| | | Good Morning It’s been a busy week in newsrooms across the country, and if there’s one thing that the 2024 election results proved is that all our voices matter. A person who has made that point repeatedly over the last few years, insisting that even one person asking questions is enough to make a difference, is journalist Ravish Kumar. I saw Vinay Shukla’s award-winning documentary ‘While We Watched’, which follows Kumar through the newsroom at Bangalore International Centre a few months ago, and was struck by the message it sends as well as its unobtrusive, observational style. It’s definitely a film to watch, and it leaves you thinking about the role each of us plays in the kind of news we are being served, whether one is a journalist or not. Filmmaker Vinay Shukla spoke to Uday Bhatia last week about the process of filming, the decline of primetime news, and the streaming release of the film on MUBI. This week, Raja Sen reviews the film and has other suggestions for newsroom shows to catch. If you, like me, don’t plan to watch the swearing-in of the new government, maybe you could pick instead from our list of shows to watch, plan something to do with the help of our weekend diary or decide where to eat this weekend. | | The Great Everest mystery Did George Mallory and Andrew Irvine summit Everest on 8 June 1924, a full 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first successful ascent? One hundred years ago, Mallory and Irvine disappeared while trying to summit the world’s tallest peak, leaving behind many unanswered questions. For Mallory, whose body was only found in 1991, summiting Everest had become both adventure and obsession, and he returned multiple times in the quest. Now, books are being written about Mallory; efforts have been underway for many years now to find Irvine’s body and a camera that he was carrying because Everest experts believe that the camera will unlock the secret of Mallory’s last climb and one of the greatest mysteries of mountaineering. Sujoy Das tells their story and contrasts the spirit of exploration with the venality of modern Everest peak-bagging. Read more. | | Meet Saregama’s Vikram Mehra, the music maker Every corner of the Saregama office on Mumbai’s Grant Road pays tribute to Hindi movies and music. It’s not surprising that Vikram Mehra, 53, the managing director of Saregama, India’s oldest music label, is a huge fan of films and film music, especially from the 1970s and 1980s. Nostalgia and analogue ways of living aren’t very popular, but Mehra is the man who launched Carvaan, a portable music player with a huge backlist of songs that went on to become its most successful product. A big lesson from Carvaan, Mehra says, is that perhaps companies over-engineer products for people who are not ready for them. He talks to Lata Jha about encouraging risk-taking, seeking the opinion of his younger colleagues, and why music-making is not always about technology. Read more. | | | | T20 World Cup: What are drop-in pitches? The International Cricket Council's decision to hold the T20 World Cup matches on untested pitches in New York was risky, but it went ahead anyway in the interest of ramping up viewership in the US. However, the spectacle they got in the opening game, with Sri Lanka getting bowled out by South Africa for 77 on an underdone pitch, could hardly be deemed a great advertisement for cricket. Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and other batsmen took body blows from sharply rising deliveries in the India-Ireland encounter on Wednesday. This fraught saga with pitches began late last year, writes Sumit Chakraberty. Turf grown in Adelaide, shipped to Florida and driven to New York is being used for cricket pitches—and this might be the problem. Read more. | | | | Chennai’s speciality brews get a local twist Chennai, the city known for its fragrant filter coffee, has taken to pour-overs and cold brews like the rest of the country, but cafes here are doing them differently. A clutch of young café owners who discovered speciality brews on foreign shores, are spotlighting coffee from Tamil Nadu, grown in the higher elevations of the Western Ghats in Valparai, Gudalur and Kodaikanal. Most cafés in other parts of the country source their beans from Karnataka, which is a far larger coffee producer. These coffee entrepreneurs are determined to put coffee from Tamil Nadu on the map. Read more. | | SMS pings back to life to cut out digital noise We’re all familiar with WhatsApp fatigue—far too many messages and groups inundating us with information, both useful and useless. Add Signal, Telegram, Slack and DMs from various social media platforms, and one’s phone is always buzzing. This fatigue has made many smartphone users return to the old-fashioned SMS, preferring a slower pace of communication. The growth of RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is likely to make SMS even more popular, writes Nitin Sreedhar. With RCS, text messages will have a richer interface and multimedia support and the experience is closer to what one has on other third-party messaging apps. RCS could also become key to business messaging, given the high levels of fraud in the SMS business messaging sector. Read more. | | Sweet and savoury raw mango dishes from Lucknow A variety of sweet and savoury raw mango specialities are cooked in Lucknow homes during this season, either with mangoes plucked from trees in backyards or bought from vendors who go door-to-door. The most popular use of raw mango in Lucknowi homes is sun-drying the slices and seeds into a khatayi or a souring agent that can be used all year round for curries and dals. A harmony of flavours is crucial to Lucknowi culinary traditions. However, raw mango’s role isn’t limited to being a flavouring agent. Lucknow enjoys aam ki subzi for lunch with dal-chawal, or achraj, a popular dish made with raw mangoes and minced mutton. Taiyaba Ali explores the myriad mango delights, particularly in Lucknow, from sabzis and curries to delicious desserts. Read more. | | A new exhibition follows Aarey’s forest residents A light meter, identity cards and deer droppings may seem misfits at an art exhibition. Yet these items at A Forest in the City: Living within Sanjay Gandhi National Park/Aarey Colony tell stories of the struggles and the culture of people living in a forest within a metropolis. The exhibition, at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay till 17 July, is an outcome of a three-year research project and is a collaboration between activists, institutions, community groups and members, architects, cultural practitioners and archivists. One of the highlights is a huge Warli wall that artist Dinesh Barap, a resident of SGNP, paints live at the gallery. A Forest in the City is an unusual yet powerful exhibition centred on tribal rights and the boundaries of a forest within a city, writes Riddhi Doshi. Read more. | | Does lip oil really work, or is it just another scam? When it comes to lip care, the market is flooded with options. There's lip balm, lip scrub, lip mask, and even lip oil, all promising deep hydration and protection from the effects of weather and pollution. But do you really need to bombard your lips, a delicate skin area, with so many products? Dhara Vora Sabhnani speaks to dermatologists and skincare experts to find that one needs to understand the purpose of each product and avoid the overuse of lip care products. Not all products work for everyone, and misuse can lead to unintended consequences such as dry or flaking skin. For most people, daily use of a good lip balm with a reasonable SPF will suffice to hydrate and protect lips. Read more. | | Shalini Umachandran is the Editor, Mint Lounge. | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written and edited by Shalini Umachandran. Produced by Soumi Pyne. | | | | | | | | |
