Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
We can walk it out
Guided walks are an energising antidote to the ennui of recurring lockdowns
It was a dark and noisy night. I stood on the pavement outside the erstwhile Minerva cinema with a group of friends with whom I usually engage via food, drink and Whatsapp. On this particular evening, however, we had signed up for a guided walk around Mumbai’s Grant Road and Mumbai Central neighbourhoods, whose history includes iconic single-screen cinemas, key locations from the freedom struggle, and a muchdocumented red-light district that still survives. From the shuttered office of the horror-peddling Ramsay Films to a urinal under Kennedy Bridge, immortalised by Manto, the walk was a reminder that our ragged cities still have racing hearts—and eulogised bladders—beneath their soulless exteriors.
Billions of blue blistering barnacles!
The French word flâneur, used for a man walking about town, paying attention to what’s going on around him, has gained currency the last decade or so. A flâneuse myself, it’s been the daily walks around the neighbourhood that have helped me keep myself together during the pandemic. Every little sign of life in a locked-down street—from the clatter of a garbage truck to the barking of pup—was a boost in those eerie days of total lockdown. Now, as we emerge from yet another wave of the indefatigable virus, I’m hungry for guided walks around the city as if afraid that everything will disappear once more if we let it out of our sight.
There’s a special kind of thrill when a walk combines human and natural history. A shorewalk I attended (conducted around Haji Ali right before the six-hundred-year-old monument was obscured from view by hectic construction work for the coastal road) was a real eyeopener and toe-slasher. As our group marvelled at the abundance of life in inter-tidal pools, from hermit crabs to corals, I cut my foot on a barnacle—sharp, tenacious crustaceans that secrete one of the most powerful natural glues. Blistering barnacles, indeed.
The chamber of secrets
A friend and I recently visited the Thane wetlands, where flocks of flamboyant flamingos fly in every winter. Annoying alliteration aside, it was a treat to swap the usual walk for a boat ride, with the winged migrants flying overhead like a fluttering blanket of pink and black. “Do you know Merlin?” asked an enthusiastic lady seated behind me as I struggled to tell the pipers from the shrikes. “Hello,” said I, to the lady sitting next to her, thinking an introduction was being made. She was, instead, referring to a birdidentifying app. More fool me. The guide, meanwhile, was busy with passengers imploring him to ride closer to the flamingos. Unfortunately, any dreams of a quiet boat ride were shattered by a cacophony of insistent demands and emphatic refusals.
Walking through the dazzling hallways and chambers of the BMC headquarters, opposite CST, open to the public for the first time in 128 years, was an enthralling experience. A mix of Gothic and Indosaracenic styles, it mostly made me feel like Hermione at Hogwarts. Who needs those stuffy mystery rooms when you can have magical mystery tours?
AS OUR GROUP MARVELLED AT THE ABUNDANCE OF LIFE IN INTER-TIDAL POOLS, FROM HERMIT CRABS TO CORALS, I CUT MY FOOT ON A BARNACLE
Make It New
You think you know Goa, and then you’re taken by surprise by a secret pond, a stunning fish thali, or that college mate you’ve been avoiding since 2006, unavoidably there at the flea market. Last December, I had the chance to see the churches of Old Goa through the eyes of a local student. As is often the case, a relatively modest structure often charms you more than the most magnificent architecture. The Chapel of St. Catherine, built by the Portuguese conqueror Alfonso de Albuquerque in 1510, is a Baroque relic with simple interiors and an unfussy altar, from whose high ceiling colonies of bats hang like gravity-defying priests.
A good guide shines a light on something you may have seen a thousand times before, without giving it any thought. The Imagist poet Ezra Pound’s slogan, Make It New, which became a sort of manifesto for the modernists, captures this feeling well. From time to time, we need to burst our air-conditioned bubbles of comfort and rediscover our surroundings, not just as content-seeking Instagrammers, but as participants. Emboldened by my experiences, I’m tempted to conduct my own local tour, filled with peculiar observations, absurd digressions and a pub pit stop. So exciting.
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pandemic, they have 30k users across 28 different countries, and two volumes of music, each with 13 songs.
This global effect was a result of the pandemic: Nirvaan’s programmes had to be online-only during the lockdown, which gave many people access to his content from wherever they were in the world. The programme allows students to pick songs based on their needs—since each song is planned to work on a different skill—and teachers access lesson-planning features and build their own lesson plans.
Access is key
“Teachers also need access to instruction and must learn to analyse how well kids react to the content,” says Nirvaan. “Music taps parts of the brain that affect cognitive, emotional and physical aspects for the specially-abled. The rhythmic elements in songs such as scales, keys and frequencies can elucidate reactions. The call response exercises in vocals help memorisation skills. These are fundamental skills necessary for the development of a child. Each song has specific scientific backing to it.”
Theratunes has helped 11-year-old Arjun, who has Down Syndrome and attends a school for intellectually challenged children. “He had trouble speaking and sharing in class, and was easily distracted. After 12 lessons, his interactions improved,” says Nirvaan, recalling his trip to a village called Soda on the outskirts of Jaipur, where they met about 40 pre-teen schoolchildren and did a session with them with great results.
“Many people in India don’t believe in self-help or aspects of therapy that help individuals improve themselves. Music is ingrained in the culture of India. But when people think of music they only think about entertainment, not the fact that it can help as a form of therapy,” points out Nirvaan.
So, is India ready to embrace music therapy? “India is modernising as a society,” he accepts.
Nirvaan’s aim is to implement music as a regular part of the curriculum in public schools. “There’s a perception that music is not a subject, but it’s crucial that people are heard, and music helps give them a voice,” he says. “Theratunes is my passion project, but I don’t intend for it to remain simply that,” he concludes, adding that, with respect to college, he is likely to study psychology entrepreneurship.
karishma.kuenzang@hindustantimes.com Follow @kkuenzang on Twitter and Instagram