05 December,2024 06:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Atul Kamble
A man peers at the Mumbai Cricket Association ground from the balcony of the One BKC building in BKC.
Last weekend was a celebration for every sports buff who grew up in the Bandra West neighbourhood around Supari Talao. From the early 1970s, when the club of Companeroes was founded till his passing in April 2022, the late âSir' Sydney Alexander was a familiar presence. A founding member of the club, he worked tenaciously to build it and keep the ship sailing even through difficult times. December 1 marked the first edition of the series for the Sir Sydney Alexander Memorial Trophy. With eight teams competing for the trophy, the one-day football tournament concluded with a win for Rebels FC from Bandra. "Sydney was the heart and soul of the club - Mr Companeroes. Everyone who grew up with the club, or played against us, knows his contribution. We also hold the Celebration Cup on June 15, but wanted to celebrate his name and legacy with this tournament," shared Brian D'Souza, goalkeeper and member of the organising committee.
Taking things a notch up with creative ideation, Bandra Reads will bring out their brushes along with books this Sunday for a session where art will merge with literature. "We are offering readers an opportunity to learn from talented artists while immersing themselves in the creative process of reading. Participants can bring their own art materials to paint, draw, or sketch alongside Bandra Reads' regular silent reading sessions," Abhimanyu Lodha, co-founder, told this diarist.
Few would have escaped the barrage of content that flooded social media after Dua Lipa's concert in Mumbai. Top of the list was the pop star's short plug on a viral mash-up of Levitating and Shahrukh Khan's song Woh Ladki Jo from Baadshah (1999). Like most Mumbaikars, artist Omkar Patil was also pleasantly surprised by the gesture, and so he reimagined the scene with an illustration. "Nobody had expected Dua Lipa to play the mash-up in a live concert. There were videos from the concert all over the Internet, and it became a big talking point. I was browsing through the comments section of one such video when I read posts where people shared that it would have been great if Shahrukh Khan had joined Dua Lipa on stage for the performance. I thought why not sketch out this wish on my screen," Patil told this diarist. Videos from the concert show the musician end her song, Levitating, by playing a viral mashup of the track created by DJ Ruchir Kulkarni. "Right after the moment went viral people also started talking about how the DJ and the original singer should have been credited. There were a lot of these arguments on social media. I took inspiration from one of the comments to sketch out Shahrukh Khan and put an end to at least one of these conversations," Patil said.
On International Day of Persons with Disability (December 3), Ummeed Child Development Centre organised a Family Day in Dadar Parsi Colony for families of children with disabilities recently. "This is the second edition of Ummeed Family Day. We've seen that children with disabilities often find it difficult to access public spaces and their caregivers also find it hard to take out time for themselves due to constant care-giving responsibility. This is why having access to recreation and leisure is important for them. We want to show that it is possible for public events to be inclusive and that children with disabilities can also participate freely" Revathi Iyer, project lead, told this diarist.
Echoing playwright Bertolt Brecht's call to sing songs even in the darkness, the collaborative residency programme by Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan,
Alliance Française de Bombay, and The Queer Muslim Project, with support from the German-French Cultural Fund, Queer Caravan will unite storytellers, artists, and poets from across the LGBTQiA+ community in India, France and Germany to foster cross-cultural dialogue on December 10. Calling it âjoy as an act of resistance,' Jamal Ouazzani (below), artivist and poet from France, shared, "The group features representation of different universes and identities that are prone to oppression. For instance, being a queer Arab is a unique identity experience. We will explore and understand how these perspectives can nourish our individual vision of identity." Hameeda Syed (above), Kashmir-based activist, added, "All of us will participate in readings of our existing works exploring identities and their interaction with society; our own experiences with love, queer intimacy and how power interacts with identity and how it emerges in the larger societal setup."
