Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

Vicky Kaushal and Yami Gautam

Armed with selfies
Vicky Kaushal takes selfies at a special film screening organised for army officers at a SoBo multiplex on Friday, as Yami Gautam poses for press photographers. Pic/Bipin Kokate

No more funny
The last few months of 2018 didn't prove to be good for the stand-up scene in the city, what with all the #MeToo revelations, and it seems like the beginning of 2019 is no different either. SnG Comedy, a collective specialising in improv and sketches, has split. The team behind it, including Varun Thakur, Aadar Malik, Neville Shah and Kautuk Srivastava issued a statement, which detailed their differences with the fifth member, Karan Talwar.

"We had written a lot of stuff for SnG, but we didn't write the most important one: the contract... Because we're stupid and naïve and thought that friendship was as good a contract as any," read the statement. They added that the channel is now solely run by Talwar. We'll wait to see if the four team up, or go their separate ways.

A stamp of remembrance
Philately may not have many takers today, but the love for postcards and stamps remains. Arya Vidya Mandir (AVM) - one of Mumbai's respected institutions known to have schooled the likes of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Arjun Kapoor - will be releasing a stamp cover to mark the school's golden jubilee celebrations.

We hear, AVM has collaborated with the Indian Postal Service to design the cover. Kaiya Arora, director postal services, Mumbai region, who will be releasing the stamp said, "We have a long history of honouring great personalities, institutions, and monuments through issue of commemorative postage stamps and it is a privilege to release these four special covers."

Everything is not okay
Popular Instagram account Diet Sabya (DS), known for their ruthless exposés of 'gandi' copies by fashion designers in the name of inspiration, took a dig yesterday at designer Anamika Khanna - a favourite of Sonam K Ahuja and Rhea Kapoor. They posted an image of Sonam wearing a pink lehenga with the sentence "Everything is AK-OK" embroidered on it, and alleged that it had been copied from Anna Wintour's AWOK Nike Jordans. And the Kapoor siblings came to her rescue.

"My dear friend @anamikakhanna.in had gone through a terrible illness in the last year...The common slang that is used amongst people is A-Ok in America. Viraj and Vishesh [Khanna's twins] who just returned from America used the same term playfully with their mom when she was down, saying "mom everything is going to be AK-OK," Sonam explained. After speaking to the Khanna family, DS deleted the post and issued an apology to their followers clarifying, "This decision was taken out of empathy and not intimidation".

Still finger-lickin' good?
Come lunchtime, we open the food apps in our phone, hoping to come across something appealing instead of having to go by our 'ratings + price range + what do I actually want' priority list. And we struck gold. Or at least something familiar we hadn't had the option of ordering since February 2018 - KFC. The outlet, which had been a central landmark of Linking Road in Bandra West, had been forced to shut down since mid-February 2018, after the person who had leased out part of the premises to the fast food chain came on the State Bank of India's defaulter list.

This diarist called to make sure that this wasn't a one-time wonder or another outlet extending its services, and was informed that they started operating out of the very same building a week ago. We took the next two minutes to order our favourite burger, and were munching on it half an hour later. Thankfully, this time the bun wasn't stale, something the outlet was notorious for.

Suneeta Rao bats for the environment
This diarist recently happened to meet pop singer Suneeta Rao, known for her hit numbers from the '90s. While much has changed in the music industry since then, Rao believes in keeping up with the times and reinventing herself.

The 51-year-old, who is returning to the stage in a comical play this evening after 18 years, is also working on an anthem for the environment. "India is one of the countries that is going to be the worst affected by climate change, and this is my way of conveying the urgency of the situation," she said. Rao will float the initiative on a crowd-funding platform in mid-January.

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