Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

Pic/Satej Shinde

An arm's length

A member of Deepika Padukone's security team keeps an admirer at bay after she exits the Mumbai airport on Friday. Pic/Satej Shinde

A helping hand

Boccia is a game that is similar to bowls and played by physically disabled people. It's prevalent in 50 countries across the world and has even been included in the Paralympic Games. But it was virtually non-existent in India until now.

Actor and TV host Samir Kochhar is now out to change that scenario and has tied up with a charitable organisation, Reech Sports, and Boccia International Sports Federation among others to ensure that Indians, too, get a chance to take up the sport.

They have set up training centres in Mumbai and will have trainers conduct workshops to introduce people to it. "Indian sport is fast developing and bocaccia will now allow differently-abled people to also showcase their talent and go through the rigour of training and competing," Kochhar told this diarist.

Here are people who have nothing to hide

There's an encouraging campaign that Gaysi, a platform for LGBT+ community, started recently called #ProudToBeMore. People were invited as part of it to come out in the open and share stories about the experiences they have faced as gay, bisexual or transgender. People from across the country revealed their struggles, joys and inhibitions as a result.

For instance, one person spoke about how people constantly question his sexual orientation because he's a male dancer. Let's hope more people help break such stereotypes.

Picture perfect

Actor Arjun Mathur was among the crowd that gathered at August Kranti Marg on Thursday for the anti-CAA protest. Yesterday, he posted this photograph of him and his partner, Tiya Tejpal, a production designer who is also Tarun Tejpal's daughter, holding placards and looking longingly at each other.

He captioned the photo, "Love in the time of #revolt." But he later took the photo down, before putting it back up again. We wonder why the indecision? Either way, it's good to see the couple spending some quality time together.

Cost of happiness that travellers pay

If you thought that the airport look was just a thing, think again. A new study titled New Collinson Airport Journey Research has a whole other take on airport culture. Conducted by the global loyalty and benefits services brand, it sheds light on consumer behaviour inside airports, and reveals fun findings, such as the fact that happy travellers spend upwards of $200 at the airport, while dissatisfied ones are likely to spend far less.

There's also a nugget on overall travel satisfaction that involves end-to-end services for air-bound folks. Also, the research says that apparently 86 per cent of Indian travellers enjoy the airport experience, compared to 48 per cent in the US and Europe. We sure do love to travel, don't we?

Dresses designed for the stars

It was music producer Sean Combs's 50th birthday and a rather belated party seems to have broken the internet this week. It saw the movers and shakers of Tinseltown come together and the pictures from the bash have been doing the rounds on social media. From Leonardo DiCaprio to Kanye West to the Kardashians and Snoop Dogg, they were all there.

Model Naomi Campbell and celebrity attorney Angela Rye added an Indian touch to the celebration, since they were wearing outfits designed by Mumbai-based designer duo Abu Jani- Sandeep Khosla. While Campbell picked a feathered cape in gold, Rye went all out with a pop of colour.

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