07 October,2014 08:06 AM IST | | Contributed by: Clayton Murzello, Vidya Heble
The city — sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Goodbye to a great team man
It's not every day that Appasaheb Marathe Marg in Prabhadevi is buzzing with traffic well past midnight. But Sunday night was different, depressing and dour.
Rajesh Sanghi
The younger segment of Mumbai cricket's fraternity among many other visitors gathered at the Sah and Sanghi premises to pay their respects to Rajesh Sanghi, the 42-year-old former Rajasthan Ranji Trophy batsman, who collapsed to his death after suffering a massive heart attack while jogging in the Maldives on Saturday morning.
The large number of Sanghi's teammates in attendance reflected the kind of love and admiration they had for him. Sanghi played the ideal team man to several outfits in his career Mumbai under-15, Podar College Dadar Union Sporting Club, Cricket Club of India and Rajasthan.
All his friends appeared devastated and teary-eyed. A few of them arrived from abroad for the funeral. "How could this happen to a guy who was so fit, so young and so nice," was the common refrain. One friend revealed to this diarist that Sanghi was preparing to participate in the 21k category of the 2015 edition of the Mumbai Marathon.
Considering the way he trained, Sanghi would have easily completed the half marathon, but alas he lost the biggest race of it all. Mumbai cricket must not forget Rajesh Sanghi. There are several ways to perpetuate his memory and who better to do that than those old friends.
Charity at a football field!
Instant tournaments form the crux of the city's local football flavour. Entries costing anywhere between Rs 500 to even as high as Rs 5000 at times, sees rink football tournaments offering prize money in the range of Rs 5000 to even a lakh sometimes.
UK United (team owner Ronnie D'Souza is in the centre) with their trophy after winning the Goan Outreach Association instant football tournament at the Fatima School ground in Vidyavihar on Sunday
But never have we heard of any player or team letting go of their hard-earned cash, or better still donating it to charity. However, yesterday at a seven-a-side football tournament organised by a socio-charitable organisation GOA (Goan Outreach Association) at the Fatima School ground in Vidyavihar, Malad-based outfit UK United returned part of their winner's prize purse of R 15,000 to the organisers. Goa's Wency Pereira (51) told mid-day that UK United had promised to donate R 5000 to GOA irrespective of whether or not they won the 16-team tournament.
"We (GOA) are a 53-year-old body that organises free medical camps, charity functions, employment initiatives, etc for the marginalised irrespective of their caste or creed. UK United owner Ronnie D'Souza was so touched on learning about our initiatives that he decided to return almost half the prize-money back, so that it could be used for charity," said Pereira.
UK United emerged triumphant among some top teams like Customs, Dena bank, Air India Colony, Air India U-19, Taxmen, etc. They beat Sainath FC 3-1 in the final with their striker Cletus Paul being adjudged Man of the Tournament.
Film flam
It may not be time to bring out the shawls just yet, but the culture season has more or less set in, what with concerts happening and the Mumbai Film Festival scheduled to start next week (October 14-21, at PVR and Liberty).
Liberty Cinema in the city is the satellite venue for the Mumbai Film Festival
We were checking out the array of cinematic delights in store for us, on the festival website (www.mumbaifilmfest.org), and to our slight consternation came upon a sort of Freudian typo.
Where the site talks about Chungking Express, they have said "Chunking Express" instead. Chunking, in psychology, is a memory mechanism in which people group responses when performing a memory task. Well, at least they didn't say "Chucking Express" otherwise we might have thought it was about cricket...
For family court, the lining is silver
It has seen many a strife-torn breakup within its brick-and-mortar walls, and equally has presided over several happy unions that have gone on to see many years of togetherness. In its turn, the Family Court at Bandra is celebrating its own anniversary 25 years, today.
Chief Justice Mohit Shah last year felicitating couples who were on the verge of divorce but then reconciled at the Family Court
When it first began life the court was popularly called the "Divorce Court" but has, over time, come to be known by its more familiar appellation now. Because the court does not just oversee makings and breakings - it also plays an important role in reconciliations.
The aim of the court is to keep couples together and retain the family unit intact, so to that end people have to see a counsellor and go through a mandatory process of patching up differences, before finally divorcing if there is no option. In many cases, couples have remained together, and we are sure that they will join us in congratulating the court on its silver jubilee today.
