Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Disney-at-heart Nishka Lulla Mehra (right) with a friend

#bumpstyle with Nishka
A huge Disney fan, Nishka Lulla Mehra's Instagram posts often take you to a fantastical party featuring Mickey Mouse styles, then there are holiday snapshots, celeb spotting and endorsements, prep-meets-glamour lookbooks, combo shots with mother and designer Neeta, and a debut of a #babybump.

The designer who married Dhruv Mehra in 2015, announced her pregnancy via Instagram on October 5, with a selfie captioned, "25 weeks. #babybump". She has been sharing week-by-week, adorable dress-the-bump photos with followers since then. Congrats to the couple and soon-to-be-granny Neeta.

Wheels of change
In an interesting CSR initiative, a Mumbai-based employee engagement firm got the executives of a tech giant based out of Hyderabad, and that of an MNC branch in Jaipur, to commemorate World Disability Day, which is observed on December 3, through a unique activity called Wheels of Hope.

In it, employees were made to participate in a treasure hunt where they had to locate different parts of a wheelchair and assemble and decorate them. While the participants enjoyed this fun pursuit, they were in for a surprise, too. At the end of the day, they met with senior citizens from nearby old age homes and were given the opportunity to personally present the wheelchairs to the physically disabled residents.

Yuval Harari's lessons for India
With the litfest baton being passed from one city to the next, it's that time of the year again when the written word is celebrated with gusto in India. And keeping up with its 11-year-old tradition, the Penguin Annual Lecture will be held in Mumbai on December 16. This year's invitation to deliver the lecture has been sent out to celebrated Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, known for his bestselling books, with 21 Lessons for the 21st Century being the latest.

"I have had a long and fulfilling relationship with India. This is not my first visit, but this time is likely to be more special than others before... India is one of the most dynamic countries where the old and new coexist, each finding space to fit and grow. This makes it unique and exciting for historians, such as myself, to witness how the nation thinks, reacts and adapts," said Harari, in the context of his lecture on challenges that may surface in light of environmental and technological developments taking place in the world.

Marked yourself safe yet?
It began with one of the most awaited weddings of the year, solemnised by the scenic Lake Como in Italy, and the shehnai will soon sound for Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. With the shubh season for yet another round of shaadis having begun after Diwali, it's likely that your social media timeline is full of Bollywood-style pre-wedding videos, and "life event" updates of friends getting hitched, too.

While that may be nothing more than a mushy overkill for those who have crossed over to the other side, it threatens to bring a fresh round of societal pressures for the single or not-willing-to-get-married junta. And as an apt comeback, some of these witty folks are marking themselves "safe during the marriage wave of 2018" on Facebook. A good way to dodge a bullet at your next cousin's wedding, don't you think!

Which side was Dorsey on?
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's maiden trip to India could hardly have ended on a more dramatic note. But he couldn't have foreseen the impending backlash when he attended a closed-door meeting with a group of women to understand their experience on the social media platform. Here's what transpired. Once the meeting was over, a Dalit woman handed Dorsey a poster as a gift that read, "Smash Brahmanical patriarchy."

Next, a photo was taken with the women and Dorsey in the middle, holding the poster. Then, one of the women in the photo posted the pic where else but on Twitter. And eventually, the floodgates opened for right-wing commenters to slam Dorsey's apparent "bias", which finally led to Twitter holding a meek flag of surrender in the form of an apologetic statement. But this statement led to a further backlash, this time from Left-leaning folk. In fact, there was an all-out war in the comments section between the two sides of the political divide. But isn't that a sign of our times?

Happily ever after

Newly-weds Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone can't stop gushing as they arrive at the airport on Tuesday to leave for Bengaluru for their reception. Pic/Sameer Markande

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