Mumbai diary: MAMI film festival, Amitabh Bachchan's birthday and more

Pratiksha and Bachchan’s birthday
Bollywood superstar Amithabh Bachchan turned 75 this week. It’s a long standing custom for his fans to greet him at his Juhu residence Pratiksha. If Amitabh happens to be in Mumbai on Sunday, he makes it a point to meet his fans and share a few words with them outside his house. The ceremony becomes even livelier if it is the superstar’s birthday. The opportunity was missed this year as the Bachchan family celebrated the special day in Maldives. Shahrukh and Salman are the two other stars who follow the big B in greeting their fans.

A twist in this year’s Diwali celebrations

Diwali celebrations are very special for the Marathi literary world because of its unmatched tradition of special Diwali issues of magazines. The yearly publications, referred to as “Diwali Ank” in Marathi, have supported and molded generations of Marathi authors, poets, publishers and the readers. Poet-lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar takes immense interest in this activity of Diwali Ank. He had edited some Diwali issues a few years back. But, this year city based poet-publisher Arun Shevte’s Ruturang has brought forth a very different facet of Gulzar – his painting! Gulzar started sporting the brush when he turned 80 and has contributed his first painting to grace the cover of this magazine that has completed its 25 years. One would be amazed to see his ease with lines and colours just as he has it with the words.

Marathi films in MAMI
Mumbai Academy of Moving Images’ (MAMI) Mumbai film festival, the city’s own film festival has entered its 19th year. When the festival was started in late ‘90s, it was an endeavor by a few film enthusiasts. It grew in its scope, size and content and expanded manifold as the Ambanis took it over a few years back. This year the festival is titled ‘Jio MAMI’. The Marathi cinema had just started experimenting when MAMI started off and it was inevitable that the experiments would be reflected in the festival. Marathi film ‘Shwas’ was nominated for Oscar awards just around the time when MAMI started. The success made the Marathi films a regular feature of the festival. This year, for the first time, the festival has a completely separate section called Marathi Talkies. Six debut films are to be screened in this section. Kasav, one of the Marathi films screened last year at the festival won national award for the best feature film this year.

Poetic tribute to Gandhi
The Mumbai Press Club decided to pay tributes to the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi in a novel was by organising a multilingual poetry festival this October. Poets from four different languages — Urdu, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati came together at the club to present their poems that caught the pulse of the city. Topics ranging from the ‘Blue Whale game’ to the stampede at the Elphinstone Road railway station  to the political situation in the country, the social media and even a letter to ‘Bapu’ by a student in the fast disappearing Gujarati medium schools of the city featured in the presentation.

Abhijit Mulye

The author is the correspondent of the New Indian Express in Maharashtra.

Email:abhijit.mulye@gmail.com