Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

A two-sided affair
NCP president Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray appear lost in thought at the centenary celebration of a bank, held at NSCI, Worli, on Saturday. Pic/Atul Kamble

Oh scrap!
Festivals have a way of showcasing innovation. And the ingenious minds at the Lower Parel railway workshop followed this to the T. They created a Ganesh idol from scrap. Buffers, bells, train couplers, brake shoes, iron rods and other discarded metal remnants from old train coaches were used to form the body, the face was made from a T-bar and the head crown took shape from an old brass bell. Upcycling with a spiritual twist, we like.

Mumbai poet wins big
The winners of the The Great Indian Poetry Contest (TGIPC), a nationwide hunt, were announced over the weekend with a familiar face making the list as first runner-up. The judging panel comprising Javed Akhtar, Kalki Koechlin and Kausar Munir chose noted city-based poet Rochelle Potkar as runner-up for her poem, War Specials - a contemplation on the political state of the world through animals, which the judges called "thought-provoking and compelling". But Potkar tells us that she had already been celebrating before the announcement. "Only two days before the results of TGIPC, I was selected as the winner of the Norton Girault Literary Prize for my poem, For Daraza. It feels nice to be recognised in a pan-India space which cuts through a large section of stage and page poets," she says.

Jewelled resistance
"This is the story of my friend Oona. Oona is TIRED of people commenting on her resting b'''h face, tired of being asked to smile. She is pissed off about having to deal with sexually loaded comments at work, while also being paid less than the guys.

Eina Ahluwalia and Shilo Shiv Suleman

She is fed up of men trying to grope her in crowded places and knows that no matter what she wears this will still happen...," read the opening lines of jewellery designer Eina Ahluwalia's note for her new capsule collection. While we still haven't got over Ahluwalia's Indian goddess-inspired earrings, this collection, which Ahluwalia calls "A series of wearable reminders to stop putting up with bulls''t and start being fiercely irrepressible" features bangles and necklaces with words such as unf'''withable, fierce, nasty woman and eyes up a''hole, crafted in her signature intricate font. And as an apt collaborator, artist Shilo Shiv Suleman has helped bring Oona to life with her artwork.

The lord is for all
So much of what you come across in crime thrillers or detective novels, is just that: fiction. It takes a visit to the local police chowki to know that cops and criminals aren't always the sworn enemies they are shown to be. On one such recent visit to the Wadala police station, this diarist saw a cop distribute prasad from a pooja ceremony he'd had at his home. He offered sheera to his seniors, colleagues, this diarist who was there for some verification procedure, and then moved to the man squatting in a corner of the room, who gratefully accepted the prasad. Once done, we asked the officer attending to us who the man was. "He is an accused, getting his finger prints and other formalities done," the officer told us. "Why, he is a human being, too. Isn't he?"

Numbers don't lie
These are exciting times for Internet star Bhuvan Bam. He first shot to fame with his channel called BB ki Vines, where he puts up videos of himself enacting regular middle-class characters, usually with a humorous twist. Bam also records and edits the videos himself, with the help of his phone camera. And such is his popularity that he has now become the first-ever resident Indian to notch up 10 million subscribers on YouTube. That's no mean feat, considering that even the likes of international music giants Daft Punk have less than half that number of subscribers. Bam's debut short film as an actor also released this week, meaning there's a lot for him to smile about.

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