Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Three's Company
Politician and filmmaker Shalini Thackeray finds herself at the centre of attention as Sachin and Anjali Tendulkar arrive at a film screening. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Musician Saba Azad with Pablo Naranjo Agular

Chef turns model
Masaba Gupta's social media peak into her Winter Festive 2018 campaign left us smiling. It was a frame featuring hunky chef Pablo Naranjo Agular of Le 15 Café playing model for Gupta's first menswear capsule collection. The chef fills us in, "Masaba is a friend. Once, while at the café she asked if I would like to model for her launch. I agreed but made it clear that I had no clue about modelling. She was cool about it. It was funny how the fashion crew used very different terms with the models, and I couldn't understand it. But the crew was really sweet and it ended up being quite fun and simple!"

Many moons ago...
"Remembering Husainsaab on his 103rd birth anniversary. Vividly alive in our hearts forever" read author Shobhaa De's tweet, accompanied by a beautiful vintage photograph of her with artist MF Husain. The bond that De shared with the legendary artist is well-known. Keen to know the story behind this particular image, this diarist reached out to De to take us back in time. "We had just finished a thaali lunch at Chetana in Kala Ghoda and were chatting on the road, as we frequently did. I think the image was shot by the late photographer Rahul Patel, or it could be Pradeep Chandra. Husainsaab was very close to me and my family. We miss the richness he brought to our lives in so many different ways. Personally speaking, I miss his wicked sense of humour!" De revealed.

Shireen Gandhy at the gallery

Reliving a simpler time
We love to take a trip down nostalgia lane. This week, SoBo art gallery Chemould Prescott Road gave us the opportunity to do just that. On its 55th anniversary, it revealed the first ever poster it had printed in 1963, announcing its opening. We love how the to-the-point, no-frills poster is sans any of the hyperbole that characterises most similar announcements today. It simply says that a permanent exhibition room will be opened on the first floor of Jehangir Art Gallery, with the inaugural show exhibiting "recent paintings" of Ram Kumar, Satish Gujral and Krishan Khanna. Here's wishing the Mumbai institution many more years of success.

Truth and lies
For those raving about Naseeruddin Shah's stellar performance in The Father, here is some good news. The veteran actor's theatre group Motley is now working on another of French playwright Florian Zeller's plays, The Truth. "We will be staging it in November at the Prithvi Festival," Ratna Pathak Shah told this diarist, after performing to a packed house at the NCPA on Sunday, where The Father is currently having a month-long run. Is Zeller Motley's new muse? "Well, isn't his writing wonderful!" she said.

Rani Mukerji at the pandal

New puja venue, same fanfare
One of the most popular Durga pujo mandals in the city, North Bombay Sarbojanin Durga Puja Samiti, which is organised by the Mukherjee family, is held at a Juhu five-star. We now hear, that the seven-decade-old celebration will shift to Golden Tobacco Limited, Tobacco House in Vile Parle West this year. "We had to shift the venue because, with Maa Durga's blessings, Tulip Star has settled an ongoing dispute and will re-open as V Hotels soon. Also, over the years, our pandal has seen a greater footfall. Thankfully, the new place is bigger and will be able to accommodate more devotees," organisers Deb Mukherjee and Krishna Mukherjee tell us.

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