03 May,2017 08:41 AM IST | | Team Mid-Day
The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Sameer Markande
Look who pinned down Ab De Villiers!
South African cricketer AB de Villiers and Mandira Bedi caught in a moment at an event at a luxury hotel in Lower Parel.
SoBo's calamity neighbourhood
Colaba is fast becoming a sea of choked roads, encroached footpaths and blatant traffic violations. A few days after this paper chronicled the story of a Colaba resident who broke both her ankles, slipping on paver blocks. Now, another resident has suffered an injury. Shyam Motwani (82), teacher, pioneer of Radio Bhuvan and founder editor of Opportunities Today magazine, thought it was business as usual as he made his way to his office on Strand Road last morning. As he began to walk on the one-way road, a speeding scooter came from the wrong side, and brushed against him. He fell because of the impact but put a hand out to break his fall.
The right hand is injured as a result, and while the doc has treated him, assuring Motwani that he will be up and running in three days, the feisty Motwani's humour is intact. "The scooter rider offered to take me to the doc, but I said, 'Off with you', I did not want to create a scene," said Motwani, who is confined to writing with his left hand for a few days now. This diarist's 'get well soon' wish is brushed away with the retort, "Thank you, but it should be, Get well soon, Colaba."
Pic Courtesy/ebay
Baahubali on my pallu
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion was one of the much awaited flicks of the year. Reports say this movie holds the record of opening in as many as 800 screens in the USA, and is breaking all the records established by any Indian movie in North America. Much like cult movies Star Wars and Harry Potter, fascination for the film is finding many creative outlets.
The latest are Bahubali sarees, which are gaining popularity on all online shopping portals. The sarees feature scenes from the film printed on them. Beyond people's hearts, lead actors Prabhas and Anushka Shetty are now occupying a special position on the 'aanchal' of their fans.
Women at the mill. pic/ruralindiaonline.org
In the grind
We were recently wowed by a song we heard. It is part of the Grindmill Songs Project - a collection of over 1,00,000 folk songs, sung by women in Maharashtra while working at the grindmill. The 20-year-old project is currently with People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), who will be publishing about 70,000 untranslated songs. Now, every song has reference notes, an audio file, transcript and translations, and videos and photos of the performers. This diarist was impressed that the translator of these songs, 80-year-old Asha Ogale, shows no sign of fear at the mammoth task at hand.
Ranveer Singh as Bajirao Mastani
A different kind of dance
When you're living in the Age of Twitter, there's no dearth of bizarre happenings. Recently, this diarist was witness to one such what-did-I-just-see moment. American comedian Chris D'Elia put up what looked like a seemingly harmless video clip of the Bollywood song Malhari, from the hit movie Bajirao Mastani, featuring an exuberant Ranveer Singh.
Chris D'Elia
However, to our surprise (and it wasn't pleasant, trust us), the clip quickly transitions to a shot of D'Elia himself, imitating a particularly funny dance step while wearing nothing but his underwear. Ranveer didn't seem to be scarred by the clip, however, and found D'Elia's body contortions incredibly funny.
Pic/Nimesh Dave
Aee Haalo! Garba all year
You know Navratri is around the corner when you spot enthusiasts brush up on their garba and dandiya moves. To popularise garba through the year, Kandivli resident Jigar Soni and his brother Suhrad started garba sessions in the northern suburb. He took it a step further by organising a three-hour session for his students on World Dance Day. "The idea is to make garba a universal form of dance to socialise and stay connected to our culture," shared Jigar. With an ethnic theme, participants lived it up by showing off their finest steps in traditional attire as they grooved to Gujarati folk songs. The Soni brothers, who've performed garba at Trafalgar Square with 30,000 spectators in the past, are enthusiastic that the idea will take its popularity to the next level.
