The city — sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Stolen stoles and all
With the Kala Ghoda fair drawing a large number of visitors, the last day (today) is expected to be ouch-somebody-is-standing-on-my-toes, gosh-there’s-an elbow-in-my-rib time.
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The weekdays too, saw a substantial people and on Thursday, late morning, when the heat was coming on strong, there was some jostling at the stalls. One stall owner suddenly realised that there were some stoles missing from the table.
“Somebody’s been flicking them,” she said dejectedly to her partner at the stall. They checked again and realised it was true. Well, let’s tell the classy, artsy crowd that comes into Kala Ghoda to watch out for pickpockets amid them.
And stall owners keep an eagle eye on stuff, please. Meanwhile, on a pleasant note, it seems practically everyone with a smartphone is a photographer. So, a young man posing in front of an exhibit was overheard telling his friend, “Make my chest look prominent and stomach flat.”Ah, vanity. It’s all happenin’ at the Kala Ghoda.
Flower power and more
One knows it has been a whirlwind weekend what with Valentine’s Day and the ICC World Cup coming together. Well, matches take on different connotations for different people. For those who are reading this in the morning, there’s still a bit of time left to catch the fruit, veg and flowers show at the Jijamata Udyan (Rani Baug, Byculla Zoo).
ALL THE BETTER TO SEE THIS WITH: The floral spectacle frame (above) and the clean corner (below)
It is certainly worth a visit. What caught this diarist’s attention though is the corner dedicated to ‘Swachch Bharat Abhiyan’ or the Clean India Campaign.
This was the vegetable corner where the floral spectacle frame drew many with mobile cameras. Overall, a soothing oasis of green and different hues in a city, where grey (cement) is the dominant colour.
Those challenging Sunny days
World Cup cricket has come a long way from its inaugural edition in 1975. Literally. From being held in England in 1975, 1979 and 1983, it came to the Indian subcontinent in 1987.
The book, Cricket World Cup — the India Challenge
To Australia and New Zealand in 1992 and back to the subcontinent in 1996. England got their chance again in 1999 before Southern Africa (2003), West Indies (2007) and India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh that co-hosted it in 2011.
Over the last 40 years, the game has evolved. Ask batting legend Sunil Gavaskar, who has been to all 11 World Cups, either as a player or commentator.
Gavaskar, through a foreword for cricket writer Ashis Ray’s book Cricket World Cup — the India Challenge (published by Bloomsbury), enlightens us about what World Cup cricket was in its very first years.
Sunny writes, “One has to remind the Internet generation that limited overs cricket way back in the 1970s was quite different from what it is today. Firstly, it was played in white clothes with a red ball and no 30-metre circle or any other field restriction. Neither were bouncers restricted to two per over and for the first three World Cups, it was a 60-overs-a-side game.”
Thanks to Gavaskar, we also learn that there was a tea interval after the side batting second completed 25 overs and a batsman had to earn his boundary by hitting the fence as against today’s boundary ropes being pulled in.
Can we say that it was a harder game then? In some ways, yes.
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