The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Satej Shinde
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With the monsoons raising water levels in city lakes again, a fisherman casts his net at the Hariyali lake in Daulat Nagar, Thane East
Hello Dickie, good to see you again
That’s Dickie Bird,” some of us exclaimed as the famous cricket umpire appeared on our television sets as we followed the third Ashes Test played at Leeds, Yorkshire, on Thursday. Bird, 90, still loves his cricket and while he earned the admiration of cricketers the world over throughout his 1973-1996 stint in international cricket, he was always happy to share his memorable on-field experiences.
Umpire Dickie Bird acknowledges the crowd’s applause as he steps onto the Lord’s turf for the opening day of his last Test in the England versus India game at Lord’s in 1996. Current India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey is on the right. Pic/ Getty Images
In My Autobiography, a book he wrote in 1997, he mentioned how Kapil Dev played the perfect optimist when India had the mighty West Indies on the run in the 1983 World Cup final, which was supervised by Bird and Barrie Meyer at Lord’s. “We’ve got them now, Dickie, we’ve got them,” the India skipper kept telling him with each passing wicket while the West Indies tried to go past India’s score of 183.
Bird enjoyed a good final, which changed the face of Indian cricket, but one decision from him caused some debate. He ruled a West Indian batsman not out although he didn’t make his ground. Bird reckoned that the Caribbean batsman was obstructed by India medium pacer S Madan Lal. Bird wrote that Madan had no issue with his decision and even admitted that he had come in the way of the batsman.
Bird’s call also earned approval from Richie Benaud, known for his precise observations from the commentary box. Forty years ago, cricket was a lesser demonstrative sport which often witnessed acts of fairness and honesty. The game had more characters too. Like us, you may have seen one of them watching Thursday’s Ashes action at a ground that he likes to call home.
A mother’s journey
They say a mother can move heaven and earth for her child, and few people embody this spirit better than Vahishtai Daboo, a certified audio visual therapist for people with hearing differences. When her son, now 26 years old, was born with hearing loss, Daboo went back to school, learning audio visual therapy at the Bell Academy in the United States of America, and is now a certified professional in the field. “I saw what the therapy did for my son and I wanted to be there for others facing similar situations. I wanted to make a difference in the lives of other families with members facing hearing differences,” Daboo tells mid-day over a call. This week marked another milestone in her journey. Daboo had founded Integrated, a consultancy service for children with hearing differences, their families, professionals and centres, five years ago, and on Friday, Integrated shifted from its original office in Colaba to a larger space in Opera House. “All we are doing,” she says, “is empowering children and adults with hearing differences so that they can become contributing members of the society.”
Sole-ful 13th anniv for running club
The Mumbai Road Runners (MRR), a running group that found its feet in 2010, celebrated 13 years with a festive run in the city. The club holds 10 km and 21 km training runs on the first Sunday of every month and currently has 15,000 members on Facebook. “Some leave the city, but many new runners keep joining in. Some runners sacrifice their long runs and stand at the MRR water stations, volunteering to serve or support the runners,” says a club member.
The future is queer
Drag just went mainstream, with the first-ever event held last week in Mumbai, where drag performers took the stage in a mainstream location. It Events, founded by Mumbai-based transgender influencers Luna, Rayyan Monkey and Deedee, hosted a drag ball extravaganza, Welcome to the Future, at antiSOCIAL on July 2. The company, which first began hosting online drag events during the pandemic, is now taking drag performers out of the restriction of queer venues only, and placing them firmly in the public eye. Queer public figures like trans fashion designer Saisha Shinde and nonbinary filmmaker Faraz Arif Ansari were the judges. “Queer spaces tend to be gendered but we are aiming to create a genderless community. The idea was, first and foremost, to create a safe space for ourselves [the founders], as we felt there wasn’t one before. We wanted a space where we could celebrate fantasy, freedom and fashion,”
Luna tells this diarist.
And D’sa how you do it!
Content creator Larissa D’Sa has become the first Indian creator to be invited to attend Wimbledon this year. In fact, she manifested it. D’Sa put up a story on her Instagram, which showed a scrapbook from 2008, where she had pasted pictures of her favourite tennis star Roger Federer. She was there on July 6 to watch the Andy Murray and Stefanos Tsitsipas match, and also hung out with Indian legend Sania Mirza! D’Sa told us, “Being hosted by Wimbledon was a dream come true. I grew up being a tennis fan and I love how the game is not just about physical strength but also mental agility. It is about two individuals at war so that’s what I am so fascinated about. I watched Murray and Tsitsipas’s match, and that was intensely satisfying. I really wanted to watch Djokovic but he was not playing on the day I attended!”
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