The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
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Sridevi's non-actor daughter readies with make-up before taking questions from Neha Dhupia on her chat show at an Andheri studio on Monday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
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The barren walls flanking SV Road in Bandra being painted
Message on a wall in Bandra
The barren walls flanking SV Road in Bandra got a makeover recently, when over 180 volunteers came together to paint them in vibrant colours for a three-day event. Called Art Express, it was organised by the non-profit organisation, Chal Rang De, and Neerja Birla's mental healthcare initiative. The idea was to raise awareness about mental health and the many taboos associated with it, using art.
Neerja Birla
The idea witnessed participation by people from all walks of life including the young and the not-so-young, traffic cops as well as Birla, who was joined by her daughter Adwaitesha.
Zakir Hussain in a session with the students at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind, as Mala Goenka (extreme right) captures the moment
When the ustad dropped by
The music room at The Victoria Memorial School for the Blind often resounds with the beats of the tabla, a strong point of the talented students of the century-old school in Tardeo. But the session on Monday afternoon was rather special, for guiding the students through the nuances of the instrument was none other than Ustad Zakir Hussain. "A group of our students have been learning music for many years.
So, we thought of inviting Zakir saab to visit the school and guide students about their future in this [field]. He very kindly consented, and was extremely helpful and forthcoming. He took lots of questions from the students, and even played the tabla with them for a while. It was a very interesting and fruitful interaction," Mala Goenka, the school's honorary secretary and trustee, and industrialist Harsh Goenka's wife, told this diarist. The school has been visited by several personalities in the past including actor and former Rajya Sabha MP Rekha, and the late former Governor of Maharashtra PC Alexander.
Rajathi Salma
A woman of her words
Rajathi Salma's journey as a poet and author is nothing less than extraordinary. Born in a conservative Muslim family in Tamil Nadu's Trichy district, she got confined to a room after attaining puberty; books brought in by a family member from a nearby library being her sole window to the world.
The feisty woman started writing her raw emotions on scraps of paper she could lay her hands on and shipped them off to a Tamil magazine under a pen name. The poems created quite a stir, and invited the wrath of her community. But nothing could deter her. Two volumes of poetry, a short story anthology and two novels - several of which have been translated to other languages - later, Salma will receive the Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Award for Poetry at this year's edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival. A fitting honour, barring this irony: the jury that selected her name for the award includes Sudeep Sen. The poet was called out for alleged sexual misconduct in March last year, which had prompted 12 other poets to pull out of his anthology.
Saransh Goila
Cooking their way to fitness
On Sunday, Woodside Inn, in Colaba, was teeming with people back from the Mumbai marathon. "They were having eggs and beer at 9 am in the morning," quips Sumit Gambhir (below), the restaurant's co-owner. "South Bombay is lovely on Sundays.
When you get to walk on the streets that you normally drive on, it's a different high," he shares. But he wasn't the only restaurateur at this edition of the marathon which saw quite a few people from the F&B industry. Celebrity chef Saransh Goila, too, was part of the anda-beer party, while Thomas Zacharias and Hussain Shazad completed the 21k run.
Dhaval Udeshi, Sanjay Shetty, Pawan Shahri and Suved Lohia
Say Oi!
Looking for a new watering hole? This Khar speakeasy kitchen and bar, which opens its doors on February 5, promises to do more than woo Mumbaikars with its Latin American-inspired street style ambiance of chafed walls, low hanging lanterns and a bar bang in the middle of it - by practicing clean eating principles with responsible sourcing of ingredients directly from the farmers.
Owners Suvyed Lohia (of Or-G, Villa69 and Gangsta), Dhaval Udeshi (London Taxi, Butterfly High and Falafel's), and Sanjay Shetty, Pawan Shahri (Butterfly High), directed chef Anu Banerjee - who has worked in Italy, Spain, Australia and Thailand - to curate the menu. "This project was conceived almost a year ago. The last two months have been exciting as we put this together piece by piece," the owners say.
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