The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Booked in Pune
If you have had enough of the rains and want to get out of the city, spending the September 8 weekend in Pune may be a good idea, especially if you'd also like some food for thought. The three-day Pune International Literary Festival features an interesting line-up of speakers including Hussain Zaidi, Ravi Subramanian, Sagarika Ghose, Rakhshanda Jalil as well as stalwarts from cinema Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar and Asha Parekh. The festival also has an interesting exhibition on the life and work of Jane Austen.
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Pic/Shadab Khan
Beauty and the beholders
Actor Neha Dhupia finds keen observers as she gives her hair a flick before a picture, outside a Khar recording studio yesterday.
The 2005 deluge and paying forward
Among the many Mumbaikars who offered to host strangers stranded in the downpour on Tuesday was Varun Grover. '#RainHosts Anyone stuck on WE Highway (Malad/ Kandivali/ Borivali), will be happy to host in Thakur Complex. Ping me here.
#MumbaiRains' tweeted the funnyman and ace scriptwriter, who got a response from a lady headed towards Borivali, but got a lift home ultimately. Being a famous face, wasn't he apprehensive of this open-to-all invite? "I was home and dry yesterday, but I was reminded of July 26, 2005 when I got caught in the deluge," Grover told this diarist.
"I was in a meeting at Mahalaxmi, and had no idea about what was going on outside. I managed to reach Dadar, and finally, took shelter in a BESTâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088bus on Bandra's Linking Road. At about 3 am, an elderly couple from a nearby building came with tea and biscuits for all, and even allowed women to use their washroom.
Opening their homes to people in distress - this is what Mumbaikars do. This was my way of paying forward," he shared. And about gatecrashing, Grover tells us that some people did show interest in landing up at his place, but he politely postponed the meet-up for a sunnier day.
Seven islands and a city
Humour was one of the few elements that kept Mumbaikars afloat during Tuesday's deluge. Apart from taking potshots at the BMC, ineffective corporators and slow-off-the-blocks politicians, tweeple pulled out innovative visuals and taglines to give the watery nightmare a satiric spin.
One such tweet was by Mustansir Dalvi, professor, poet and pucca Bombaywallah, where he re-posted an image of the historic seven-island map of the city before it was reclaimed into one major mass. The visual was accompanied by this tweet: 'Satellite image of Mumbai as of 11:00pm tonight'.
This was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the plight of the city, most of which was under water, drawing comparisons to its earlier island avatar. While the comparisons that spanned centuries managed a chuckle from this diarist, it did give us a frightening reality check.
Final frontier for the chaddi
While much has been written about the Apollo Mission that put Neil Armstrong on the moon, did you know what underwear he was wearing in space? The trusted Jockey. Back in 1962, NASA commissioned the brand, founded in 1876, to develop gravity-defying underwear that could be worn underneath the space suits of astronauts.
A NASA astronaut wearing the underwear
In fact, all three - Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins - wore them. If you're keen to check out this exhibit, along with a number of vintage pieces that celebrate the label's 141-year legacy - from creating the first-ever men's briefs in the 1930s to being the first to brand the waistband - attend a three-day pop-up museum at Lower Parel's Phoenix mall next weekend. It includes photo booths, selfie-stations and even GIF booths.
Modak pros
What's Ganeshotsav without the sweet-steamed goodness of modaks? But this time, it isn't just local city folk who are savouring the elephant god's favourite dessert. A fun video posted recently by the social media team of the USâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Consulate in Mumbai featured two American diplomats, Chris and Jen, battling it out for the title of the ultimate Modak Maestro.
Set in a quirky boxing rink set-up, it showed the two learn the ropes of making modaks from an expert. Once set, they competed in three rounds - moulding, decoration and presentation, while choosing the winner was left up to the viewers. The video ended with a message of Indo-USâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088dosti. The way to a Mumbaikar's heart is, after all, through modaks!
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