Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier

Pic/Nimesh Dave

Read between the titles

In a city where independent booksellers are getting phased out, this vendor in Mahavir Nagar, Kandivali West, offers a ray of hope for its reading community.

Think before voting

The manifesto analysis

Law, justice, health, youth affairs, employment, environment, agriculture, women and child development, social justice, pensions and grievances. A group of seven analysts from non-profit initiative The Informed Voter Project broke down manifestos of seven parties, like BJP, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), CPI, AITC, among others, into these categories, and rated them on the basis of six parameters. These included timeline, scope, diagnostic rigour, and commitment and action-oriented language, among others. "Language played an important role. Manifestos are long and filled with promises and propaganda. Take gender equity, for instance; some parties could use the word ‘ensure' rights, while others could use words like encourage, or give support to their rights. The difference often gets lost because each manifesto has an average of 250 promises," shared founder Vivek Gilani, who also founded Mumbai Votes in 2008. The latter comes to action post-election, and releases annual reports of if members of the parliament have delivered the promises they made during elections. "The manifestos were handed as anonymous documents to the analysts for unbiased results. Access raw manifestos of political parties on mumbaivotes.com/pages/parties.php, to compare the group's analyses with your own," he added. To view the complete analysis and findings, head to informedvoterproject.org.

Vivek Gilani

Noorani's jam with the Gujarati thali

Ehsaan Noorani at the restaurant

Earlier this week, music composer and guitarist Ehsaan Noorani dined at the 1945-established Shree Thaker Bhojnalay in Kalbadevi for old time's sake. "I have eaten here on two occasions before this visit. I was 18 when I last dropped by. The restaurant looked very different at the time. I clearly remember its wooden tables," recalled Noorani. The musician was so impressed with its food after his visit that he took to social media to share a picture of the thali where he captioned it as ‘The best Gujarati thali in Mumbai'. "I am not a foodie. I eat to live, so for me to review food in a positive light is a big deal," he revealed, adding that he also ate a lot more than he usually does. "The food was delicious. And now that the current generation is running the place they are aware about the health factor. Back then, they would serve huge puris with aamras. Now, the size has reduced. So, you only eat how much you are supposed to," Noorani explained. The highlight of his meal, however, was the aamras, "I must have easily downed over 10 cups of it," he chuckled.

Sunny hosts and steals show at BKC

Ex-India wicketkeeper Dr Chandu Patankar (left), host Sunil Gavaskar and former Test captain Nari Contractor with CG Joshi on the extreme right at the Indus Club on Thursday. Pic/Clayton Murzello

What better way to cool off on a hot Thursday evening than to be in the company of city cricket greats, who were happy to reunite with some of the best names in Indian cricket, during a Sunil Gavaskar-hosted party at the Indus Club in BKC.

Impossible it would be to arrive at even an approximate total number of First Class (FC) runs and wickets that filled the room across four hours and more. But if you add up host Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar's FC runs, you'd get 51,230 (25,834 and 25,396 respectively).

Sunil Gavaskar with his St Xavier's school teammates - fast bowler Ashok Kochar (extreme left), all-rounder Milind Rege and captain Ehsan Abbas Hakim

Tendulkar, chuffed to be in the company of his ex-teammates from all levels, marvelled at his 1989 maiden Test tour manager Chandu Borde's fitness at the age of 89. Borde had made the road trip from Pune earlier in the day and told this diarist that the highlight of the evening for him was meeting his 90-year-old ex-teammate and Test captain Nari Contractor. For a while, Borde sat alongside Contractor and Dr Chandu Patankar, another teammate, who is Mumbai's senior-most cricketer at 93. Not far away from the trio was Pune-based former Rajasthan Ranji Trophy leg-spinner, CG Joshi, 92.

India's chief selector Ajit Agarkar dropped in and so did ex-chairman of the national selection committee, Sandeep Patil, a few hours before boarding a flight to London. Actors Nana Patekar, Sachin Khedekar, Sachin Pilgaonkar and Mahesh Manjrekar made their presence felt as well.

The annual gathering missed the presence of deceased city cricket stalwarts Avinash Karnik and Tukaram Surve, both of whom were present at last year's party.

Gavaskar played a caring host and his seniors had his company even till the exit door. Most of his guests needed no introduction, but Gavaskar and his childhood buddy Milind Rege took great delight in introducing their earliest cricket companions to us.

India's first little master deserves kudos for organising a great evening and he'd be the first to say a big thank you to his former Nirlon colleague Anil Joshi for managing guest list-related activities with aplomb.