A mixture of the sun and the moon

" I am doing drag since I was a kid. The earliest memory of drag that I can recollect was wearing my mother’s saree and performing for my family.

My name is Suluj which means the sun. I was always in awe of the relationship between the sun and the moon, so I came up with Glorious Luna as my drag name.

Drag literally means dressing up as girls. It is more than femininity. I don’t know if you realize it but all of us are in drag. Like when you want to impress someone, you become someone else. Suddenly you have a new personality. For example, the office goers who suite up every day, that is their drag because they are not the same when they go home.

Sometimes my drag is too political because I want to focus on the problems in the community. I want to give a solution through my art form. It is very easy to love. When you hate someone you really have a big thing in your heart, how do you carry it all the time, I just don’t understand it. If you want to grow as a community, you need to stop hating each other," says Glorious Luna.

Glorious Lune

To be happy or not- the ball is in your court

“I lost my fingers due to burning. I used to live in Khaira village and there was no hospital. I am suffering from this condition since 20 years. One day a man in my village told me about a hospital in Wadala. I went there for the treatment. Since then, the pain is less. The doctor told me that there is no treatment available for my condition and it is non-communicable. If I touch you, you will not be affected. This condition does not stop me from anything. I love to cook. I make chapattis, mutton and fish. Fish is my favorite. Earlier I used to go to catch fish but now I have stopped. One of my legs got injured while fishing and it is still in the recovering phase. I am alone in my home but I don’t like being alone, so I come here (Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) every morning from Monday to Saturday to beg. This the only source of money I have. My husband died 20 years ago. He had no savings. I earned and married off my two daughters. I am 70 years old and my daughters are 40 and 30 years old. They rarely come to visit me. They cannot help me financially as their in-laws are against it. Today a woman gave me ‘dhokhla’ so my dinner is done and I will not cook today. In evening I go back, watch television and then go to sleep. I know there is a lot of struggle but what can I do? I try to remain happy and enjoy the rest of my life,” says Budibai
.

Budibai outside CSMT

Where there is a will, there are 100 ways

"I lost my eyes because of swimming. I am from Satara. I shifted to Bombay in 2009. I am currently working with a firm in Kurla. I love swimming and I used to swim a lot in Satara. In villages there are no swimming pools so you have to swim in rivers and wells. The water in these sources affected my eyes badly. Till 2009 I could see a little bit and I had color perception but after 2009 my vision automatically decreased and now I am completely blind. Doctor told me that blood circulation has stopped in my eyes. Even if I get them operated, it will be worthless. But I am still trying to find a cure for this, lets hope for the best," says Ganesh.

PS: I was standing near one of the ladies compartments (Mumbai local) which is adjacent to the handicap compartment. I saw this smartly dressed man coming from a far distance. He stopped exactly at the handicap compartment. Curious to know how he did it, I struck a conversation with him. I would have loved to talk to him more but our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of his train.

Me and Ganesh at Kurla Station

Not a typical Friday

Friday means the start of a weekend. For some people it is a party night but for people like Aastha Godha Friday is standing outside the Mumbai suburban local station with a placard which says, ‘Climate Change is real’.
Godha (27), has done her graduation in Bachelor of Management Studies from Mithibai College. She has her own startup OrangeSky which humanities human resource policies with different companies. Godha has left her job and is a part-time traveler. She is also involved in the day to day activities of Fridays for Future (FFF).
As one of the earliest members of FFF-Mumbai chapter (FFFM), Godha explains the nitty-gritties of the movement, “FFF is a movement started by a 15-year-old Swedish girl Greta Thunberg. She bunked her school on Friday to demonstrate against the politicians for their lack of action on climate crisis, outside the Swedish Parliament. The movement soon spread across the world. FFFM was started on March 18th.”
Godha likes to be called an “active” member of FFFM. She proudly talks about the biggest global strike they held at Marine Drive on May 29th. “There were around 200 people who joined us along with Anushka Manchanda (singer),” says Godha. They talked about various environmental issues.
“FFFM came very late in my life”, says Godha. She has been living a sustainable, vegan and a low-key life even before joining the movement. “There was a little bit of turmoil when people thought that I might be overthinking about the crisis,” complains Godha but her parents are very supportive.
An avid trekker, Godha has completed treks like Rupin Pass, Sadakhphu and Chadar with zero waste. She doesn’t carry any plastic packaged food in her treks. She even uses menstrual cups instead of sanitary napkins in the mountains. She recalls an incident when she got a sunburn during Rupin Pass trek. She didn’t use sunscreen as it has plastic packaging. “Beauty of human body is to let it work to its fullest capacity,” says Godha who allowed the sunburn to recover by itself.
Godha sees herself as a movie ticket seller for the movement. If she wants to make the movie a blockbuster, she needs to sell the tickets. “Any amount of newspaper and advertisements will not help unless people talk about it,” emphasizes Godha.

