Mumbai Diary page: Saturday Scene

Saturday screenings
Movie buffs, there's a theatre playing some edge-of-the-seat films near you, and best of all it is free. At 2 pm tomorrow, the US Consulate at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) is going to screen a movie called United 93.

A synopsis tells us that this is a real-time account of the events on United flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the plot.

The Consulate in fact, holds a number of screenings usually every weekend, and there's another one coming up on August 23 at 2 pm the contemporary classic, The Taking of Pelham 123. Photo IDs are needed for entry, and there is no prior booking for these shows, so get there early.

Bradman's first bat to grace India
India cannot boast of a full fledged cricket museum for the public, much to the consternation of cricket lovers of the land, but next year, there could be a travelling exhibition across major cities, albeit on a cricketer-specific basis.

By cricketer-specific, we mean the greatest batsman of them all - Sir Donald George Bradman. The torch bearers of the Bradman Foundation Bradman Museum and International Cricket Hall of Fame (BICHOF) based in Bowral where Bradman spent his childhood years in the state of New South Wales, have just left India after completing what they call a ‘scoping mission' for a "major touring exhibition on Sir Donald Bradman in India in 2015."

Mark Pierce, the Australian Consul General, hosted an evening reception at his Malabar residence on Thursday and introduced the three-member team Rina Hore, the executive director of BICHOF, David Wells, the curator and journalist and historian Mike Coward, who has been a friend of mid-day for over three decades.

Ms Hore took delight in informing the guests that Bradman's first bat, which was given to him as a 12-year-old by his father's club, will come to India along with other Bradman memorabilia. The bat was broken at the bottom and Bradman Sr, being a carpenter, not only set the damage right, he also made it shorter for his son to be comfortable with it. Bradman played with that willow for the next five years.

Ms Hore also said that he travelling museum also has the support of cricket legends Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Bishan Bedi, who according to Hore, wanted the museum to be set up tomorrow. We, too, can hardly wait.

Taking it lying down
Players of St Lawrence (Kandivli) spent their half-time break lying on their sides on the Cooperage turf, during their Mumbai Schools Sports Association U-16 interschool football final against Bombay Scottish (Mahim) yesterday.

Wake up, boys, you have a match to play! Pic/Ashwin Ferro

Given the fast pace of the first session of the match on the artificial surface, St Lawrence coach Lakshman Bisht (in striped T-shirt) instructed his boys to lie down and rest to regain energy for their second half battle ahead. And it seems to have paid off - St Lawrence won 2-1 and became interschool Div I U-16 champions for the first time.

Mob-bed mentality
We wonder what it is about our cops that makes people prefer to stay away from them. Instead of approaching the police to resolve problems, often the public decides to takes things into their own hands for a speedy solution. Something of this nature happened on Wednesday night at Govandi railway station.

With the rain beating down in the background, three men were taking turns - as if they were Bollywood heroes - beating the daylights out of a suspected pickpocket. According to them, he had tried to nick a wallet from one of them.

When a fellow commuter intervened and suggested that they should hand him over to the railway police, they brushed him off, saying, "Public dhulai se hi aise log seekhte hain," ("People like this learn only from a public thrashing") and continued bashing the man. This went on for a while before the trio called it a night and let their "perpetrator" go free. There's mob justice for you!