Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Alia Bhatt in Bandra for shooting of a film

Make way

Alia Bhatt makes her bodyguard's job easier as fans spot her shooting for an upcoming film in Bandra on Monday. Pic/Shadab Khan

Framed for Husain

From the Paris Suite series

In 2004, MF Husain's first exhibition of his limited edition serigraphs of Paris Suite at the city gallery Pictures and Frames lasted 25 days. It was then that gallerist and Husain's personal framer, Ashish Ajmera, decided to purchase some and later also invested in serigraphs and limited edition books of other series by the legendary painter. To commemorate Husain's 104th birth anniversary today, ARA Frames, the parent company of the original gallery, will be releasing the artist's limited edition serigraphs and books online. Moreover, Ajmera plans to start a foundation next year, where 15 per cent of the funds sold from every limited edition artwork will be used to promote skill development in art and framing education in India.

Are celeb chefs worth celebrating?

Nigella Lawson. Pic/ AFP

There is an inexplicable obsession with everything from the West, and an even more absurd phenomenon of waiting for what is ours to go abroad and find an audience for us to be able to appreciate it. Whether it's haldi, jackfruit, moringa or chefs - the "foreign tag" continues to be our kryptonite. But why? City restaurateur Gauri Devidayal asked the question on Sunday afternoon, a day after attending what was ostensibly one of 2019's most hyped culinary events - a dinner with Nigella Lawson.

Gauri Devidayal

Turns out, the food was below average, and though all eyes are on Devidayal right now, others including Aneesh Bhasin (who sent his lamb back), and Nikhil Merchant (who hinted that the meal was ordinary) concur with her. "The meal reinforced my conviction that most TV chefs don't really know much about cooking and what it takes to serve paying customers day in and day out, and that we're all such suckers for celebrity status," Devidayal wrote in a social media post. Often the charm of a meal is in the hands that cook it. But maybe, it's time to just focus on the food.

Queer Eye star dons Varun Bahl

Varun Bahl

With the reboot of American reality series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last year, the "fab five" - food and wine expert Antoni Porowski, fashion designer Tan France, culture expert Karamo Brown, design expert Bobby Berk and grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness - shot to fame overnight. And when Queer Eye won four Emmys recently, France was spotted in a couture piece by none other than Indian designer Varun Bahl, who recently completed 15 years in the industry.

Tan France (centre) at the Emmys

The slim motif pants paired with a short kurta with an elaborate floral pattern, in Bahl's signature style, looked sleek and comfortable, evident by the pictures the paparazzi caught of France kneeling down to fix Ness' outfit. While Bahl definitely has a fan in France, who tagged the designer in his post, will we get a glimpse of Bahl's designs in Queer Eye?

Feed the bookworm at CSMVS

Nuru Karim and Priyasri Patodia with a model installation at CSMVS

Last month, you had first read in the mid-day that the lawns of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya were readying to house a pop-up books pavilion in October. A collaboration between Priyasri Art Gallery and architect Nuru Karim, the bookworm-shaped pavilion is an installation that will house titles and spaces for reading, with the focus being on young readers. With the monsoon on its way out, museum authorities have started inviting Mumbaikars to donate children's books to house here. If you have books in good physical condition, you can post or drop them off at the Education Officer, CSMVS, and do your bit to engage young minds.

The big, fat cine project

The upcoming edition of the Indian Film Project, hailed as one of Asia's largest content creation festivals, will witness the coming together of 6.5 million filmmakers and content creators in the city in October. And in the lead up to the festival, the jury members for the two-day event have just been announced. While the panelists for the 50-hour filmmaking flagship property are Pradeep Sarkar, Abhishek Chaubey, Anjali Menon and Pal Nalin, Apurva Asrani (in pic) will be one of the judges for the short scriptwriting challenge. There is an interesting storytelling event where budding poets will present their works before experts, while a poster-designing challenge will give participants a chance to redesign iconic film posters.

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