Photo Courtesy: Aastha Godha

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“THE PROCESS WAS ABOUT GROOMING A SINGER TO BECOME A DANCER AND AN ACTOR”: SULAIMAN

Umrao Jaan doesn’t need any introduction. It has been produced in Bollywood twice. The courtesan character is remembered by the aesthetic performances of Bollywood actresses Rekha and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in movie Umrao Jaan in 1981 and 2006 respectively.

It is the first time that Umrao Jan Ada is presented to the audience as a musical. Premiered in Mumbai on May 21, 2019 the musical is currently being performed at Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, Delhi. Renowned music composer duos Salim Merhant and Sulaiman Merchant who are the producers and composer of the musical, talks about it and the diverse nature of music, in an interview held at Xavier Institute of Communications:

      You both are known to have worked on hundreds of movie scores, soundtracks and even musicals and now Umaro Jan Ada. How different have the process and experience between the try genres?

Sulaiman: There are so many verticals and all come down to one thing which is music. Whether we create a background score for a film, an advertisement for a television commercial or a musical, at the end of the day everything is music. You cannot say that he is a Gujarati or a Marathi at the end we are all Indians. What is interesting is challenging ourselves to create new ways for people to consume music.

Salim: As composers when we go abroad, we listen to musicals and always wonder maybe if we can do a musical, we can do magic to it. We are creating avenues so that we keep contributing to music.

How did the journey of finding the perfect actor went for Umrao Jan Ada since the actor need to know how to sing, dance and act?

Salim: When we decided to make Umrao Jaan Ada I had my eyes on Pratibha. She is a fantastic singer and she understands ghazals which is a big genre in which we were dwelling into. We did still have the audition process and went through it. I knew Pratibha must pull up her socks when it comes to acting and dancing. We want to put an influence of Kathak in our play, but I know it is a musical and singing was a great part of it.

Sulaiman: The process wasn’t about auditioning but the process was about grooming a singer to become a dancer and an actor to be able to deliver dialogues and that was the challenge not finding the girl.

We all know about the demise of the legendary Khayyam Saab and we know you were very close to him. You have worked with him for Umrao Jaan Ada, the musical. Can you please tell me how was your experience working with him and his impact on your entire understanding of music?

Salim: Khayyam Saab means a lot to us because when we were growing up, we started with western music like rock. But our first exposure to film music was Umrao Jaan, Khyyam Saab music. I got attracted to this album. It has the simplicity that makes you start liking it. I met him three months ago and we talked about Umrao Jaan, Kabhi-Kabhi, his relationship with Asha ji and Lata ji and three hours went by quickly. There was so much to talk about, and the most surprising thing was that he remembered everything even at the age of 93.

Which other cities you are planning for the musical?

Salim:  We are planning for Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.

Over the years your music has shown us how diverse and dynamic it is. How do you make the choice of instruments that would suit the overall feel of the song?

Sulaiman: As soon as you are reading a script you start imagining the color and that’s how 

we start picking instrument and composition. In the modern era there are many different 

instruments you can pick that creates the magic that is required to create a timeless melody. 

For a classical instruments hearing or imagining a song with the instruments is important. 

Thinking that there will be a sitar or a sarangi to add texture and quality to the music is 

important to select a classical instrument.