22 May,2017 10:05 AM IST | Mumbai | Team Mid-Day
The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce Mumbai
Pic/Shadab Khan
Bearded mystery man
Bollywood's make-up artistes seem to be doing a rather good job these days. On your right in this picture is none other than Amitabh Bachchan. The actor was spotted at Bandra Fort over the weekend, while shooting for his upcoming film.
Raise a toast
The next time you order Calcutta Batak at Atul Kochhar's Benaras London, you might want to pair it with a special blend of champagne, with the chef's signature on the bottle et al, which has just been added to the restaurant's drinks menu. The Michelin-starred chef has teamed up with a legendary family-owned French champagne house to create a 75 per cent Pinot Noir blend with pressed black grapes and citrus fruits, plucked from the vineyards of Urville village. It also includes extremely low levels of sulphur, and will be stocked across his UK restaurants. We're wondering how long it would take to grace his F&B spaces in Mumbai.
Bow wow to stray heroics
It will take less than 10 minutes of your day, but the short time isn't the only reason you should watch Dogs Not Allowed. Written and directed by Manu Chobe (39), the short is the poignant story, told entirely without human words, of a stray that sneaks into a colony where canines aren't allowed, to help a woman. About the video, which has garnered over 1,029,591 views since its release early this month, Chobe says, "I wanted to experiment with silence and had been searching for a subject that could help me do that." He also wanted to explore what the life of the many strays that one sees on Mumbai's roads is. The film, which took two days to shoot, stars Tommy, who portrays the very lovable role of Casper.
Is that the Versova shoreline?
Mumbai's beaches aren't the cleanest. But, instead of complaining about them, one concerned citizen took it into his own hands to solve the problem. Armed with a team of volunteers, lawyer Afroz Shah has been working diligently for the last 85 weeks to clean up Versova beach. The result: a clean and sandy stretch where you can sit and admire the city's skyline across the water. "Versova beach is gorgeous and clean now.
Afroz Shah and Pooja Bedi
We have done our bit. We need to maintain it," Shah said, as he shared this picture of the beach taken over the weekend. People, among them Raveena Tandon and Pooja Bedi, lost no time in congratulating Shah, who was also conferred with the Champions of Earth award by the UN last year. We are making a beeline to the beach and will ensure we don't litter and let Shah and his team down.
Desi boys in Down Under
Isn't it nice to spot a fellow Indian in a foreign land, especially when he is performing to a packed house for his debut gig there? Television hosts and foodies, Rocky Singh and Mayur Sharma, are currently on a gourmet tour of Australia. And when they spotted a poster of stand-up comedian and actor Vir Das's upcoming gig in Melbourne, they couldn't help but pose against it. "Puttin' India on the world map in little ways" is how the duo put it, feeling disappointed that they would miss the gig by just a whisker.
Das, who recently gave a slew of performances in the US, also shared how additional seating had to be arranged for all his shows in Sydney. Way to go, we say.
The world through the Wiki lens
It's interesting how nothing in the online space - including an encyclopaedia entry - is a one-way street. Recently, a Reddit user created a map of the most used word on the English language Wikipedia page of every country on the globe, and the results are striking. While it's easy to understand why 'India' recurred on the Wikipedia page of Nepal and Bhutan, the word 'South' came to represent India on the map. South Korea was mostly seen in the context of the word 'North' and its Jong sister is largely affiliated to the word 'South'. Most islands, on the other hand, were placed in strong reflection of their own identity, with the word 'island' making up most of their Wiki accounts. While 'Quebec' is what dominated Canada's encyclopaedic entry, 'Portuguese' was the most common word for the page on Brazil. 'Dynasty' was for China, and if you are wondering about Pakistan, interestingly, it was 'world' that recurred the most on our neighbour's Wikipedia page.
window into the world affairs, is this?
