Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

The Ultra gets anti-terror tagline
The running bug bites big in the monsoon, with this season becoming huge for Indian running. So, with Independence Day approaching, the Shivaji Park Marathon Club (SPMC) supporters and friends are cranking up the enthusiasm for their annual 12-hour Ultrathon, being held for the third time.

The Ultrathon, which is becoming a fixture on the local calendar, comes with a twist this time. Started with the idea of encouraging more people to embrace a healthier lifestyle by incorporating running into their daily lives, the Ultra, which comprises taking loops of Shivaji Park to Worli Sea Face and back for 12 hours, gets serious this time.

Runners will run to a theme, ‘Don't be Terrorized but Run for Fun' with a top cop saying that it makes more of an impact when the common man spreads the anti-terror message.

Whoever said the salt n' pepper look is passe?

Pic/Atul Kamble

We were tempted to guess what the woman whispered into Milind Soman's mum's ears about her evergreen son at an marathon event at the Radio Club yesterday.

Make way for bongtails
If you've been to Raasta, a kitschy, Caribbean lounge in Hauz Khas in Delhi, you'll be aware of their signature Bongtails. For the uninitiated, these are boozy concoctions served in large containers that resemble a bong.

Bongtails at Raasta's Delhi outlet

Now, get ready to enjoy them in Mumbai as the rastafarian-style lounge makes headway into Khar in the later part of August. Spread over four levels, Raasta Bombay will offer world cuisine, with a variety of seafood, while retaining some signatures from the Delhi menu. Already popular for Reggae and Dubstep nights, and a three-day music fest known as Ragadub, it will also host a number of gigs here too. In fact, we hear the team is bringing down BLOT from Delhi, who will present an audio-visual act for the opening night.

Kainaz Messman Harchandrai

Meanwhile, in other foodie news, while Theobrama continues to be on an expansion spree (not that we are complaining), the team behind the patisserie-bakery chain are set to open a new joint in Lower Parel, sometime later this month. Christened Three Chicks And A Bear, the space will offer burgers, milkshakes, appetisers and beer. The menu has been helmed by Theo's flagbearer Kainaz Messman Harchandrai (left, in pic), who's currently gearing up for the food trials. Well, with a name that cute, we've already begun conjuring oh-so-tasty images of chunky burgers and shakes.

Art on his mind
At a symposium on the institutionalisation of private art collections, hosted by the Piramal Art Foundation, we were all ears for Abhishek Poddar. The industrialist who founded Tasveer is fresh out of controversy around Venkatappa Art Gallery, which he intended to turn into a private museum.

Abhishek Poddar (in black) at an earlier event at Targ Gallery. Pic/Shadab Khan

News from the South spoke of how Bengaluru's artists were unhappy with the "privatization" of this public art gallery. Poddar withdrew the bid, a tad miffed. He steered clear of the debated space in his talk. Instead, he focused more on moving on with a clear vision for Musuem of Art and Photography (MAP), what he said would be a "a quality space for art," elaborating, "It is designed very much with the public in mind.

It is the right time to bring such a museum to Bengaluru." He added that he had deliberately kept his surname out of the museum's name. While we wait to see where MAP will be housed, a major digitisation programme of Poddar's collection is on, where he hinted at tie-ups with Google Cultural Institute and other private collections. He signed off, "the agenda for a private collection is different from a museum for the public, with a right curation, it can still work."

A film from memory
With their reputation, one can easily expect a union of poetic visuals and a powerful narrative in Events In A Cloud Chamber, a film remade by Ashim Ahluwalia, the director of award-winning Miss Lovely, Akbar Padamsee, a pioneer of Indian modern art and Jhaveri Contemporary Studio.

Akbar Padamsee

Events In A Cloud Chamber was originally made in 1969 by Padamsee and was one of the earlier works of experimental cinema in the country. For the new 20-minute short, Padamsee recalled the details of the film from memory as no prints were available and Ahluwalia added his touch. Can memory of things lost add to creativity? We await eagerly.

Recap for the birthday day
It was US President Barack Obama's 55th birthday yesterday, his last in The White House, and so we decided to do a bit of digging up of our photo archive, only to find this candid frame of him during a Town Hall with students at St Xavier's College.

US President Barack Obama addresses students at St Xavier's College during his India visit in November 2010. Pic/Shadab Khan

Those who were lucky to be a part of this select audience, or the rest of us, who watched the live session on our television sets, will recall his charisma and energy that had the audience rivetted, and speaking of the session for days to come.