Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

An afternoon siesta for all

A Mumbaikar and a stray dog both take the load off their feet as they take a nap inside a pipe at Kurla. Pic/Sameer Markande

Mapping the hunger problem

Volunteers of Khaana Chahiye, a citizen's initiative that was launched to fight hunger, will be out and about the city today, to map micro-clusters of homeless communities, especially those living on footpaths and below flyovers. "What we realised while distributing food during the lockdown was that COVID-19 had only amplified inequality. With this project, we are trying to map the problem, and ensure that everyone has basic access to food, water and shelter. The volunteers will begin by identifying how many clusters there are in the city. We are starting with the main roads, and around 150 volunteers will be visiting these places to map the geography and take in other information about the homeless. ParleG biscuits will also be distributed," said Ruben Mascarenhas, co-founder of Khaana Chahiye. This drive, he says, is part of a larger initiative called Hunger Map, which is a multi-dimensional, multi-level, interventional approach to tackle food disparity in the city.

Read a tale about a palace of mirrors

The writer, director and producer of films such as Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai?, Soumitra Ranade, has something to exciting to offer. Ranade has penned an illustrated book for children called Bhrigu and the Palace of Mirrors (Hachette India). Ten-year-old Bhrigu has a wild imagination. But when a chance encounter at a mysterious palace threatens to wreck his entire world, Bhrigu realises that he may have bitten off more than he can chew. "The story came to me during a visit to Lucknow, when I experienced the extraordinary mazes at Bhool Bhulaiya. I had felt then that it would not only be an exciting tale, but also a way to introduce young readers to our spectacular architectural heritage. Amazing structures like the Ajanta Caves, Konark Temple and many others have been relegated to mere chapters in school history books, with no real resonance among the present generation. This story is an attempt to address that," says Ranade.

Soumitra Ranade

Living it up the Chris Gayle way

This is how Chris Gayle dealt with food poisoning recently. Pic/Instagram

Given the cut-throat competition prevailing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), cricketers from another era wonder whether the current lot have the same kind of fun that they had.

But the T20 extravaganza has some characters, who do enough to amuse their teammates and fans. West Indian Chris Gayle is the perfect example. He had good reason to be blue when he couldn't find a place in the Kings XI Punjab team and only earned a spot nearly one month after IPL-13 began.

But Gayle was his joyful self, posting videos on his Instagram account as if he is on top of the world with the willow.

He even posted a picture from his sick bed when he was down with a tummy problem. "I will never go down without a fight," he wrote besides the picture of him with a cucumber slice on each eye, wine glass in his right hand and a telephone on the left. Gayle will continue being Universe Boss (as he calls himself) and now that he has tasted some success (Kings XI Punjab beat his former side Royal Challengers Bangalore on Thursday with Gayle scoring 53 off 45 balls), he won't be dropped in a hurry.

A prescription for self-love

Love Sex Soprano is a poetry film starring Taranjit Kaur and written and produced by the actress herself. Kaur had written a series of poems, which she planned to translate into films. She was in Cannes Film Festival last year with the film for a collaboration on making a series on women-centric stories. Last week, the film's trailer dropped on YouTube. Kaur told this diarist, "For the longest time women have been subjected to an understanding of their relationships and bodies through a male gaze. As women, we rarely express our needs from a relationship. Most of the time a woman is seeking love, and when it's not fulfilled, she is left with a feeling of emptiness. Through the film, I want to share the concept of self-love. The day we discover as humans that we are complete in ourselves, we stop looking for love outside." This film deals with striking down taboos used against women, as a tool to lock them from chasing desire and love that emerges from within.

On the hunt

Over the past three years, Jia: The Oriental Kitchen, an upscale eatery from the owners of Royal China, has kept Colaba's well-heeled folks satiated with its repertoire of Japanese, Thai and modern Chinese dishes. Owner Neville Vazifdar is now considering moving his establishment to a new location. "Given how the pandemic has disrupted the hospitality business, operating in a prime location with exorbitant rent comes with its set of challenges. Many properties that weren't vacant when we launched Jia, are now available, so we are scouting," he told this diarist. Rubbishing rumours of closure, Vazifdar said he won't move out of the neighbourhood. "Our deliveries are doing well and we already have a loyal clientele. It's only a matter of shifting chairs, tables and the kitchen, and I'll be saving half my rent."

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