explained.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize Nominations Open

The New India Foundation (NIF) has opened nominations for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, now in its ninth edition. This award recognizes non-fiction works focused on modern India. Author Aparajith Ramnath won the prize in 2025 for Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya.

“Since its inception, the award has recognized works of in-depth research and intellectual rigor. It honors publications that enhance understanding of India’s past and present,” said Nandini Nair, associate director of NIF. Those interested in submitting works published between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025, can visit newindiafoundation.org before January 31.

Tuber Festival in Thane

Avinash Harad, a community member from Belpada in Murbad, Thane, will join several organizations to host the first Tuber Festival in Thane today. “We have hosted such festivals across Maharashtra, but this is the first festival close to Mumbai,” he said.

Harad emphasized that tubers are a key food group. “As more foods are affected by climate change, they can offer a solution. Unfortunately, there are no government initiatives to help cultivate tubers. The festival aims to educate villagers about their benefits and varieties,” he added.