Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

Christmas at the Bhupathi-Dutta home
Even as plastic Christmas trees, hollies mistletoes, reindeer and Santas flood the market, a Bandra residence is bathed in a burst of Christmassy colours sans all the artificial festive paraphernalia.

Mahesh Bhupathi and Lara Dutta have a winter garden in full bloom and the thoughtfully arranged plants potted poinsettia, maranta, palms, spider and money plants - in hues of reds and greens look every bit festive. Little did we know that in a household of eclectic tastes such as tennis and acting, gardening had some fans, too.

Gandhi for millennials
Here's a new-age way to learn about Mahatma Gandhi. Tales Of Young Gandhi (Harper Collins) is a breezy 200-pager dotted with cool illustrations (Uttam Sinha) and chat blurbs that chronicles his early life in a graphic novel style. The book marks the writing debut of Delhi-born Janhavi Prasada, who works as a peace activist in the field of technology.

A panel from the book

Like millions others, she was deeply impacted by the icon when she first read his autobiography, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, and decided to retell his story for the new generation. The illustrations also include visual content that Prasada collected over eight years of travel to Porbandar, London and South Africa.

Saina is a smash hit
Champions are trained in childhood, and a rendezvous with achievers at a young age often goes a long way.

For the junior athletes of Olympic Gold Quest, a non-profit organisation with a mission to help Indian athletes win Olympic gold medals, it was one such occasion yesterday.

Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal along with Prakash Padukone and her coach, U Vimal Kumar, interacted with the young guns training at the organisation, where Nehwal told them all about transitioning effectively from the junior to the senior level.

Finally something for the man in queue
It's that time of the year when publications take a stock of the months gone by and list noteworthy achievements across fields. They pick their sportsman of the year, businessman of the year, book of the year - and person of the year, which is reserved for the personality whose achievement is too big to be confined to a particular area.

In its 50th year, the Kannada daily, Kannada Prabha, too recently announced its person of the year. On its cover is a flustered, helpless-looking elderly man, his eyes full of questions. The Man in Queue has experienced a lot this year. We hope this recognition marks the beginning of the end of all those troubles.

Because all kids know is love
When the world seems to be enveloped in hatred, it is scenes like these that reassure us that better days are still ahead.

Actress Shruti Seth recently posted this adorable picture with this note: ‘When humans are finding it hard to love each other, my baby girl is spreading Christmas love even to mannequins.

May we all be nicer in 2017.' Well, that just about sums up our wishlist for the coming year, too.

Too much coffee, Karan?

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Filmmaker Karan Johar and actress Alia Bhatt at a press conference for an award function at a Worli five-star yesterday.