Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

In the Ascending orderNumbers in yellow mark the floors of a highrise building under construction in MahalaxmiTrashy move thatThe Coldplay kiss cam fiasco seems to have become a gift that keeps on giving Most recently it taught Mumbaikars a lesson in unethical waste management At a beach cleanup on Carter Road last weekend collective Carter Cleanup stumbled upon a discarded porcelain showpiece that had an uncanny resemblance to Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and Kristin Cabotrsquos nowinfamous momentsbeforedisaster pose While the collective mdash cofounded by Freishia Bomanbehram below Harold Fernandes Maansi Desai Ashwin Malwade and Nupur Agarwal mdash had a hearty laugh upon the discovery the incident highlighted a more serious concern this diarist learntA moment from the Coldplay concert right the figurine found during the cleanup Pics CourtesyCarter CleanUpldquoItems like these washing ashore indicate the prevalence of illegal dumping in the city The doll is just one of the many unusual things we have chanced upon in the 197 weeks of our operationsrdquo said Bomanbehram Among these were an intact sofa and a bread packet dating all the way back to 2005 ironically the year Coldplay released their hit Fix You ldquoWe have been encouraging people to segregate and discard waste responsibly for four years now Every Saturday morning we conduct a dry waste collection drive at the Amphitheatre on Carter Roadrdquo she revealed to this diarist Those keen to know more can log on to cartercleanup to learn moreDadar se Bandra takPic CourtesybombaydaakFor chef Niyati Rao right Bombay Daakrsquos first year has been a culmination of a dream that began during her time at Dadar Catering College now Institute of Hotel Management ldquoAs friends we would visit these little bars around the neighbourhood and gorge on Schezwan chutney We often debated on what happens when chefs from finedining spaces enter the daaruchakna marketrdquo she recalledWith a menu sculpted from research and conversations with people from past generations the venue is now a bridge between Gen Zers and oldtimers both ldquoPlus Bandra is a melting pot of Gen Zers and an older generation It makes the restaurant a wonderful little space of amalgamationrdquo she sharedJust jamming with PrasannaR Prasanna extreme left plays a few chords with the children on stage Pic Courtesytenderroots IndiaWhen ace guitarist R Prasanna dropped by for a visit in the city it made for a rare experience But for the children of Shishuvan School in Matunga the New Yorkbased guitarist put on an impromptu performance on July 21 Invited by the Banyan Tree and Tenderroots India the performance was to be a simple one ldquoHe Prasanna came in right after a performance the previous night He made it so interactiverdquo shared team member Manjari Venkat Leading the students into song the guitarist then invited a few of them on stage to sing and play with him ldquoThe children werevery hesitant initially but as the session went on everyone was on stagerdquo revealed VenkatGamechanging scenesIt has been four years in the making but the cofounder of Memesys Culture Lab Zain Memon above and filmmaker Anand Gandhi are back on the writing board This time they are working on a project across multimedia forms Memon revealed ldquoOur upcoming project surpasses everything wersquove previously created This is our definitive response to the question we have been asked over the years mdash what happens when a game designer and filmmaker build a world togetherrdquoItrsquos a MAD mad worldA panel from the parody comic Pic CourtesytoonfactorySometimes you can hide a treasure too well In between moving house writer Alok Sharma discovered some rare and treasured collectables from a DVD collection to old comics ldquoAmong the finds was an old edition of Lambu Motursquos adventures with Dracula I remember being traumatised reading it at the age of 10 It was quite a creepy seriesrdquo he revealed But the better find was a series of parodies along the lines of MAD magazine ldquoThese were parody comics from the 1970s titled Deewana unofficially styled after MAD magazine They had their own Alfred E Neuman named Chilli Many of their covers were parodies of films from Guide and Khilona to Bill Wale Dhamkiyan De Jaayengerdquo he laughed Now thatrsquos an SRK twist