The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Dutch lessons for Mumbai
If you are looking at this picture and wondering what's special about it, we'll help you with its caption: Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, parks his bicycle at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam as he arrives to meet King Willem-Alexander. We are also pretty sure that this wasn't a photo op because PMâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Rutte is known to cycle to work regularly.
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An instant comparison comes to mind, and we are reminded of not just how hostile Mumbai's roads have been to cyclists but also of the city's first bicycle track in BKC, which was inaugurated amidst much fanfare in 2011. Three years later, the MMRDA dismantled a portion of it to make way for a dedicated bus lane, causing huge loss of public funds and killing all hopes of making Mumbai biker-friendly.
Pic/Datta Kumbhar
Spot the celeb
He may have turned 60 but nothing seems to chip away at Anil Kapoor's charm. Hoards of fans gathered when he visited a Chembur college yesterday.
Versova's Afroz is going places
It warms the cockles of our heart to see this green crusader from Mumbai going places, literally. Afroz Shah, the lawyer who decided to take up the mammoth task of cleaning Versova beach two years ago when he could no longer bear to see the filth, has been successfully getting the word out on why caring for the environment cannot be overlooked.
Afroz Shah (left) with President Putin
Shah, who was recognised as Champion of the Earth by the UN in December 2016, has been joined by many famous faces on his weekly clean-ups. And now, he is in Sochi, participating in the 19th edition of World Festival of Youth and Students in Russia. The week-long festival is playing host to over 30,000 delegates from 150 countries.
Shah made his appearance in the environment chapter, where he talked about marine litter and how together with other volunteers, he has cleared 5.3 million kilograms of decaying garbage from our shoreline. The lawyer also talked about his work at the Our Ocean conference in Malta and Le Conclave on air pollution in Paris. Great going.
The gangs of Varanasi
We find it interesting how the web series format often presents never-seen-before pairings for viewers. One such show is Mirzapur (from the makers of cricket-based show Inside Edge), a gangster drama that will be shot in Varanasi and Mumbai.
Ali Fazal
It's been produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, and stars Pankaj Tripathi, Shweta Tripathi, Vikrant Massey, Rasika Dugal, Shriya Pilgaonkar and toast of the town for his role in Victoria & Abdul, Ali Fazal (inset). Not many know that Pilgaonkar and Ali have been friends since their days at St Xavier's College.
"We have never acted together, but I do theatre with AKVarious Productions, and Ali has also worked with them. We both wanted to work together and I am glad that we got this opportunity. I am looking forward to working with actors I really look up to," says Pilgaonkar.
Fatherly tales
The show How I Met Your Father, which is a hilarious memoir narrated by Kunal Vijayakar to Cyrus Broacha's daughter about his numerous accidental encounters with her father, completed a month yesterday.
(From left) Kunal Viayakar, Cyrus Broacha, Raell Padamsee, Boman Irani
And there couldn't have been a better celebration of the milestone than this - the audience members for the show staged over the weekend included Boman Irani, Anu Malik, Arzan Khambatta and Zeba Kohli among others.
In the words of good friend Irani, the duo, along with Gopal Datt, brought the house down. The show was also a participatory one, with 12 audience members invited to join the actors on the stage.
Mallika, too
In the wake of the revelations about sexual misconduct by American filmmaker Harvey Weinstein, many women who have been sexually harassed have been sharing their experience on social media with the hashtag, MeToo.
Joining the league is Mallika Dua who shared an incident from her childhood. The actor-comedian recalled how when her father (senior journalist Vinod Dua) came to know of it, 'dislocated the b*****d's jaw with his bare hands.' Sharing such experiences is not easy. Good on you, Mallika!