Mumbai Diary: Full moon over CSMT, wildlife stickers, Crossword awards voting and a tidepool fundraiser

On Monday, the full moon rose above the shadowy outline of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus building, a sight worth watching. The moon glowing behind the building looked like a round circle.

As children, everyone was in a hurry to pick up a sticker sheet from the stationery shop for a school project. Illustrator and naturalist Safi George has brought back that old hobby in a new form. She has made hand-painted watercolour stickers featuring lesser-known animals of India. "Whenever we visit a wildlife sanctuary, all the attention is on spotting a tiger or a lion, and many other animals go unnoticed. I wanted to bring these species to the fore," she said. Over two months she researched and made three sets covering 18 species, including mammals, insects and birds.

The Great Indian Hornbill, ruddy mongoose, fan-throated lizard and Indian pitta are among those on the stickers. Safi wanted to move away from the common animal stickers sold at stationery shops and introduce children to wildlife they might otherwise not notice. More details are at @summerscribbles.in.

Now to books. It is that time of year when readers can vote for their favourite books from India. In the Popular Choice category of the 20th Crossword Book Awards, big names such as Ruskin Bond, Arundhati Roy and Chetan Bhagat have been shortlisted. Here the final verdict rests with readers.

Bond's Life's Magic Moments, Roy's Mother Mary Comes To Me and Bhagat's 12 Years are in the running. Also on the list are Amish's The Chola Tigers, Sudha Murty's The Magic of the Lost Earrings and Twinkle Khanna's Mrs Funnybones Returns.

The shortlist has 25 books in all across five categories. In fiction are Ashwin Sanghi's The Ayodhya Alliance, Ravi Mantri's Amma's Diary, translated from Telugu by Sameera, and Ritvik Singh's I Cannot Say Goodbye To You. In non-fiction are comedian Vir Das's The Outsider, Shantanu Naidu's Thinking Of Winter, illustrated by Sumauli Dutta, and Lieutenant General KJS 'Tiny' Dhillon's Operation Sindoor. Khanna's Mrs Funnybones Returns is also in this category.

For children, there are chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand's Lightning Kid, Anita Nair's Sneaker Paati and Paro Anand's A Girl, a Tiger And a Very Strange Story, illustrated by Priya Kurien. In business and management are Harish Bhat's Doing the Right Thing, Nitin Seth's Human Edge in the AI Edge and Sarthak Ahuja's The Money Ball. The mind, body and spirit category has books by Ankur Warikoo, Jaya Kishori and Gaur Gopal Das.

Voting began on October 26 and will close on November 23. Winners of both the Popular Choice and the jury awards will be announced in early December.

There was also a glimpse of the past. Alok Sharma posted a picture of the cover of a Hindi comic showing Mickey and Minnie Mouse in a temple. Alok is a collector and writer. He said, "This goes back to the 1980s, when Chandamama published a limited series of Disney comics. They carried Disney stories in Hindi. I came across these while cleaning up and arranging my collection." The comic is titled Walt Disney Ki Vichitra Puri, and Minnie appears in it in a stylish pink sari. Alok worries about whether this treasure will survive for the next generation. According to him, "The paper of Indian comics was not good in those days. It is thin and gets damaged easily."

Marine Life of Mumbai (MLOM) has for years been drawing people's attention to the colourful, unseen world of Mumbai's seashore tidepools. The non-profit is now running a fundraiser to take its education programme forward. Co-founder Shaunak Modi said, "In February 2027 we will complete 10 years. Before that, we have started this fundraiser to speed up our education programme. On the lines of Tidepool Tamasha, which is running for children, we plan to start several activities."

Modi recalled that the organisation's early walks were entirely free. He said, "The fundraiser will make the walks free for children, take the programme to schools from underprivileged backgrounds, and also help the marine researchers who are badly needed to keep watch on Mumbai's rapidly changing coast." Those wishing to help can find information at @marinelifeofmumbai.

Finally, a few pictures from the city. Construction workers are laying a rebar steel mesh near Ram Mandir railway station at Jogeshwari Terminus. A stray dog rests beside a lamp-post near the gate of Horniman Circle Garden. A passenger boat moves on the waters of the Arabian Sea at sunset near Juhu Beach.