Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Music for a cause
It's good to see artistes use their talent to lend heft to a cause. Recently, music composer and playback singer, Shankar Mahadevan, composed a song for #RallyForRivers, an initiative by Sadhguru, well-known yogi and founder of Isha Foundation. This campaign, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, hopes to offer a solution to stabilise and revitalise our rivers by creating awareness amongst all sections of society. The rally will be flagged off from Coimbatore on September 3, covering 13 states and 21 major cities, over a stretch of 6560 km across India.

Pic/Bipin Kokate

Introducing my leading ladies
Vivek Oberoi is all smiles as mother Yashodhara and wife Priyanka join him on stage at an event in Cuffe Parade over the weekend.

Twin start-up lessons at IIT
Much of televisionâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088and film promotion is about making appearances on other shows on the small screen, coupled with a slew of related offline events. And it seems the latter component is now being taken rather seriously. A case in point is a new start-up reality show hosted by Raghu Ram and Rajiv Laxman that seeks to discover India's next big entrepreneur.

The twin presenters and actors recently spoke at the inauguration of this year's entrepreneurship cell of IIT Bombay. "Not bad for dropouts," said the brothers, alluding to the show's title. While their online bios say that they duly completed their graduation, we guess this is called getting into the skin of the character.

The Partition chapter, revisited
Last weekend, Godrej One's campus in Vikhroli came alive with exhibitions, musical performances, film screenings and panel discussions as its culture lab hosted Museum of Memories: Remembering Partition.

Well of Remembrance created by the design lab that serves as a reminder of women who jumped into wells during Partition. Pics/Sneha Kharabe

The three-day pop-up, which reflected on 70 years of the largest mass migration in human history, was a houseful event from the opening session itself, featuring panelists Mallika Ahluwalia of The Partition Museum in Amritsar and Guneeta Bhalla of the 1947 Partition Archive. Present in the audience, producer Vishesh Bhatt shared the research that his team carried out for the Vidya Balan starrer Begum Jaan followed by its screening.

Parmesh Shahani, head, Godrej India Culture Lab with Vishesh Bhatt

Over the next two days, guests heard oral history presentations by Partition witnesses, watched Shyam Benegal's Mammo and were regaled by Neeraj Arya's music band Kabir Café, before the event reached its crescendo with a special preview of Gurinder Chadha's soon-to-release Partition: 1947 (Hindi version of Viceroy's House).

Fashionably poetic
Those following designer Pranav Mishra of the design label Huemn on Instagram would know that he is quite a poet. Laced with humour (his latest poem is called Basmati Chawal Ho Tum), Mishra writes about love, relationships and life in general.

We realised that Mishra takes his bard skills seriously; in fact, his poems are not just aimed at pleasing the Internet junta. Last afternoon, the beefy designer did a live reading session of his works at a cafe in Mahalaxmi. If you missed it, read his works, all in Hindi, on www.pranavkirti.com.

Three men in search of mithai
This duo has us eating out of their hands, never mind which highway or dhaba is on their radar. We're talking about Rocky Singh and Mayur Sharma, who've wooed us with their food adventures, and trademark banter.

This recent jhalak on social media had them fooling around outside Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru with chef Kunal Kapur. The trio is working on a TVâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088food show, according to Kapur. The chef posted a snippet, reaching out for suggestions for mithai hotspots in the city, even as the buffoonery carried on in the backdrop.