Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Bringing out the BEST

BEST Stories Collective is an Instagram account co-founded by photographers Aslam Saiyad and Gopal MS. It documents nuggets of everyday life and history around the BEST buses in the city. In light of the general elections, Saiyad along with photographer Fahim Sayed have started a campaign on the page where they lay out placards encouraging people to vote to save BEST, the Aarey forest or even the Mumbai coastline.

Talking about how the idea was conceptualised, Saiyad told this diarist, "All the politicians are talking about national or global issues but nobody is talking about the issues of Mumbai, like the future of the Aarey colony, BEST or the Kolis. I wanted to grab the attention of the people, especially in the last days of the elections. Even after voting is over, we will continue to highlight these problems maybe in a different visual format."

From a son to his father

As you read these words with your morning cup of chai, a 100 musicians from the classical, folk and jazz traditions would already be performing at the NCPA as part of a day-long tribute to Ustad Allarakha on his birth centenary, beginning at 6.30 am until 10 at night. But before the live performance came a tribute from the legendary tabla player's son and noted percussionist Taufiq Qureshi, which was released recently.

An archival picture of Ustad Allarakha

The seven-minute long video, Alla ne Rakha, has been composed by Qureshi with lyrics by Rachna Dixit. And in the spirit of today's performance, the video features several well-known names including Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Shankar Mahadevan, Ajay Gogavale, Salim Merchant and Neeti Mohan.

When Sabya endorsed Sabya

Things came full circle when renowned fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee recently embraced a page named after him. An export of an international account called Diet Prada, Diet Sabya was started in 2018 and weeds out copies and plagiarists from the industry, and may we add, rather humorously.

So when Mukherjee said, "Well done, whoever you are," giving a thumbs up to the faceless folks behind DS, when he spoke to an entertainment website, it reiterated the caption that accompanied the video shared by DS, "That's all."

Austrian moves

After creating a full-length contemporary ballet piece with the Ballet Chemnitz in Germany in 2017, and a collaboration with Polish dance company Zawirowania Dance Theatre last year, Ashley Lobo has now become the first Indian to be invited to choreograph a piece for The Landestheater Linz, the state theatre for Linz in Austria.

Titled Yama, the performance is a full-length 55-minute contemporary ballet piece. "This is a huge opportunity and reassurance for me. Dance for me is about emotion and personal expression, and I look forward to extending that to the Austrians," the choreographer told this diarist.

Danes to the rescue

Even as news comes in of pilots of the grounded Jet Airways being humiliated by a senior official of Spicejet during a recruitment drive, when he called the act a "charity", another heartwarming development assured us that all's not lost in this cut-throat competitive world. The Indian operations of a Denmark-based apparel giant recently posted on social media a campaign titled Join the Family.

Pic/PTI

"Customer centricity is at the core of both retail and aviation industries. With several employees of Jet Airways having been affected due to the recent shut down of the airlines, we... are willing to extend opportunities to them, if you know anyone who would consider an industry change." If you, too, would like to spread the word, career.india@bestseller.com is where CVs can be emailed.

A look called love

Madhuri Dixit Nene looks fondly at husband Sriram during a day out at the movies. Pic/Satej Shinde

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