Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Satej Shinde

Miss lovely

A fashion week attendee takes a sip to beat the March afternoon heat at the open-air BKC venue.

The cup that cheered way back in 1976

There is no better news for women's cricket than the huge amounts of money the players stand to earn through the ongoing Women's Premier League (WPL) in Mumbai. Meanwhile, our in-house cricket nut dug out some information on sponsorship for women's cricket in England.

England captain Rachel Heyhoe-Flint with the St Ivel Trophy in 1976. Pic/Getty Images

In the June 1976 issue of The Cricketer International magazine, Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, the most famous name in English and international cricket at one point in time, wrote that St Ivel of Unigate Foods Ltd pumped in £9,000 for a three-day and one-day series against the touring Australian team. Heyhoe-Flint called this the "first-ever complete commercial sponsorship of an International Women's Cricket series."

Although this was a major boost for women cricketers, they didn't forget to show their appreciation to a man called Jack Hayward, who sponsored them on the previous tour to the West Indies as well as the World Cup. Heyhoe-Flint reckoned this deed was a stepping stone to greater publicity which didn't miss the attention of the people at St Ivel.

England cricket legend Colin Cowdrey found it a great honour to present both teams the trophy - a bronze statue of a woman cricketer hitting a ball through the covers. Australia's reward for claiming one-day honours was in the form of the St Ivel Fresh Cream Jug.

Doubtless, the WPL trophy will be as cherished!

Painting the town read

Call it painting the town read, and that read is with the "a". An open-air library and reading room, a study within a garden was inaugurated at Anandavan Udyan, Anandnagar in Dahisar East on Friday evening. The facility has fans and tube lights and is a substantial space, which can house 100 readers. It has a selection of books tucked inside cupboards. Jitendra Pardeshi, Garden Superintendent, BMC said, "Students can prepare for their exams here, even adults can wind down with a book they have brought in. We are attempting to open these reading rooms across gardens." Mission Green Mumbai founder Subhajit Mukherjee said, "I call this the digital detox space, where people can leaf through books, instead of scrolling."

A linked-in police officer

While the Mumbai Police's effective use of Twitter as a mode of awareness and citizen outreach is pretty famous, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from the Maharashtra cadre may be the first one to start using LinkedIn for the same purpose. Vinoy Kumar Choubey, currently the Commissioner of Police, Pimpri Chinchwad, has been actively posting on the professional networking site about the good work of his personnel as well as preparedness of his force. For instance, Choubey posted about a special drive that helped the Chinchwad police seize 253 illegal weapons. His last post was about a special
programme held on Women's Day to felicitate female officers in his force for their outstanding work in the line of duty. We like!

mid-day columnist bags an award

Recognition always fills one with joy and instils confidence to keep walking the path one is on. And when the recognition is for your art and creative expression, it is a befitting validation for all things you have written so far. mid-day columnist Sumedha Raikar Mhatre, who has been writing for this newspaper for close to a decade and has a fortnightly column to her name since 2016, will be awarded the Kala Gaurav Puruskar by Abhikalpana, a social trust, at its Abhikalpana 2023 event.

Scheduled for March 22 at PL Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Akademi, it will also felicitate feminist writer Vandana Mahajan, actors Shubhangi Bhujbal and Deeksha Sonavane, for their service to the arts. In a column for this paper dated March 27, 2016, Raikar-Mhatre profiled the incredible senior citizen students at the Aajibainchi Shala in Phangane village of Thane district. The school for grannies saw them unhesitatingly pick up chalk and bag and start school in their geriatric years. The school opened in March 2016, and Sunday mid-day was the first to publish an article on it, following which the news was picked up by other Indian press and international media.

Sumedha Raikar Mhatre

Now, the school's founder Yogendra Bangar has launched a book of poems, Ajichya Kavita, inspired by these grandmothers, and Raikar-Mhatre has written the foreward. "The coincidence [of receiving the Kala Gaurav Puruskar and the book being released] was all very exhilarating," she says. "These recognitions have helped me redefine and value myself as a columnist, since both events have a connection with my Sunday mid-day column."

Deco dekho

In the pandemic, this diarist had written about the fabulous work by Delhi-based architect Geetanjali Sayal to archive and preserve the last remaining Art Deco-inspired structures in the capital. Sayal's research has taken a life of its own, with the launch of the website Deco in Delhi, which like the Art Deco Mumbai's website hopes to create a digital repository of these rare structures. "While the former part of the website acclimatises the wider audiences around the expanse of the style, the associated narratives of the styles evolution and some of the architects, contractors, and patrons, the latter half invites the interested to contribute in the further growth of the inventory and engage with the city's architecture like never before," says Sayal.