Pensha

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the US Consulate General, Mumbai, are organising Green Heroes Film Festival in Mumbai on Tuesday. This programme will recognise individuals and organisations who work relentlessly at grassroots level to protect the environment in their neighbourhood and communities. As part of this effort, TERI identified Green Heroes in five cities in western India — Ahmedabad, Indore, Mumbai, Panjim and Pune — and enabled up-and-coming storytellers to make films on the initiatives of Green Heroes through workshops in each of these cities. The programme has resulted in 22 insightful, heart-warming short films on the heroes who are working in diverse fields such as forest and water conservation, composting, wildlife protection, waste management and clean energy. Four of them are from Pune — Jeevit Nadi Foundation, Sunil and Priya Bhide, R Cube, Charity Store and Sharad Shinde from Mawal. Three Green Heroes share their stories with us: Cause of a riv...

Photojournalist Raghu Rai’s camera trailed Mother Teresa for five decades. In his pictorial biography, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, you get to see the iconic images of the lady who was mother to all The diminutive figure draped in a white saree with a blue border was a personification of compassion and love. She continues to be so even after her death. In his pictorial biography, Saint Teresa of Calcutta — A Celebration of Her Life & Legacy, (brought out by Aleph Book Company) photojournalist Raghu Rai captures the story of Mother Teresa and the work of Missionaries of Charity. Rai’s camera was a witness to the daily and eventful happenings in the life of Mother and did its job faithfully, adhering to instructions of Mother — to respect the dignity of the poorest of the poor. Divided into three sections — The Canonization of Mother Teresa, Her Life and Work and Her Legacy, the book also has an appendix with a chronology of events in Mother’s life. The book, which is scatter...

For someone who takes a long time in opening up, chatting up random people in the queue while boarding the ferry from Dabhol-Dhopave and then to Tawsal-Jaigad, surprisingly became easy. Away from prying, judgemental eyes, it seemed perfectly natural to lie down in the shade of a shut kirana shop or walk barefoot on the cool grass. Sitting on a blue tarpulin sheet under a makeshift bamboo roof, it was easier to understand a farm hand’s woes about the ‘winter’ in Konkan which spoils the fruit crop. Two Health Departments workers wait for passengers with kids at Tavsal jetty These impromptu halts, while doing a l00-km run on a daily basis for six days along the coastal Maharashtra, were postcards to myself; the images were familiar, but they were dipped in different hues. When you are working in a newsroom, you are inundated mostly with stats and a not-so-rosy picture of the world around you. This is not to say that what we saw during this trip from Alibaug to Goa was free of dark cl...

What makes a home? The people, of course. And also the surroundings. Can a house made of cement and concrete find itself in harmony with the greenery around in a forested area? Not really. Gone are the days when every region had its unique architecture, suiting the landscape and lending it an exclusivity. For instance, Konkan was known for its chiryachi ghara (red brick houses) and Marathwada for its dhabyachi ghara (flat-roofed houses). Now, these structures are few and far between. Cement and glass constructions have mushroomed both in rural and urban landscapes. We have gone wrong trying to bring in a ‘homogeneous’ look, and, more importantly, ignoring the region’s climatic conditions. The house of a farmer at Palsunda village which won the Design Jatra team HUDCO prize It was this which acted as a trigger point for architect Pratik Dhanmer when he returned to his village Murbad near Dahanu. “My village consists of 70 houses. In the past, we relied on traditional architecture — ...