Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Pic/Ashish Raje

Hold your horses

Visitors and horses stand by as the waves crash against the Dadar Chowpatty shore during high tide.

Decode the spirituality in food

Damini Dalal

Food is central to life. There's a lot about nutrition that gets circulated through the Internet. Yet, no one has told us that food has as its essence a spiritual dimension," shared Damini Dalal, author and yoga patanjali sutra instructor, under whose guidance community Sutra Sadhana was founded. Dalal will delve deeper into the subject of food and spirituality at an online session called Anna and Ahara today. "The Upanishads, yoga texts, speak about this but it's barely taught or spoken by gurus. In the session, we will look into that particular aspect, as we discover that food is Brahman, the highest reality or Annam Brahma. We will glimpse into the Chandogya and Taittiriya Upanishads and yoga texts including hatha yoga pradipika to understand this. Of course, any understanding is incomplete without its practical guidance. So, we will understand foods and their nature too," she explained.

The Hitman gets a mosaic cube

Ethan and Annie Singh created a Rubik's Cube portrait for Rohit Sharma

As Team India won the T20 World Cup trophy last weekend, school-going siblings Annie, 10, and Ethan Singh, 12, celebrated the victory in their own style - they shared a Rubik's Cube portrait created for captain Rohit Sharma. We caught up with their mother, Zeenie Singh, in between their own balcony-style cricket tournament with their grandfather. "They love Rohit Sharma! For them, cricket is Mumbai Indians, Rohit, and MS Dhoni!" she chuckled, adding that the duo completed the portrait in 90 minutes.

Top-speed action

MFB beyblade

The Beyblade Metal Fusion anime series that popularised the spinning top toys in India might have gone off air, but Mumbai-based fans are working overtime to keep the passion alive. The latest spin to the monthly Beyblade tournaments held in the city was a Metal Fight Beyblade (MFB) attack type exclusive event held in Khar last weekend. "MFB attack Beyblades, unlike their stamina or defence counterparts, are aggressive and move faster. As a result, the battles conclude faster and are fun to watch," shared organiser Anthony Stephen Mendes. After an action-packed tournament, his eyes are now on getting Beyblade X, the newest offering from the Japanese toy makers, to India in collaboration with online store World Hobby Store.

Anthony Stephen Mendes

Territorial matters

A recent enrichment activity involving a jackal at the Byculla Zoo had visitors watching in awe. Zoo biologist Dr Abhishek Satam had sprayed another animal's urine in the jackal's exhibit to simulate territorial behaviour. "People often believe that we capture animals from the wild and put them in a cage in the zoo. That's not true. These are animals born in captivity. And despite that, they simulate some activities as they would in their natural habitats," Satam explained to this diarist, adding that animals usually mark their territories with urine. In the jackal's case, when they sprinkled another animal's urine, it tried to rub it off, took a dip into a nearby pool of water to wash off the smell, and urinated again in that area to mark its territory. "We do the same activities with other animals and birds. We engage them in such sensory and cognitive enriching activities to keep them active," he revealed.