Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Anurag Ahire

How you doin'?

A pet dog interacts with another while on a stroll at Shivaji Park.

Welsh for the win

Say "foreign single malt" and one automatically thinks of Scotland. But at an India-UK trade event on Thursday, a whiskey from Wales - launched for the first time ever in India - took centerstage. The event was attended by Secretary of State for Wales David TC Davies, Deputy High Commissioner for Western India Harjinder Kang and Mayor of London Michael Manielli (in pic). "We always run out of it almost as soon as I take a bottle home," Kang, who originally hails from Jalandhar, told the gathering. Manielli, too, opened his address by saying, "I know what you're thinking: I hope he keeps it short so we can get back to drinking!"

Wow on my walls

Rural scenes captured in murals at Talao Pali in Thane

Residents of Thane and nearby areas are finding it a delight to commute these days, with beautiful murals popping up all over the place. The walls around Thane's Talao Pali have recently been adorned with paintings depicting scenes from rural Maharashtra - like a woman carrying a flowerpot on her head, bulls dressed up for a village festival and a troupe of Warkaris singing bhajans as they play cymbals and dhols.

Random walls in Kalwa, too, have been painted with scenes like two colourful birds on a tree, a pair of cute little puppies or a horse tied to a tree, the way you would see outside a rural house. "The idea was to bring scenes from villages to the city," says Deputy Municipal Commissioner Sandeep Malvi, Thane Municipal Corporation. "The paintings are meant as windows for city-dwellers into the life of the people who live in villages."

In Memoriam, on canvas

(Left) Untitled and Remembering Cambodia by Gogi Saroj Pal

The last month was one of remembrances for India's art world, which lost two veterans of painting - feminist Gogi Saroj Pal and Padma Bhushan awardee A Ramachandran. To honour them, auction house Astaguru in Kala Ghoda will be showcasing their works in its next auction, Dimensions Defined, next week. "As Ramachandran's socio-political symbolism meets the roots of Indian culture and Pal's exploration of the feminine challenges stereotypes, their legacies persist in the auction," says Astaguru VP Sunny Chandiramani.

Let's ‘year' it for love

Anything But Love, starring Mandira Bedi and Samir Soni, completed 20 years recently. Two decades is very old in theatre years and the play is all about navigating complexities in post-divorce encounters. "This play features only the duo who have fantastic acting chemistry. It is so relatable in an urban, urbane setting. There have been very minute tweaks to the script through the years, negligible really as I believe that if something isn't broken, don't fix it," Raell Padamsee, the play's producer, told this diarist.

Oh brother, we sure do remember that!

Mumbai's Sarfaraz (left) and Musheer Khan during last season's Ranji Trophy match against Saurashtra at the MCA ground. Pic/Mid-day archives

It's rare for members of the same family to represent India at different major events in the span of a few days. Last Sunday, Musheer Khan was part of the Indian team which lost the U-19 cricket World Cup final to Australia in South Africa. He hit the high notes with the bat in games leading up to the final. Earlier this week, his elder brother Sarfaraz made his Test debut for India against England at Rajkot, where he made an impressive 62 before being run out. Now, the exploits of both brothers will be reported in the famous Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, out in April.

This diarist recalls the time when Sarfaraz and Musheer appeared in the same edition of the prestigious UK-published annual in 2012. Sarfaraz got a Wisden mention because his schools cricket record of 438 for Rizvi Springfield in 2009 was displaced by Arman Jaffer's 498 not out in 2018. That very year, Musheer claimed six wickets for 11 runs as a six-year-old on his U-14 Giles Shield debut for Anjuman-I-Islam (English). To encourage the talented brothers, this newspaper presented them a copy of the 2012 Wisden.

While we wonder if they have treasured that particular yellow annual, we hear their father Naushad is keen that his sons know a bit of cricket history. Before the U-19 World Cup, Musheer accompanied his India U-19 teammates to cricket lover Shyam Bhatia's museum in Dubai, where Bhatia showed the young guns around in an effort to inspire them. Sarfaraz and Musheer have been to the Lord's museum as well. Now let's hope they come up with memorable performances in cricket whites that museum curators would find valuable to exhibit.