Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

When the avengers come to town

Shilpa Shetty, husband Raj Kundra and son Viaan brave the paparazzi after watching a movie in Juhu on Saturday. Pic/Satej Shinde

SOS from Matheran's mutts

Recently, when animal activist Madhvi Gohil visited Matheran, she was aghast to see the condition of the hill stations' stray dogs. Dehydrated and malnourished, they were driven to eat horse dung, and sometimes, even their own poop to battle hunger. "I fed as many dogs as I could, but I was there only for two days. We needed a long-term solution," says Gohil, who then uploaded a post on Indian Animal Forum highlighting the issue. While the Navi Mumbai resident has been trying to co-opt local hotel owners, nothing has materialised yet. "The situation is dire and we need local support to resolve it," she said.

No bad news for book lovers. Yet

IT was in March last year, when this diarist stumbled on Smoker's Corner in Fort. A shadow of its former self, the bookstore, once a popular dugout of booklovers in the 1970s and 80s, has been struggling to stay afloat, especially after its owner Suleman Botawala passed away. His son, Zubair, had discussed then, of his plans to down shutters soon. So, we were a little concerned, when an in-house patron recently found that Smoker's Corner had been sealed. But, it turns out that there is no bad news yet. The building - Botawala Chambers - that houses the store, is undergoing repairs and the bookstore should be up and running soon. Go, show some love when that happens.

An ode to an unplanned city

While scrolling through Instagram recently, this diarist came across On a Close Shave Called Mumbai, a black-and-white visual compliment to the city, and found out that it was run by Harshad Rajadhyaksha, chief creative officer at Ogilvy.

Rajadhyaksha calls it "an unplanned tribute to an unplanned city," and uses design, writing and photography to create an artistic journal of his perpetual muse. The three-year-old series has crossed over a thousand moments on Facebook and is in a more concise form on Instagram. "I like my photographs to be stories," he says. "While a picture speaks a thousand words, I add a few of my own to complete that story. I capture my beloved Mumbai in black and white because it adds a touch of fond nostalgia even to the present. The love it gets from friends and strangers is what makes me pick up my camera and set off in search of a new Mumbai moment."

Kapil Dev and Karsan Ghavri (left) turn back the clock recently. Pic/Yajurvindra Singh

Old new-ball mates meet

Former India new ball partners Kapil Dev and Karsan Ghavri caught up earlier this week and to keep them company at a city hotel were ex-teammates Dilip Vengsarkar, Yajurvindra Singh and Bharat Reddy. All five were on India's 1979 tour of England which included the World Cup.

Photographs of the dinner emerged on Facebook with an amazing bit of trivia which said that no opposition Test opening pair could put on a century stand when Kapil and Ghavri operated in tandem with the new ball.

Let us elaborate on this commendable feat. The right-left arm duo opened the bowling in 28 Tests and the closest the opposition openers got to a century stand was when Geoff Boycott and Graham Gooch put on an unbeaten 98-run stand to help England win the BCCI's Golden Jubilee Test at Mumbai in 1980 by 10 wickets.

During the previous season, West Indies' Basil Williams and Faoud Bacchus put on 97 during the drawn Test at Bangalore. Remarkably, Kapil and Ghavri opened the bowling for India in 27 consecutive Test matches - a near-impossible achievement in today's cricket, where pace bowlers pick up injuries as often as a person with low immunity catches flu.

Celebrating freedom

On April 27, 1994, South Africa witnessed the first democratic elections. The day gave birth to freedom and constitutional democracy in the country. Twenty five years later, the Consul General of South Africa in Mumbai, Maropene Ramokgopa celebrated the momentous occasion in the city on Friday. When the diarist met Ramokgopa, she said, "Freedom Day serves as an important reminder of the tough circumstances many South Africans went through during the Apartheid period. It celebrates the nation's spirit which [helped] overcome these challenging times and gives South Africans a chance to reflect on the path to building a united, non-racial and non-sexist country." Adding that the South Africa-India relationship is unique, she said, "These ties go way back in time and are forged in shared values, philosophies, interests and national icons like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. The two nations are also bonded in their shared struggle for freedom and it feels wonderful to celebrate this significant occasion in India, which is my home away from home."

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