04 April,2016 09:03 AM IST | | Team mid-day
The city — sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
From Munnabhai to Stylebhai
Sanjay Dutt (centre) with wife, Manyata (second, left) and Sophie Choudry (left) at Masaba Gupta's show during an ongoing fashion week in the city.
No funds, it's okay
Photographer Anusha Yadav is over the moon. Her enterprising brainchild, the Indian Memory Project (IMP) - an online visual and narrative archive that traces the personal history of the Indian subcontinent through images - has just completed six years.
She also celebrated her project's birthday with a photo film, which can be viewed on IMP's website. As of now, there is little stopping the photo archivist, except for funds to keep her vision afloat. But she isn't one to lose hope and Yadav has not pinned it on money.
"I don't run after funds anymore. I used to get extremely disappointed when people refused to fund my project. It made me doubt myself. But I got over that soon. I realised that it had little to do with my work, and more with the fact that people won't give money to maintain or preserve anything. What I have here is on the level of national archives, and I won't allow money to affect what I am doing," she asserts.
Tour de force for Mallya
Going by the stories in the media about Vijay Mallya if you think the liquor baron's luck has run out, you could be wrong. Mallya's investments in horseflesh and horse racing have perhaps never done as well as they did during the last year or so when the noose was tightening around the business tycoon of the banks and other fiduciary authorities. Horses racing in Mallya's silks of âwhite, black V, red cap' have won 19 group races in 2015-16, five of them being Classics. Angel Dust trained by SS Attaolahi in Bangalore and Cameron trained by Bharat Singh in Kolkata won two Classics each.
Mallya's racing operations, including the breeding activities at the Kunigal stud farm in Bangalore, which emerged as the champion stud farm this season, are managed by Zeyn Mirza, managing director of the United Racing & Bloodstock Breeding (URBB). Besides the two mentioned above, almost all top trainers at every racing centre in India train Mallya horses, including Pesi Shroff (Mumbai), S Padmanabhan (Bangalore) and LVR Deshmukh (Hyderabad). At the time of this going to print, 98 of Mallya's horses are in training, scattered in the yards of 10 trainers all over the country.
Delifrance French bakery
A 97-year-old French bakery will open its doors in the city soon after it settles its first leg in the capital, where it launched on March 30. Amar Raj Singh, MD, Gamma Pizzakraft, revealed, "It is planned that after establishing itself in the NCR Region, the brand will enter Mumbai to delight discerning Mumbaikars with our offerings."
Descended from a milling family business founded in Paris in 1919, Délifrance is a French bakery experts company. As part of a co-operative grain group, the company controls the entire value chain from wheat to plate and started franchising more than 30 years ago. It has 438 outlets in 16 countries.
Seema Atreya, food consultant for pan-India, said, "Apart from the classic French baguettes, croissants, egg mayo and smoked chicken sandwiches, we have added a jungle chicken sandwich with mint and chillies, and even a paneer tikka to suit the Indian palate." Get ready to place an order for freshly baked goodies, which will be ready for pick up in an hour.
Dawa, not dua
Looking for momentary relief from the clutches of CBI by requesting for bail on medical grounds, all Indrani Mukerjea could manage to get in return was a piece of advice from a male doctor treating her at Byculla Women's Prison.
Sources here confirmed that the doctor, assigned for routine check ups was asked by Mukerjea to pray for her bail, saying "Mere liye dua karna." However, the medical examiner, responding assertively to her plea said, "Mera kaam dua karna nahi, dawa dena hai," sources confirmed.
On April 1, the Special CBI court rejected Mukerjea's bail application. The application mentioned that the prime accused in Sheena Bora murder case is suffering from âsmall vessels inchemic changes', and can possibly suffer a brain stroke.
Mudras all the way
This year, the theme at the Mudra Dance Festival is the animal. Naturally, for kids at Tardeo's Education Audiology and Research Society, who communicate via lip-reading, the recently-concluded lecture-demo that introduced them to Indian classical dance forms, must have been a fascinating ride.
(From left) Pallavi Raisurana (Kathak), Swapnokalpa Dasgupta (Odissi), Sharmistha Mukherjee (Mohiniattam) and Prachi Sathe (Bharatanatyam) engage students in a performance at the Education Audiology and Research Society in Tardeo as part of a lecture demonstration to educate them about Indian classical dance forms. Pic/Bipin Kokate
"We chose animals because they inspire movement. Most Indian dance forms are influenced by flora and fauna, and we felt it would be ideal to attract new audiences," shares Swapnokalpa Dasgupta, head, programming (Dance), NCPA.
She added that the idea to engage with children across international schools, special schools and NGOs has been under way for a few years now. For this session, these classical dance forms were performed in full costume along with slides.
Each dance picked an animal and connected it with a story. This edition, the BSPCA is associated with the festival. So, sessions in schools will be followed by short chats on sensitization towards animals. The NGO will also play an active role during the four-day festival that kicks off on April 21 at NCPA.
