16 January,2022 07:17 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
Young boys do mock pull-ups in the luggage compartment of a local train at Mankhurd
On September 7, 2019, chef Lata Tondon from Rewa, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, created a Guinness World Record for the longest cooking marathon by clocking in 87 hours and 45 minutes (without sleeping). As per the rules, the food made during such marathons cannot be wasted and so, it was distributed to more than 20,000 people. Recently, Tondon received a certificate from the Harvard Book of Records. "The earlier record was made by an Englishman - 68 hours and 30 minutes. I was determined to break it. It wasn't easy; my doctor warned us about the dangers. But, there was no point in turning back," Tondon told this diarist.
India's captain Rahul Dravid (right) and Sachin Tendulkar after the Cape Town Test loss to South Africa at Newlands on January 6, 2007. Pic/AFP
India's head cricket coach Rahul Dravid has been visiting South Africa since 1996-97 and has yet to witness a Test victory in Cape Town, where SA beat his team to clinch the series 2-1 on Friday. This diarist remembers covering the 2006-07 one-day series in South Africa, returning home and watching Dravid's men beat the hosts in the opening Test of the series in Johannesburg only to lose the next one in Durban. The team then coached by Greg Chappell had a good chance to claim their maiden Test series in the third and final Test at Cape Town. So, our man books his ticket to Cape Town in the hope of witnessing history. Day One and Two of the 2007 Cape Town Test provided India much hope with Wasim Jaffer scoring a century and his opening partner Dinesh Karthik getting 63. India, further helped by Sachin Tendulkar's 64 and Sourav Ganguly's 66 reached 414, which is normally good enough to dominate a Test match. But after gaining a first innings lead, the wheels of India's wagon fell away. They got bowled out for 169 in the second dig and SA won by five wickets. India's dream was over; our reporter's bubble of hope well and truly pierced. And after all these years, success in SA's most picturesque city is still elusive. Some things just don't change.
Hetvi Jethwani, an undergrad at IIT Delhi, who loves STEM and art, wrote 365 lines of p5.js code that generates calendars for 2022. Every calendar generated of her Vulendar '22 is one out of more than 2^{420} possibilities. "Imagine an A4 sheet with a grid on it. It would randomly pick out positions from this grid and draw squares, circles and other shapes depending on where I wanted them," Jethwani explains. What adds to the variety is the randomness in terms of colours, shapes and the places for where these shapes and colours can be, she says.
Hetvi Jethwani
Moreover, the palette for every month is her attempt to celebrate and record her reactions to the work of brilliant queer or female artists like Clementine Hunter, Souhila Belbahar and Zanele Muholi. "I tried to be diverse with the artists, including both queer and female practitioners as well as those specifically not from Europe or the US, as these are the ones we almost always get to know about," says Jethwani. Each calendar generated will be unique to the person who's ordering. You can connect with Jethwani on her Instagram @cosmicbhejafry.
They launched the initiative at the recent Sunburn festival
If there's one positive impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, it's the unequivocal emphasis on hygiene. In tune with this thought is a new campaign by Ishan Grover and Jaideep Mahajan, co-founders of sanitisation and hygiene startup, Svish.
Ishan Grover and Jaideep Mahajan
Their new initiative #SvishPowtyZone addresses the hygiene concerns at large-scale events by ensuring attendees have access to luxurious toilets equipped with gadget wipes, hand sanitisers and toilet seat sprays. The duo implemented this at the recent Sunburn festival in Goa. "A lot of thought has gone into pushing the envelope to change that experience. Our toilets might just distract people, but in a good way," they said.
Artists now have a new address in South Mumbai to showcase their works. Radhika Seksaria, who has exhibited her paintings in United States, London, UAE, and India, recently launched a new .. gallery-cum-art studio on the ground floor of Sarda Building in Churchgate.
The idea for opening the gallery came about during the lockdown, when the world was becoming more virtual, and Seksaria felt the need to connect with her patrons directly. Currently, the gallery is exhibiting her works inspired by the Sufi mystic and poet Rumi. About the future, Seksaria says, "I am looking forward to welcoming both artists and art lovers in this warm corner," she says.
