Mumbai Diary: Monday musings

Bond is back!
Super spy James Bond is back in Trigger Mortis (Hachette), a thrilling new novel penned by Anthony Horowitz.

Daniel Craig in Skyfall

This title promises to be an old-school rendering of a classic, where Bond returns with Pussy Galore, after his showdown with Auric Goldfinger. There will be other familiar faces, including M and Miss Moneypenny.

Bond fan can look forward to a package of speed, danger, strong women and fiendish villains in this title - the first to feature previously unseen Ian Fleming material. Don't miss this date with Bond, just the way Fleming had pictured him.

Sounds, sax and soul
Last Friday evening saw an interesting mix of 50 people show up for Sound Space, co-founded by Kamakshi and Vishala Khurana.

(Left-right) Kamakshi and Vishala Khurana with Rhys Sebastian D'Souza

This music and sound therapy organisation had its second edition of its musical experiential - Unison at Ave 29, where musician and popular saxophonist, Rhys Sebastian D'Souza wove Jazz music elements throughout the hour-long performance to create a unique Indian contemporary symphony.

The intimate session was a celebration of Indian and Western music held in a baithak or a salon. The city could do with more such music events, we believe.

Veggie all the way
Of late, we've noticed how Mumbai's food landscape has been witnessing the opening of quite a few ‘vegetarian-only' restaurants that serve either European-style fare, or deconstructed variants of typical desi khana (read Page 27 for one such new entrant).

What's intriguing is the rapidity of such openings, and that restaurateurs aren't shying away from going all out to woo foodies with truly off-beat combinations. Well, the jury is still not out on how all of this will go down with hard-nosed patrons.

A tribute to Dilip Chitre
Celebrated poet and writer, Dilip Chitre's 77th birth anniversary fell on September 16. As a tribute to this great son of literature, who was a bilingual writer, a poet and a painter as well, we reproduce The Rains, one of his famous poems.

Illustration/Uday Mohite

The Rains
Through her blood's lightly layered Hazy darkness
Lightning flashes out branches of my being
When, through intoxicated wet leaves,
The sudden stirring that's the month of Ashadha
Passes tenderly like a slight shiver.
And there remains
Only she Of the trees, among the trees, for the trees:
Woman smelling of the season.

(Translated from Shesha: Selected Marathi Poems)