Mumbai Diary: Wednesday Dossier

Pic/Shadab Khan

Monsoon musings

Even Gauri Khan and daughter Suhana couldn't resist watching the pleasant drizzle that the city witnessed on Tuesday, as they spent over two hours unwinding in their balcony at Mannat, Bandra. Pic/Shadab Khan

Time travel with Dom Moraes

First published in 1960, Dom Moraes' book Gone Away: An Indian Journal has been published in a new edition by Speaking Tiger and is available for reading in e-book format. Considered to be one of the most unconventional travelogues ever written, it carries an introduction by award-winning writer Jerry Pinto. The book details three months of the author's life in the subcontinent in 1959, when Chinese incursions on the Tibetan border arose.

About what makes this work truly unconventional, Pinto told this diarist, "Dom was already something of a prodigy by the age of 22. He had won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize. He was cutting quite a dash in England. And so this book is as much a memoir as it is a travelogue. When it came out, writers did not 'implicate the self'; the whole travel writing edifice rested on the idea of a unitary rational self that spoke to the reader. That this is as much about Dom as it is about Nehruvian India shows how far in advance of his time he was as a writer."

Word on the street

As Mumbai will begin to unlock in the coming weeks, we will be stepping back onto the streets again. But it won't be the same as our behaviour and conduct will have to change. Keeping this in mind, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started to paint precautionary signs on roads and footpaths in high-footfall areas such as Marine Drive. These include messages that urge pedestrians to wear masks, maintain distance, and protect themselves and others.

"We expect that after about two months of the lockdown, people, especially those who have been missing their outdoor routine like joggling, walking and exercising, will flock to pedestrian-friendly areas like Marine Drive. We wanted to remind citizens that these guidelines still apply, which is why we painted these signs and also set up some banners to catch their attention," Harshad Kale, deputy municipal commissioner, zone-1, BMC, told this diarist.

A never-imagined world

In a video titled Socha Na Tha, montages from homes and streets during lockdown address situations we had never imagined but are now privy to. It is written by actors Amitosh Nagpal, Tisca Chopra and Sanjay Chopra and features several others like R Madhavan.

"In these times, when we have been separated, we wanted to express ourselves together, and this video was the least we could do, to keep the wagon of motion pictures moving," Nagpal said.

Meet the oldest Test cricketer on Facebook

Here's a cricket quiz question and it's not a trivial one because social media is such an important part of our lives in the COVID-19 pandemic-caused lockdown: Who is the oldest Test cricketer in the world to have a Facebook account? It's Mumbai's oldest living Test player Chandrakant Patankar, the wicketkeeper, who played for his country once - against New Zealand in 1955-56.

Patankar, 89, opened a Facebook account recently, and though he hasn't got to posting, he responds to posts which he likes. On Sunday, former India leg-spinner Subhash Gupte was remembered on Facebook since it was his death anniversary, and Patankar was moved to pay a tribute. "Had the pleasure of keeping to him. Great bowler," he wrote.

Patankar will not say it, but we can tell you that he was considered the best wicketkeeper to read Gupte's googlies and move accordingly when they played in the same Ruia College, Shivaji Park Gymkhana and Bombay teams. By the way, we forgot to tell you that Sir Garfield Sobers considers Gupte the greatest leg-spinner he has seen.

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