Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Pic/Anurag Ahire

The world is your canvas

A girl doodles on the sand at Aksa beach

For my teacher, with love

The late Pearl Padamsee who passed away on April 24, 2000, was an actor, director and a remarkable teacher. Theatre maker, and a student of Padamsee's at Fort Convent, Shernaz Patel (inset, right) recalled, "There was excellence on all counts; in design, characterisation, the way she used the stage and the simplicity of doing the work well."

Actor Farid Currim (inset, left) agreed. Having acted in over 25 plays directed by Padamsee, Currim recalled how she once caught him snooping at rehearsals while teaching at Campion School. "Knowing I was interested, she simply wrote me in as a page boy. That was my first break," said Currim. One thing both students agreed on was her personality. "She was tiny, but could fill up the stage," shared Patel.

Shadow spectacle

The shadow is cast directly under a person, hence they won't be able to see it. Pic courtesy/Wikimedia Commons

The world may become our woe, but our shadows will never leave our side...except at night. But what if we tell you that they might take a day off? The Zero Shadow Day, a rare occurrence, is usually observed twice a year in areas that are 23 degrees to the north or south of the equator. City-based astronomer, Abhay Deshpande explained that it occurs when the Sun is directly above our heads. "Yesterday, Bengaluru witnessed it around 12.17 pm. This phenomenon will be witnessed in Mumbai on May 15 and again, on July 28," he said. He shared that not many cities around the globe can spot this occurrence and because the Tropic of Cancer, which is 23 degrees to the north from the Equator, passes through the centre of India, the cities near it, including Mumbai will be able to witness this occurrence.

Here's a veggie good idea

The chambers use nutrient-rich RO-purified water instead of soil

Leave it to young entrepreneurs to come up with innovations And this one, founded by IIT-Bombay graduates Abhay Singh and Amit Kumar, gives farming a new identity. They founded Eeki, their entrepreneurial project which uses growth chambers that allow low-cost production as they do not use soil for growth, with high-quality vegetables as an outcome. "The fertility of the land will decline in the future as the population and food demands expand. It would be impossible to meet the rising population's needs with soil-based farming. As a result, a shift from traditional farming practices is required," Singh told us. They recently released a fresh chamber-grown batch of cucumbers for distribution.

Dad-daughter jodi enter record books

When Kurla-based Glenn Pais (right), 51, who owns an outdoor media company, created a huge hoarding for his client, an eyewear brand, he didn't imagine that it would enter the record books. In fact, even after the hoarding that measures a whopping 350 feet by 50 feet, and located at Kamshet on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, came up in February, he didn't think it was a record-breaker. However, his daughter, Shania, 21, a mass media graduate, felt her father may have done something special. She approached the India Book of Records (IBR), a Government of India-registered curator of records, to check it out. In early April, IBR certified that it was India's longest hoarding. "My company owns nearly 450 hoardings, and many are over 100 to 200-feet long, but this one is almost as long as a football field, so this certification is a proud achievement for my family. I am grateful to my daughter. It's great to see our youth thinking out-of-the-box," Pais told us.

Lingo-bingo ekdum Mumbai ishtyle

Most Mumbaikars are bound to be familiar with Mumbai slang. You might have used it in conversation or chuckled over somebody else using terms like ‘mandavli' (compromise or understanding) or phrases like "Alibaug se aaya kya"? that translates into: Do you think I am stupidly naïve? Should Mumbaikars who have second homes in Alibaug take offence? Then, there is the ‘Patli galli se nikal jaa,' which means: ‘Get out of here through an escape route'.

Residents protesting at the park. File pic

Now, even the serious cause to save Patwardhan Park in Bandra West from being usurped for a proposed underground car parking lot by the BMC, has a dash of humour. Residents and activists, who have been fighting for it, congregate and converse virtually daily under a WhatsApp group. One comment on the WhatsApp group used Mumbai tapori slang to bash those trying to take over Patwardhan Park. It read: "It's time we give them (those who are pushing for a car park) one tight kanput to make them realise that open spaces cannot be ghapchowed at will without our permission."

The term ‘kanput', possibly stands for kanpatti, which means a whack below the ear while ‘ghapchowed' means usurped or encroached. These garner a few smiles amidst a battle that should never have happened, as that park should have been left as is, and a realisation that sometimes, "Khaali peeli locha nahi karne ka, Patwardhan as a garden jhakaas hai."