Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Break time
In an ironical moment, a man is seen crossing a road with a street signal at Gazdar Bandh Junction in Santa Cruz West.

Goa calling for these Mumbai makers

The new space at Mapusa-Moira Road, Goa

In 2013, when Vaibhav Chhabra launched Maker's Asylum, a community for DIY enthusiasts, a garage in Bandra became its first official address. As membership grew, they moved locations, eventually settling in Andheri. News comes in that they have now shifted base to Goa. "A lot of makers have moved their creative businesses to this beautiful state and it was always at the back of our minds to explore, but we never really found an opportunity.

Vaibhav Chhabra

The pandemic helped us reimagine our lives as a team, and Goa made a perfect fit. We moved a lot of our courses online while doing relief work with the M19 Initiative in 2020, and having a physical space in Mumbai with the sky rocketing rents did not make any sense. Hence, we decided to pack up our equipment and move."

A Valentine for everyone

Even dogs need a date! And Natasha Tuli, co-founder of Soulflower, knows that. That's why she has initiated Date a Cutie, which is a week-long Valentine's Day event starting February 7 to spread love and awareness about caring for stray animals. She is encouraging people to go on a date with the dogs and spend time with them and feed them. As she tells us, "It has been a tough year and this Valentine's, no one should be alone. The season of love is not just limited to traditional celebrations of love as every living being is deserving of love. So, find yourself a furry valentine and let yourself experience the purest form of love."

Poles find a safe haven

DAMIAN Irzyk, Consul General of Poland in Mumbai, had an interesting weekend. He got an opportunity to restore the plaque at the St Joseph's Convent School in Panchgani. Now, what's interesting about this school is that it became a safe haven for over 30 to 50 Polish girls between 1942-1946. They had put the plaque on the wall on November 11, 1945 (anniversary of Poland's Independance Day). India helped thousands of Poles during the Second World War, kids who were separated from their parents or orphaned during Hitler's invasion of Poland. Speaking to this diarist, Irzyk said, "It took them [orphan girls] three days to travel from Balachadi-Jamnagar to Panchgani. The girls started with a three-month English course with Sister Gemma. Besides them, there were also Indian and English girls enrolled there. They even met Mahatma Gandhi in 1945 when he visited Panchgani for a rest. The place is extremely significant for India-Poland relations."

When Chandra was Pat's secret weapon

The pandemic and travel restrictions have ensured the current England cricket team are not followed around by a large UK media contingent unlike on previous tours. As India cricketers of yesteryear will vouch, the British journalists would want to know more about them than just report on their exploits on the field. In an article for The Sportstar magazine before England's 1984-85 series in India, ace spinner BS Chandrasekhar wrote about how the Brit journalists wanted to chat with him about his spin bowling just before his debut Test at Mumbai in the 1963-64 season. MAK Pataudi, who was leading India then, intervened and offered to speak on behalf of his young spinner. Pataudi probably feared that Chandra would reveal too much about his craft, thereby giving the English cricketers a clue on what to expect. Pataudi also instructed Chandra not to bowl in the nets when the Englishmen were watching. Chandra claimed five wickets in the drawn Test at Brabourne Stadium and went on to be the scourge of the Englishmen in quite a few contests, most famously of course, the 1971 Test at The Oval.

Celebrating the city's water heritage

Over the last one year, nearly 30 professionals - artists, conservation architects, photographers, designers, social scientists and urban planners - came together to start the Mumbai Water Narratives, a project initiated last July to collect, curate, communicate and celebrate the city's rich water heritage. To mark a year since the pandemic, the project will now be organising a virtual exhibition, Confluence. "It seeks to capture Mumbai's multifaceted relationship with water from the rivers to the shores of the sea, from wells and tanks governed by cultural practices to the fishing communities of Mumbai struggling to retain their livelihoods. It also talks of the tanker economy servicing high-rise apartments and the everyday water vulnerabilities faced by informal settlements," says Sara Ahmed, founder and lead curator of Living Waters Museum. , which is supporting the event. Confluence will launch on March 21. Those keen on participating can write to mumbaiwate rnarratives@gmail.com, or follow them on social media.