Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Ashish Raje

At the Lord's doorstep

It's a mom's lot to wait and they are spending it chatting as their children play football at the Gloria Convent High School in Byculla

A train of thought

Steaming in with nostalgia on several WhatsApp chats, this one is a real winner. The caption says that this picture shows a metalled Queen's Road (now Karve Marg) between the Oval Maidan and BB & CI Railway tracks leading to Colaba. Also seen in the picture is a train coming from Colaba Terminus to Churchgate Station. The BB&CI stood for Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway; a company incorporated in 1855 to construct Railway lines between Bombay to erstwhile Baroda state that became present day Vadodara. The work was completed in 1864. In times of air-conditioned rakes and Vande Bharat trains, it is good to turn around and look at the past.

Change of guard

Calvin Godinho and Rohan Kulkarni with Milo and Frodo

Four spunky streeties have usurped jobs - purely on merit; no nepotism here - usually reserved for pedigrees such as German Shepherds and Rottweilers. Shobhit Mohanty, founder of The Pack, had discussed the idea with Tara Chand InfraLogic Solutions for their Kalamboli premises. Intrigued, they agreed and Andheri-based behaviourist Calvin Godinho became the trainer for the job, assisted by Navi Mumbai-based trainer Rohan Kulkarni After six months of training, Frodo, Tammy, Luna and Milo now patrol the premises.

Chronicler Dahatonde's Wisden silver lining

Bhandup-based cricket statistician Prakash Dahatonde, 63, is celebrating a unique silver jubilee this year. He has been acknowledged in the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack for the 25th time. Dahatonde, who enriches the UK-based publication's Chronicles section, started his Wisden dispatches in 1996. Inadvertently, he was not credited for his contribution in three editions. Else, Dahatonde's bible of cricket count could have been 28. Interesting bits of information which appear in the media here reach Wisden, thanks to this genial, soft-spoken cricket chronicler. In pre-email days, his compilation packets were at times lost in the mail, causing Dahatonde to repost them. Wisden has been kind to him. On two occasions over the last 28 years, he didn't receive his complimentary copy and the then editor Matthew Engel was happy to resend him his copy. Dahatonde's commitment has to be applauded, appreciated and just like Wisden has done in 25 editions, acknowledge him!

When Dom travelled

Dom Moraes. PIC/WIKICOMMONS

All beautiful things are chance - those who've read late poet-writer Dom Moraes' travel book Gone Away will know why. Leading UK publishing house John Murray has resurrected that celebrated text, with a brand new edition as part of its Journeys series. Author-poet Jeet Thayil, who was a friend of Moraes, has given an introduction to the book.

Jeet Thayil

"Gone Away was Dom's first real book. He was 21 when he came to India for a visit and 22 when he wrote it up, very quickly, in London. The book is a young man's work but it's already indicative of the writer and traveller he would be. Open to everything. To traveller's luck. Preceded by fame. Incapable of writing a dull sentence," Thayil told this diarist.

Dastaan-e-Nolan

PIC/INSTAGRAM

Known for spouting shayari at work, with zero appreciation from colleagues, this diarist found an Instagram post by Rekhta, an online Urdu literature resource, quite delightful. Just before Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer released, Rekhta summed up five past Nolan films with shayari. Our favourite was the one about The Dark Knight, where Rekhta captured the relationship between Batman and his arch nemesis, the Joker, with Azhar Adeeb's couplet: "Tu apni marzi ke sabhi kirdaar aazmaa le; mire baghair ab tiri kahani nahin chalegi (Try as many roles as you may wish, your story will never be complete without me)."