Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Zebra Crossing

Young girls in matching tops and bright masks, share a light moment as they hang out in a local leaving Ghatkopar railway station.

The Rathee siblings are on a roll

Sonia and Ankurr Rathee. Pic/Instagram

We have been following the Rathee siblings-Ankurr and Sonia-for a while now. And their hustle sure seems to be showing results. Ankurr had hit the screens with Four More Shots as a boy toy, but has also been lauded for his work in Taish. Sonia, who is a dancer, and whom we saw in well-choreographed dance videos with her brother, has now been selected for the lead role in Ekta Kapoor's Broken but Beautiful 3, opposite Siddharth Shukla. She replaces Harleen Sethi, and though we will miss Sethi, we will wait to see what Sonia brings to the table. But one thing is clear, thanks to the journey of the brother-sister duo-social media hustle truly pays off.

Kane is much more than just able!

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson amuses the Melbourne Cricket Ground crowd on December 29, 2019. Pic/Getty Images

Kane Williamson is in the news again. After some sterling knocks in the Indian Premier League-13 for Sunrisers Hyderabad, the quiet New Zealander has now scored his third Test double century -against the visiting West Indies-at Hamilton.

We read Williamson's childhood hero was Sachin Tendulkar and interestingly, he was born in August 1990, a few months after Tendulkar ended his first tour to Kiwiland, where he missed becoming the youngest Test centurion by 12 runs. The then 16-year-old was caught by his future India coach John Wright of all people!

Williamson loves to play with a straight bat and it is not wrong to say that he is one of the most unheralded of cricketers. He is one of the most pleasing of personalities too and in these days of rock and roll cricket, he is happy to play the role of background vocals.

The late Martin Crowe once wrote about how he had a one-on-one session with Williamson before he had played Test cricket and the young gun was like a sponge. Crowe also came out of that session knowing more about batting, so we shouldn't be surprised by any Williamson feat.

India's interior decor story

Founders Sanghamitra Chatterjee (left) and Deepti Anand

What was the coat of paint Indians applied in their homes at the turn of the 20th century? It's a question that has intrigued Sanghamitra Chatterjee and Deepti Anand, founders of Past Perfect Heritage Management, a Mumbai-based archiving and research agency specialising in institutional and family archiving. Over the last few days, Past Perfect has been sharing interesting trivia about how Indian home owners explored variants in interior decoration, on its Instagram handle. "We were first intrigued by past trends in home decor and interiors while working on building the archive of Bharat Floorings and Tiles. As research and data collection took us various places, we found ourselves being mesmerised by old photographs, product catalogues, newspaper supplements and magazines that covered everything from floor to ceiling decor. It was then that we realised that the paint companies that emerged back then under the Swadeshi umbrella, some of which have also survived to date, like Shalimar, have such a rich legacy that doesn't get spoken about too often, and that there is so much history that lies in their collections."

Up above the bar so high

Bandra restaurant Bastian, which is all set to open its first outpost at Worli's Bombay Dyeing Mills compound (in place of Hard Rock Cafe), is putting the sprawling space to good use. With a capacity to host 240 guests, the new venue includes a 40-foot tall bar, accessible by an elevator, reminiscent of Salvador Dali's surrealist art. "When considering expansion, we had the singular intention of creating a fun, spectacular venue. The space presented no physical constraints, thereby giving us enough room to go wild. The 40-foot ceiling was a novelty, one that you rarely find at standalone outlets in Mumbai and it just could not be ignored. The idea of a 40-foot tall bar leapt at us and it simply had to be done," says Shilpa Shetty-Kundra, director, Bastian Hospitality Pvt Ltd. The restaurant will open mid-December, starting with dinner. They will introduce brunch shortly after.

Discussing indigenous perspectives from Quebec

The School of Development Studies, TISS and Quebec Government Office in Mumbai completed a total of six lectures on indigenous people in Quebec. Starting February next year, in continuation to this series, six lectures from India for the Quebec audience will be held as well. Speaking to this diarist, Prof Ritambhara Hebbar, Dean, School of Development Studies, said, "The lecture series is an effort to initiate an interaction between students, scholars, academicians, policy analysts, and social activists from India and Quebec to appreciate indigenous perspectives and their relevance in addressing contemporary challenges facing the world. There is a need to build intercultural dialogues of this kind." Known to the world over as Eskimos, the Innuit tribe is a dominant indigenous community in Quebec.

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