<h2>Vande mataram!</h2>
<p>Models dressed in white at the Gateway of India shoot a video with the National Tricolour ahead of Independence Day.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Malhar is back with a bang</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Xaviers-da_e.jpg" alt="During the fest held last year" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p>Mumbai&rsquo;s colleges are abuzz as festival season resumes. St Xavier&rsquo;s annual celebration, Malhar kicks things off on August 14. The theme for the 2023 edition is Eye of the Storm. &ldquo;The idea is to project calmness amidst the chaos,&rdquo; said Sulakshana Phoda, organiser in charge of public relations for the festival. &ldquo;Organising a festival can often be chaotic, and the theme emerged from the idea of finding calm within this chaos,&rdquo; she remarked. As always, the festival will add a new virtual dimension to its curated list of events in an arcade gaming competition. &ldquo;There is another event with a focus on stand-up and improv. These are not our usuals, and our line-up of guests and judges reflects the same,&rdquo; she told this diarist.</p>
<h2>Let the kisses fly</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/India-map_e.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p>From conversations around a certain flying kiss, columnist Paromita Vohra put it poignantly when she recently posted Agents of Ishq&rsquo;s illustration of the word, kiss written in Indian languages that was created in support of 2014&rsquo;s Kiss of Love campaign in Kerala. Vohra shared, &ldquo;At the time, there was moral policing that a kiss wasn&rsquo;t a part of our culture. But if there&rsquo;s a word in the language, it&rsquo;s obviously part of our culture.&rdquo; She added, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s contradictory how ordinary acts of affection are sexualised and consensual relations are criminalised yet complaints of sexual violence are rarely given justice.&rdquo;</p>
<h2>Bandra&rsquo;s big cricket fan</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Bandra-Station_e.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p>Yesterday, commuters at Bandra Station, platform 4, were reminded by a sweet gesture to catch the fourth T20 match between India and West Indies. Just as we alighted from the train, we spotted a man borrowing a bar of charcoal from his cobbler friend, and started writing: &lsquo;4th twenty20 match, India v/s West Indies, time 8 pm. &ldquo;I love T20s. It&rsquo;s my favourite format of cricket matches. And it&rsquo;s the fourth one. I want everyone to watch it, and so I am writing this. I will watch it on my friend&rsquo;s phone too,&rdquo; the differently-abled man, whose name we later learnt is Hanamantha, told us. By then he had attracted a pool of passersby, who were equally curious about his note. &ldquo;I used to love studying. See? Handwriting achi hai na?&rdquo; He asked with the excitement of a toddler.</p>
<h2>Dosti, yaari ka journal</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Workshop-ga_e.jpg" alt="Participants craft their journals at a previous workshop" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p>If you&rsquo;ve always wanted to journal but didn&rsquo;t know where to begin, a cool workshop by Punekar Renuka Patil (below) might be a good place to start. The founder of art and creativity platform Kioku Creations, she is bringing a fun journalling idea to Mumbai this Sunday. &ldquo;The theme is friendship,&rdquo; she reveals. The event will also simultaneously take place in Chennai. &ldquo;Journalling promotes creative thinking.</p>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Renula-Patil_e.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p>There is no age limit because it generates a curiosity about how the same prompt would be interpreted by the others. Like this one time, when the prompt was free, a child&rsquo;s journal was all about junk food, while his grandma&rsquo;s was about Indian Independence.&rdquo; The workshop will have a table filled with stickers and stationery. The only rule, Patil said, is to not make a plan before you begin. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like how a sticker looks, replace it with another.&rdquo; Head to @kiokucreations for more details.</p>
<h2>High on hip-hop</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Hip-hop_e.jpg" alt="A still of the hip-hop group from the dance competition in Arizona" width="1280" height="720" /><br /><strong><em>A still of the hip-hop group from the dance competition in Arizona</em></strong></p>
<p>From Thane to Arizona, Mumbai&rsquo;s hip-hop champs are going places. The latest group to make a mark is The Lions crew at the recent World Hip Hop Dance Championship held at Phoenix, Arizona. &ldquo;Representing our country on the world&rsquo;s largest dance platform alongside 55 other nations is an honour,&rdquo; said Balaji Kamble, founder and coach of the crew. The team qualified for the semi-finals of the championship that concluded on August 6. The secret, Kamble told us, was their disciplined approach. &ldquo;Our success was paved with hours of rehearsals each day. Maintaining discipline and sticking to our routine was essential, and we approached every challenge with determination and resilience,&rdquo; he shared with us.</p><p>
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Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

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Malhar is back with a bang

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