Bookoholics "Open Session" with Rujuta Diwekar

Event – Open Session with Rujuta Diwekar

Date - 25th July 2015

Organizers – Bookoholics Group (Surat)

Venue – VR Surat

Must Visit for – Book Lovers, Bibliophiles, Writers, Readers

Today's Bookoholics event with the celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar was  completely different than usual author reader meets. The session was quite an enlightening and interactive one, men and a lot of ladies whole heartedly became a part of this and the meet's success could be measured with over filled chairs and people eagerly hearing her out.

The direction in which the session went was "Breaking the Myths", she made some really bold statements such as "You don't exercise to eat good food, you eat good food to exercise" and thereby giving us power foods (ghee, coconut, rice) which drive us towards exercising not because of the fat quotient but because of their pharmacological effects.

She also emphasized on quitting box food and going back to the basic food habits to keep the stubborn fat away and be fit. She firmly believed that bringing small changes in daily routine could bring big changes in the waist line. Also she launched the Gujarati version of her book "Don't lose out, Work out" wearing a beautiful magenta saree draped in Gujarati style.

This was followed by an open question-answer session which was actually the highlight of the whole meet. Almost people from every age group,  teenage girls, to young ladies to middle aged men asked her questions and clarified their personal queries. All in all every member present there took back quite a lot of knowledge, and will surely be doing some exercise (and not just morning walks) to turn themselves into healthy and fit beings they always desired to be. 

The #LifeInSurat Blog.

Words By Niharika    l    Photos By Puja Kedia Collective

Dumas Art Festival - 2015 #VRSurat

Dumas Art Fest was organized at our very own VR Surat, on 20th March, 2015. There was press conference where various print media journalists covered the artists and their prolific works. This is an Art Festival  of one of its kind in Surat and we are so glad to have been a part of it.

Aswad Sheikh, born and brought up in Dubai shifted to Mumbai, India four years ago out of his love for art. He says, “You don’t have to go to art, art comes to you”. The typewriter that he bought from Chor Bazaar, Mumbai looked like an alien to him which he artistically placed over metal rods to make it look like a human. The entire idea was inspired from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator.

The red and black cassette player that he got yet again from Chor Bazaar, was artistically adjusted on six legs of metal  to make it look like a six legged  spider.  He says, “Cassette players was the only form of entertainment to which I grew up”. Also, we couldn’t help noticing the innocent eyes that the speakers give a look of. It was as artistic and beyond explanation as it could get.

This radio, our grandparents’ sole source of entertainment when he strategically adjusted to make it look like human, he says, “This looks like a corporate man, going for a white collar job”. It’s a depiction of connection that he felt, when he was working with a corporate firm in Dubai. Also, the open hands are a significance of openness to newer and better interpretations of art and life, as a whole. 

This angel in disguise, which grabbed maximum eye balls at Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, last year; is a hand cart, the life-line of many in Mumbai. We tend to ignore the kind of work the labor class does for making our lives simpler and making their own living. Every morning since 4AM, you see people on the streets of Mumbai pulling carts loaded with goods and hopes. Goods are for us, hopes are of that laborer  whose family waits at the end of the day for him to return with some money. Isn’t the hand cart a real angel?

This happy artist, Hetal Shukla talks about his association with Ambassador cars for almost 10 years. Through his art, he has tried to show the paradox, of how its sad that Ambassador’s production has been stopped since 2014 and on the other hand, it has become vintage. He very nicely quoted, “Zinda haathi lakh ka, mara to sawa laakh ka”. Ambassador cars had its class and now that they are vintage, they will be more valued. With a word play, he wrote “Amby-sad-err”. Well yes, sad paradox.

Rajindra Chavan and Mukesh Mestry from Mumbai created art with a social message of preserving water. The analogy that was created between camel and water tanks was with the purpose of making people realize the importance of water and its storage. The taps and pipelines with holes on the camel depict how humans leave running taps and broken pipes unattended.  If this is the kind of attitude that our generation is going to live with, we are sure the next generation will call water, a myth.

This cube of connection by Shital Mehta, is a portrait of today’s generation and their communication. Technology has brought the world closer and at the same time has created distances among people because they don’t connect to each other while together. Everybody wants to live in the virtual world but really, to be alive, you need to disconnect once in a while from the internet, your phone and meet people for real. Alive is offline.

Sumit Sanjay Patil, the artist of Ek Hota Kau, has touched the chord of Hinduism where people believe that crows are synonymous to salvation (mukti). Each of these crows that we see around are an indication of a lot of problems that the world is facing and its time now, we get mukti from those problems. 

These cubes are analogous to threads of life that most of us fail to connect to. In our very busy and fast lives, we don’t get time to stop and heal and connect and grow.  We are in a mad rush to reach nowhere.

The tree of life is a portrayal of spiritual tradition. The tree of life if nurtured, will grow beyond universe and spiritual apprehensions of truth. A lot of us never realized this but here’s Reha and Nayanjeet’s art talking about it, making it realizable and real.

This techno man, by Varsha Pandit, is a piece of art which says that humans are always struggling to grow, financially and spiritually. Indian youth is very modern, yet rooted to the base. They accept and appreciate technical changes, but not at the cost of their culture and learnings. 

Young minds at Om creations designed this to deliver the significance of education. This mudra also speaks about how Om creations is working for the less active people of the society, the old and the differently abled. We need more such organizations to make this world a better place to live.

The group photo!