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Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Updated on: 01 October,2017 01:55 PM IST  |  Mumbai
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The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier


Hide and Seek
Looks like actorâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Sridevi and husband Boney Kapoor aren't interested in pretend play at the launch of Anuja Bhosle's (centre) store in Bandra West on Friday. Pic/Bipin Kokate



Maker of most costly pizza comes to town
If there are two things that chef Renato Viola likes to share, it's pizza and his knowledge of how to make them. One of Italy's best pizza makers, Viola will train chefs at 1441 Pizzeria. "I'll teach them how to make pizza the authentic Italian way — including dough preparation, using the oven and mixing different flavours. My goal is for them to acquire the passion for the hospitality industry," he says. Born in South Italy, Viola is a member of the Italian Acrobatic Pizza Team and holds credit for designing the most expensive pizza till date. "I think I was drawn to pizza at birth," he jokes. "But, from the moment I realised I wanted to be a pizza maker, I knew I'd like to share my passion with people eager to learn."

Dhinchak's bewafa friend
Even before Dhinchak Pooja had us at wit's end, there was Vennu Mallesh, who hit viral fame with his 2012 number It's My Life. Now, the Hyderabad-based singer is back to amuse us with Aafreen Fathima Bewafa Hai, which he tells this diarist is his "comeback song". Mallesh claims his inspiration to write this piece came from a "funny video" from the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and that he waited for his daughter's first birthday two weeks ago, before he got working on it. The five-minute video, which has already raked in 12,000 views since it was shared on YouTube last week, has Mallesh screaming his lungs out to 'Aafreen Fathima', while struggling to give tune to his hilarious lyrics. What, however, takes the cake is the outrageous line: "I brought U apple Laptop but U gave Ur Lap and Top for other guy." Let's just say that the future of cringe pop is unfortunately not looking bleak.

Sir Richard Hadlee
Sir Richard Hadlee

Hadlee a small tribute to dad Walter
Cricket legend Richard Hadlee had a rather unbelievable career. Playing for New Zealand, probably the weakest team in the 1970s and early 1980s, Hadlee bamboozled the best batting names with his swing, accuracy and pace. The first bowler to conquer Peak 400 in terms of Test wickets, has not stopped being incredible. He has revived memories of New Zealand's 1949 tour of England by way of a book. The tour is special to the Hadlee family as Richard's father Walter led New Zealand then and maintained notes in his diary which Richard thought should come out in print. Known for being meticulous, Richard spent four years working on The Skipper's Diary before it was finally released in Kiwiland recently.

"It was a helluva job getting it into a basic manuscript. It took a lady a year to actually transcribe it. She did a remarkable job because dad's writing was so small and there was writing on top and at the bottom of pages," Richard was quoted as saying.

Walter Hadlee
Walter Hadlee

The idea of a book emerged in 2014 when Richard thought about how cricket tours had changed drastically way down from his old man's cricket days. Presumably, Walter had a lot of tour tales to inspire his sons Richard, Dayle and Barry to become cricketers.

The 1949 team took five weeks to reach England by sea for their eight-month tour which included four drawn Tests. It took the New Zealanders 36 days to return home. All these experiences — on-field as well as off-field — filled up Walter's diary.Richard calls The Skipper's Diary his "Finest achievement". If and when we see the book, we'll have no hesitation in believing him.

Let's make it about the music, shall we?
Our diary item yesterday, calling out musician Akshay Rajpurohit for being unnecessarily unkind to Luke Kenny's song Bappa Ke Vaaste on social media, seems to have hit a nerve with the Scribe guitarist. He posted the newspaper cutting on his Facebook feed, saying that it could be a sign of him having "made it", and got immense support from his tribe who all think Kenny was the force behind our snippet (we are still waiting for our cheque, by the way). Akshay, we think you are confusing yourself with the Kardashians. We would rather say you have made it when we hear your next album and it's as brilliant as your cutting wit. Let's get off Facebook and back to making music?

This is some heavy bar talk
In other news, someone who is making good music is singer songwriter Raghav Meattle. He released his catchy new song, Bar Talk, with a video shot all across Mumbai's crowded streets and public transport. "We spent the whole day going around — shooting in trains, parking lots, Dhobi Ghaat. Having just moved to Bombay, I got to see so much more of it and getting reactions from people was the best part of it," he told this diarist.

Bar Talk is a social commentary about the uncomfortable things people talk about while living their comfortable lives. "We rarely do anything about it. To avoid momentary pain, we tend to avoid the issue itself and end up making it bigger." The "bar" comes in because, as Meattle says, "it's a place where we lower inhibitions and talk about the world and its problems. At the end of the night is when we face the real issue, like when we drunk dialled an ex." The reactions he and the rest of the gang involved, Neelie Chikhlikhar who co-wrote the song and Jaskunwar Kohli who shot the video, got, could define the city very well. "In the trains, people came and spoke to me, and I got encore requests. At places like the malls or Marine Drive, nobody gave a s*** about me. They stared for a minute and left."

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