Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Raising the bar
Malaika Arora seems to take fitness tips from a little girl at an event in Bandra over the weekend. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

There's no need for Gold
"If you cannot innovate you are doomed," Meldan D'Cunha of Soul Fry told this diarist referring to a new development at the Goan haunt that has been designed to keep up with offers provided by food aggregators.

D'Cunha and team will now be dishing out an express meal called the Malvan Taat. Featuring dishes like kolambi masala and karkare ka salan, these economically priced non-veg and veg meals will be available through the month Thursday onwards. "All these apps keep offering heavy discounts and offers, so to compete, l have come out with this thali," he added.

Everyone wants to be Kartik
Celebrity impersonations have always been a rage but only a few turn into a social media hashtag. With his latest flick Luka Chuppi on screens right now, fans of Kartik Aaryan have taken to social media to try their best imitations of the actor.

Just search for #poselikeKartikAaryan and over 4,000 results pop up, where people imitate his smirk and hairstyle through a photo collage. This weekend, Aaryan took to Instagram to acknowledge some of these posts by re-sharing them on his story, with one of them captioned 'Sir aap ke jaise pose karna bahat muskil (sic) hai'. Well, in this case, we can only say that imitation is the best form of flattery.

Lokal-wallah sound
There is some way to go before Indian hip-hop truly comes of age, though we are slowly, but surely, reaching a stage where the "desi" sound is well-defined. And evidence of this lies in a new track that rapper Shaikhspeare of Bombay Lokal has dropped. It's called Global Desi, and the musician says outright in one of the lines, "You're rocking with the local/But we are keeping it global." The fact that he alternates between English and Hindi lyrics also add a further Indo-western flavour to the track. But most of all, it's the use of a sitar and a vocalist singing a raga in the background - something quite unusual for any track in this genre - makes this song a step forward in the country's quest for its own, legitimate hip-hop sound.

Evergreen women
Of all the Women's Day events, an empowering session was an intimate one with award-winning hair expert, Tanveer Shaikh at Studio Malabar in Chowpatty. The eclectic store run by siblings Dimple and Amit Ahuja and Sarita Goswamy is a haven for SoBo's well-heeled women who have been patronising the space ever since it was launched. Yesterday, Dimple and Sarita invited Shaikh over to speak with their lady guests: most of whom were 50 years young. He spoke about hair care, styling and how "colour is not the only solution. If you wear your crop confidently and look after it regularly, it will sit well and pose as an honest expression and complement of your personality". Ageing gracefully will, after all, never go out of style!

Russian honour
It came as a pleasant surprise to Apeksha Bhattacharyya when she received an email from the organisers of the Russian Rome international cultural festival. It was an announcement that Bhattacharyya, founder of the Indian Academy of Russian Ballet in Mumbai, had been given the title of the Indian Ambassador to the Russia Rome festival. "The award recognises those who work towards promoting Russian culture abroad. And I am humbled to be chosen for the honour," she told this diarist.

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