The Department of English of Carmel College of Arts, Science and Commerce for Women participated in the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai from 22nd to 24th January 2024. Fifteen girls of TYBA English (Honours) and three staff members, Ms. Roxana Singh, Ms. Ayeesha Antao and Dr. Glenis Mendonca attended the field trip. From viewing and appreciating films to watching plays, art installations, treks to historical sites like Gateway of India, Hanging Gardens, and Bombay Hight Court, the students had a great learning experience. During the evenings, the students engaged with musical and classical performances at Cross Maidan and Coomaraswamy Hall. They also attended a workshop at the prestigious St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, hosted specially for the Carmel students by the Xavier Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged. Mr. Ketan, Ms. Poonam and others from the Centre, acquainted the students with a model of inclusive education to accommodate learners with various disabilities by using new techniques and technologies.
Students participated in “Courting Justice”—a heritage tour of the historic Bombay High Court Museum guided by the man who curated it, Adv. Rajan Jayakar. The guided tour was enriching, teeming with traces of colonial history, legal insights as well as a display of court architecture and attire of the yesteryears. The students visited the restored David Sassoon Library, to witness an exhibition of Bombay over the years, as well as witnessed an erudite deliberation titled “Magadh: Place, Poetry and Palimpsest”, where Rahul Soni explored the landmark translation of Magadh, a poetry collection by Srikant Verma, moderated by Sharmishtha Mohanty. They also witnessed an emboldening conversation with Booker translation awardee, Daisy Rockwell by Supriya Nair, titled “The Female Gaze”.