Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

A balancing act

Actor Kartik Aaryan stays steady while tying his shoelaces after exiting the Mumbai International Airport on Friday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

In memoriam

Loins of Punjab Presents was such a funny film that this diarist remembers laughing uncontrollably while watching it years ago. But its director, Manish Acharya, passed away in a horse-riding accident in Matheran in 2010.

Dhruvi Acharya with Manish AcharyaDhruvi Acharya with Manish Acharya

Now, on his birth anniversary, his wife, artist Dhruvi Acharya, has launched a website that shares its name with the film, where a digitally re-mastered version will be available, apart from the actor-filmmaker's short films. Log on to learn more about a man who had a lot more work left in him.

Looking for a dream ticket

If there is one big-ticket event to get immersed in on Sunday, it is the India vs Pakistan World Cup cricket game at Manchester. Jeff Lepps, a Guyanese-born Delhi-based cricket lover, boarded a New Delhi-London flight yesterday to be there with a prayer on his lip because he doesn't have a match ticket.

Lepps is relying on his numerous cricket contacts in Manchester to get him one and while that seems a tall order considering this is an India-Pakistan encounter, he is confident of getting through the gates of Old Trafford and meeting up with some former West Indian cricketers.

Lepps has spent a bit of time with Desmond Haynes, who is lending his expert views on the World Cup from a studio in Gurgaon and is sure to meet Clive Lloyd, Sir Viv Richards and Michael Holding. Lloyd is a legend in Manchester since he played and captained Lancashire county where the mother of all cricket battles will take place on Father's Day. Wonder whether Lloyd is organising Lepps's ticket.

Feeling blue

The last time we saw social media painted in the red, blue and white colours of the French flag was after the Charlie Hebdo shooting tragedy in Paris. This time, Instagram and Twitter users are painting the platforms blue, to express their solidarity with protesters in Sudan, in the wake of a brutal crackdown that has killed several people in the capital, Khartoum.

The #BlueforSudan campaign gained currency as a mark of honouring the memory of victims Mohamed Mattar, whose favourite colour was blue. Well-known faces from Mumbai too have shown solidarity, including actor Gauhar Khan and poet Aranya Johar.

A royal Bengal tiger has a ball in London

The Animal Ball is a charity event that The Elephant Family, a conservation NGO, hosts every year with much fanfare. The organisation was started by the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla's brother, the late Mark Shand. It draws hundreds of global celebrities every year, who are all dressed wearing some sort of an animal motif. And this year, it was Sabyasachi Mukherjee who designed two glittering black tiger masks for Camilla and husband Prince Charles.

Sabyasachi was in attendance at the event held yesterday, where he even exchanged pleasantries with the royal couple, and generally seemed to be having a wonderful time dressed in Indian attire.

Other guests at the party included designer Vivienne Westwood and actors Douglas Booth and Yasmin Le Bon. Large elephant sculptures created from the invasive weed, Lantana Camara, were placed on the lawns. Now that's one party we wouldn't have minded an invite to.

Have a splash at this eatery

People in the city's F&B industry are constantly racking their brains to come up with innovative concepts that can act as a magnet for customers. But an upcoming eatery in Bandra is the only standalone we have heard of that will have an indoor pool.

Oheka will launch on June 20 and the menu has a mix of cuisines including some fusion dishes such as watermelon and rassam cold soup.

Co-owner Chirag Wadhwa told this diarist, "Since Mumbai has tropical weather, we wanted to build a standalone place with a pool inside it because all the other places with one are in five-star hotels. We also wanted to introduce the idea of pool-side brunches." That's a cool idea that we hope makes a splash in the city.

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