Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

And the show goes on

A civic worker, on duty outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, Colaba, gets on with chores even as the weekend lockdown came into force on Saturday.

When purses were light but fun unlimited

A tour brochure of the 1977-78 India v Australia series Down Under

The ongoing Indian Premier League is synonymous with top quality cricket entertainment. Big bucks, too. Remember how South African all-rounder Chris Morris was bought by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 16.24 crore at the last auction? It needs to be stressed that Morris's base price was only R2 crore and he was certainly not adjacent to the top performers for his erstwhile team Royal Challengers in IPL 2020. It's fair to say - and we don't do so grudgingly - that a good T20 player is rolling in wealth thanks to such amazing, incomprehensible figures. In the midst of all this money talk, our in-house cricket nut came up with a snippet written by Sydney-based cricket writer Kersi Meher-Homji in a 1977 issue of World of Cricket magazine. Kersi informed his readers that each Indian member of Bishan Singh Bedi's 1977-78 team to Australia was to paid AUD 1,000 for the tour by the BCCI. Half the amount would be paid after the tour depending on a "satisfactory report from the team manager." And what about daily allowance? Kersi had those figures too: AUD 16.50, including 10 dollars for meals. This was way back in 1977, when purses were light but the fun factor prominent.

A loved neighbourhood café to start new innings

Gudiya Chadha

Some sad news arrived this week for café lovers as All Elements Café, a beloved neighbourhood joint in Khar, became yet another casualty of the pandemic. "Cafés have been hit the hardest," Gudiya Chadha, owner of All Elements, told this diarist. Chadha started the place in 2017 at a time when she had been suffering from severe clinical depression. Although she had no background in the business, Chadha started the venture, determined to put her energy into something new, and the result soon proved to be extremely rewarding. "It was my third baby," says the owner of the place, which became known not only for its quaint décor and fresh smoothies, but also as a space of compassion where discussions around mental health were encouraged. After months of financial strain, Chadha finally decided to close it down a few days ago, but All Elements will operate with its old staff and menu as a cloud kitchen from next week.

Flying high on a cycle

Indranil Roy is not your regular cyclist. An avid backpacker for almost a decade now, he has been to some of the most remote parts of the country and Southeast Asia. In June 2020, he started cycling regularly without any plans of making cycling the core of his travelling future. He decided to cover 500km in Kumaon, starting from Almora to Chaukori, Munsiyari and back from Bageswar route. From steep climbs to leopard infested territory, he had to cover it all. Ever since, there has been no stopping his new passion. Speaking to this diarist, he says, "In December, I went to Mumbai, thought of cycling to Malshej Ghat and back, but it all took a very different turn and I ended up riding 700 km covering Igatpuri, Nashik, Shirdi, and Pune, traversing through the Western Ghats. It was only a few days later that I planned a road trip to Goa wanting to just ride a few hundred km inside, but 30km before the Goa border I decided to ride till Cochin and eventually added Kanyakumari to end my journey, covering the entire Konkan and Malabar coast. Not even in my wildest imagination I had thought I would do this, but each time, I have surprised myself and now yearn for more."

NUDES wins big in Nevada

Recently, the Burning Man Project and the Land Art Generator Initiative invited innovators across the globe to propose regenerative projects for Fly Ranch, an off-grid 3,800-acre ranch in the Great Basin, USA. Out of hundreds of entries received, the Solar Mountain designed by Nuru Karim was selected to be prototyped/built along with nine other shortlisted winning designs in Nevada.

The Mahalaxmi-based artist Nuru Karim, founder and Design Principal of NUDES, said that The Solar Mountain uses solar photovoltaic and recycled materials to contribute 300 MWh of electricity per year. "The project combines art and technology in order to have a positive impact on the environment and combat climate change," he says.

Being safe on every street

Mumbai-based ElsaMarie D'Silva of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) has teamed up with Holly Kearl, founder of Stop Street Harassment and Sophie Sandbery's Catcalls of NYC, to co-host the Anti Street Harassment week from April 11 to 17. As part of the campaign, Safecity is inviting people to participate by submitting quotes for posters they'll create and share on social media all through the week. "Street harassment and violence against women and girls in public spaces is a global pandemic, which has physical, emotional and mental consequences. We are hosting several activities online to raise awareness of how common it is, its impact on women and girls, interventions bystanders can take and the remedies available under legislations," D'Silva told this diarist.