Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

Pic/Atul Kamble

He's just two good

Roshan Dantani, who's only a couple of years old, takes on friends more than double his size at a game of cricket at Five Gardens in Dadar on Thursday.

Capturing the vagaries of life

Ameya Prabhu's new release, his thought-provoking debut collection, The Rock Babas and Other Stories (Westland Publications) is an ode to the challenges that life throws and the resilient people who meet them. Son of Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister, his book includes stories about an ageing tycoon who donates his fortune to charity after being diagnosed with a terminal illness and a Swiss hotelier who transforms under the tutelage of monks who groove to rock and roll in the Himalayas, among others. "Despite our backgrounds, we are human beings who share joy, pain, happiness, sadness and a myriad of emotions. We go through a journey called life - the vagaries of which I wanted to capture. And so you will find characters from around the world with diverse social, religious and cultural backgrounds in the book," the author shared.

Two cheers

We often wait for literary prizes to announce a winner. But The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize took everyone by surprise when it announced Jairam Ramesh and Amit Ahuja as the joint winners this year. Ahuja was recognised for Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements (Oxford University Press), which the jury said was, "An elegantly written and accessible work of scholarship." Meanwhile, Ramesh (in pic) got a nod for the biography A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of VK Krishna Menon (Penguin Random House), hailed by the jury as, "a compelling portrait of a brilliant, complicated, and controversial man." Our congratulations.

The nation wants to know

What a year this has been. The pandemic grabbed the most attention, of course. But 2020 also witnessed the fall of a flamboyant American president, the jailing of a high-profile TV news anchor and the vilification of a late actor's girlfriend, among other things. These were some of the topics that Indians read up on the most on Google, according to the results of the 'Year in Search' study it had carried out. Joe Biden, Arnab Goswami, Rhea Chakraborty and singer Kanika Kapoor (in pic) were some of the names that people typed out the most in the search bar. There were also 2020-specific search terms like 'How to make dalgona coffee' and 'What is plasma therapy' that were entered numerous times. Money Heist topped the list of web series. But in something that may or may not come as a surprise, it's the Indian Premier League that Indians searched for the most overall, not the Coronavirus.

Brabourne is batting on 83

An archival image of Brabourne Stadium. Pic/Aman Nath

This week marked the 83rd year that the gates of the iconic Brabourne Stadium at Churchgate were opened to the public. At the time, it was hailed as one of the best cricket fields in the world, and though its fortunes have slipped over time, it is still one of the most important landmarks in Mumbai. Art Deco Mumbai's Atul Kumar told this diarist that most people don't know that the architect who built it - Pierre Avicenna d'Avoine - was a cricketer himself. "That's why the stadium has such a sense of intimacy between the cricketer and spectator. No matter where you sit, you will have a sense of being part of the game," Kumar shared, adding that d'Avoine was part of Gregson, Batley and King, an influential architectural firm of the time, which was instrumental in creating Bombay's identity. "He was able to blend the two [his love for cricket and architecture] and that is reflected in the design of the stadium," Kumar said.

The last beat

Vairamani Kalimuthu and Louiz Banks

We often don't realise the sort of backend work that goes behind a live music performance since we only get to see the band members belt it out on stage. But they wouldn't have been able to do that without the likes of Vairamani Kalimuthu, fondly known as Mani. Kalimuthu started off as a drum technician with Sivamani, before having a stint at the now-shuttered Blue Frog, and later joining pianist Louiz Banks's team. He went on to earn the industry's respect, so it was natural that there was an outpouring of grief when he passed away recently at the age of 42. Events organiser Neil Banks, who's worked closely with Kalimuthu, told this diarist, "He was a brilliant person, who was soft-spoken and dedicated to his work." May he rest in peace.

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