The AICUF Story!

Mumbai offers solace to so many. Ibha feels the same looking at the street art on the bridge that she walks across everyday. Running home as the school bell rang after the last period, Ibha finds herself panting, stepping inside what she considers ‘home’. That street art is a reminder for her - a reminder of what she wishes for, of what she wants to experience. You may think that what could a child possibly desire looking at a wall and its street art? The one on the bridge has the ‘Sea Link’ painted. It makes her want to see it some day…not the ordinary way. She wants to travel in a plane and get a view of it. [Photo Courtesy: Getty Images, iStock] However today, all she is thinking about is that moment in class when she stood there proudly upon being called a ‘winner’. IT IS THE FEELING THAT MATTERS, that holds the power to make her forget the circumstances she has to deal with and be upset about. In fact, it is that exact feeling that makes her believe in her own ability of creating...

“Art imitates life.”  Art is a mirror showing the beautiful and grotesque face of our world. Through time, all forms of art have been windows into social structures, lifestyles, and beliefs of civilizations. Transformative art has evolved over centuries as the voice of people of their times, inspiring change from a shift in social norms to war revolutions.  ["Humanity" at Sassoon Docks. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement, The Hindu] A tedious train ride in the mornings, the stationary traffic in the evenings, in the gray monotonous life of Mumbai, some days my eyes find the gorgeous colors on mossy walls and railway bridges, across old complexes and abandoned warehouses. The Street Art of Mumbai - present everywhere, unnoticed yet leaving its mark.   From the cultural abundance of the city we inhabit to the push for human rights and protest against climate change, from promoting harmony to lauding the unsung heroes, street art does more than beautify the concrete forest we...

Rivulets of water streaming down green leaves. Tiny paper boats floating around in muddy puddles. The sharp rat-tat-tat of droplets against tin roofs and the scent of sweet jasmine rising through the air.  Back home in Kerala, the monsoons had been a time of celebration. The bright and lush paddy fields, car rides filled with the cheer of raindrop races, and the pleasure in consuming all the kozhikotta and chaaya that my grandmother made.  Board games and splashing puddles colored my monsoon. Yet when I arrived in Mumbai, it all came to a pause. Dancing in the rain turned to rushing for shelter, my puddle splashing transformed into cuffing my jeans and my previously abandoned umbrella found a new purpose.  Mumbai had taken away the joy of my beloved monsoon. Or so I thought.   The monsoons in Mumbai were different. While in Kerala, the cities came to a standstill in the face of storms, the hustle and bustle of Mumbai remained unwavering. A phenomenon I’ve slowly be...