19 September,2020 07:10 AM IST | Mumbai | Team SMD
Pic/Atul Kamble
The semi-lockdown doesn't scare this couple from sharing an intimate moment on Juhu Beach. Pic/Atul Kamble
The highly entertaining Ian Botham. Pic/Getty Images
Indian Premier League-13, which is only a day old, will witness some ultra extravagant shots by those trigger-happy batters in the UAE. Although innovative shots are fraught with danger, captains and coaches won't frown upon them and it is highly unlikely that one gone-horribly-wrong stroke in the mid-overs would change the course of a T20 game.
But 35 years ago, England chief selector, Peter May stepped in to tell senior pro Ian Botham that he shouldn't attempt the reverse sweep after the feisty all-rounder ended up being bowled for 72 by Australia spin-bowling punk Greg Matthews in the 1985 ODI at Old Trafford, Manchester, where Allan Border's Australia beat David Gower's England by three wickets.
"Ian says it [reverse sweep] has been very successful for him, but I have told him that I was far from happy with it. I told him that he was a great player and great players don't play that stroke. I never saw Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell or Don Bradman come to that, play it," May was quoted as saying by journalist Pat Gibson.
How times have changed!
Megha Majumdar. Pic courtesy/Michal Labik
Author Megha Majumdar whose politically-charged debut novel, A Burning, is drawing attention globally, has many reasons to cheer this month. After being longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature earlier this month, she has now found mention among 40 publishing professionals as honourees for the PW Star Watch 2020. Majumdar is editor of the New York-based independent publishing house, Catapult. The annual publishing and bookselling award honours presses, literary agents and booksellers. "It's a great honour. It's really thanks to everybody at Catapult - the people I work with are wise and generous, and I'm grateful for everything they teach me."
Last year, Aditya Syam, a Std XII student of Jamnabai Narsee International School, started a non-profit to help needy children in rural Maharashtra. Through the Sunshine Club, he has been helping the kids of the ZP School in Khaire Sasane, Wada, with essentials. "Due to the lockdown, I could not physically visit the school, which I normally do. But, we have been sending study material." However, they soon realised that out of 120 kids in the school only 32 kids had access to phones. So, currently Syam is trying to organise smartphones. "I have reached out to various people, including a few phone manufacturing companies. We are also running a campaign on social media," he says.
Pic courtesy/Xavier's Institute of Communications, Twitter
Some legacies remain unforgettable. One such person to have left an indelible imprint on her students was Jane Swamy, former dean of Xavier's Institute of Communications (XIC), who passed away on Friday night. Swamy had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a few years ago, forcing her to retreat from academics, her friend Melissa Arulappan shared. Sunday mid-day columnist Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre, who was also a former student and lecturer at XIC, remembers Swamy as a stickler for detail. "She was very particular about journalism parlance and practices. One thing she drilled in us was, 'You edit copy, not copies'. She gave us a lifetime fixation with deft correct accurate usage. She is survived by son, chef Michael Swamy, daughter Maria Swamy and her grandson Johaan.
Omkar Kibe, a Rubik's Cube artiste and theatre practitioner, has created another masterpiece this week. In an ode to BV Karanth, an iconic film and theatre personality in India, on his 91st birth anniversary, Kibe created a mosaic by using 825 Rubik's Cubes. Speaking to this diarist, Kibe said, "He [Karanth] was a theatre director, music director, film director and film music director, and the former director of National School of Drama, where I studied, founder-director of Bharat Bhavan Bhopal's Rangmandal and founder-director of Karnataka's Rangayana.
He travelled all across India and performed plays in almost all states of India, and across languages. Being a bohemian, he took theatre to the grassroots. One thing that always had a great impact on me was his mesmerising music. The way in which he used to combine different genres of music like classical, traditional, folk and western, and yet created his own unique style always amazed me. It took me about a week to work on the design and just two days to create mosaic with actual cubes, I started one morning and finished it by 4 am the next day, with breaks and power naps in between."
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