Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

And we all go, yay!

The new normal doesn't seem to be coming in the way of this family's fun day in the rain at Bandra Bandstand. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

It's a sad times for autograph hunters

England all-rounder Stuart Broad obliges an elderly autograph collector after net practice ahead of the Nottingham Test against India on July 8, 2014. Pic/Getty Images

The England vs West Indies cricket Test at Southampton will go down in history as the first to be held with no spectators amidst the Coronavirus crisis.

But there's another category of cricket fans who missed out on the game - the autograph hunters.

The hardcore ones in England turn up on days when teams train a couple of days before the action starts because it's easier to get hold of players as they make their way to the practice nets or on their way back to the pavilion. These gentlemen ensure they stand in an orderly fashion and wait patiently for the player concerned to inscribe their books and albums.

This diarist remembers Chandu Borde, the former India captain, who managed the Indian cricket team on their 2007 tour of England, obliging autograph collectors at English grounds. One of them was filled with joy after Borde signed his album because he missed the Pune-based cricketer when he was part of the 1967 tour of England and had given up hopes of getting Borde's signature - justifiably so since Borde's appointment as manager at the age of 73 - was unexpected. Hopefully, normal cricket will resume soon and those tireless collectors can fill their books again.

Art to the rescue

Nin Taneja gifted a painting of two birds sitting together, using a colourful palette to the newly-wed couple

NIN Taneja's flight back to New Delhi from Australia was cancelled within a few hours of her departure when India closed its borders, owing to the Coronavirus lockdown. This meant she was going to miss her daughter's wedding. Just when she lost all the hope, her art came to her rescue. Nin, who arrived in Australia early this year, participated in the wedding on a video call.

Nin Taneja

Speaking to this diarist, Taneja, who has been painting for more than a decade, said, "The day I landed in Melbourne, all my attention went to the beautiful sounds of the noisy miners, lorikeets, magpies, galahas and many more beautiful birds. A treat to capture with my camera and later read up on them added to my knowledge. After the beautiful wedding of my daughter in Lockdown in Melbourne, I decided to paint for her house the beautiful memory of the place with bright colours as I saw them." Taneja, an avid bird watcher, has been documenting native Australian birds for the past few months now. "I only thought how and what I could do to see my country with different trees and how to attract more and more birds and make it a beautiful place to co-exist."

Avni Doshi's novel set to debut in the UK

Pic courtesy/Sharon Haridas

Writer Avni Doshi's debut novel, The Girl In White Cotton (HarperCollins India), which won a lot of praise when it released in India last year, is all set to make a UK debut. The novel, which describes the troubling relationship between a daughter and her mum, who is slowly losing her memory to Alzheimer's disease, is being published by Hamish Hamilton, Penguin UK, and under a new name, Burnt Sugar. The book will release on July 30 and has already received glowing reviews.

"Renaming the book was a request by Hamish Hamilton... I saw that both titles lift up different aspects of the book. My editor felt that Burnt Sugar evoked something that would appeal to the UK market, and since I loved the new title as much as the old one, I was happy to go with it," says Doshi.

You can't stop a cross-border transfer of knowledge

Closing of borders can open a world of possibilities. It's this thought that prompted Dr Gulshan Gidwani, principal of Pune's St Mira's College For Girls, to collaborate with LaGuardia Community College, New York, for a new edition of COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning).

The year-long programme will see the staff and students of St Mira's exchange ideas and learning techniques with faculty across the world. Dhaka's University of Liberal Arts and Institute of Communication and Cultural Studies, Lahore, are likely to join in. "Education is meant to liberate us and not bind us by imaginary border of countries and cultures and languages. COIL is an initiative to address the universality of learning," said Gidwani.

Order responsibly

As we sit at home, ordering in food our only luxury, here are a few statistics to contend with. Every month, over 3.85 lakh order cancellations lead to a wastage of over 7 lakh kg of food. And that's just one food delivery app. Swiggy, which has collated this data, has found that often orders get cancelled because the wrong delivery address has been chosen.

Even as it puts in measures to ensure better communication, it says the amount of food wasted every month is enough to feed 3,000 people for a year. In addition of course, is the fuel that is wasted - enough to power a house for two years. It's time to connect with food banks that will help us share our plenty.

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