Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Where's the applause, people?
Actor Anushka Sharma gestures to the crowd to cheer as she takes the stage at an event in Worli on Monday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Bravo's on song
The cultural leanings of Dwayne Bravo are no secret. The Trinidadian all-rounder's song, Champion, became a club anthem in India after his fellow West Indies cricketers grooved to its beats when they lifted the 2016 T20 World Cup.

Bravo, who has also been a contestant in an Indian dance reality show, is now ready with another single. Called Run D World, the track promises to be another earworm with its foot-tapping music. "With the IPL season we need that one force that drives us all in the field," said the Chennai Super Kings star, about the song.

Pride on screen
South Asia's biggest LGBTQ+ film festival, KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, is back with its 9th edition and 140 films from across 45 countries. With India as the Country in Focus, the festival will be screening 33 Indian films based around Together with Pride, the central theme for this year.

A still from Maacher Jhol

Pushing cinematic boundaries, the films will be tackling issues like bullying in colleges, the angst of coming out to family, finding love and parental acceptance. The festival has been highly acclaimed with many of the films going on to winning National Awards, most recently, Maacher Jhol by director Abhishek Verma. So, go on and support the pride of India's LGBTQ community, on screen.

Of Mughal proportions
It created quite the flutter when it was first staged in the city, and now, Mughal-e-Azam is back for another season. Its director, Feroz Abbas Khan (inset) is excited its return to the city. Sharing with this diarist, he spoke about the journey thus far, and what the future is looking like.

"The Mumbai staging will be the 10th season of Mughal-e-Azam. The film is a classic and my endeavour was that the musical should not be a letdown. With nine successive and extremely successful seasons, we are grateful that audiences have appreciated the theatre version of Mughal-e-Azam. After this Mumbai season, the play has a hectic international schedule," he said before the staging. Here's wishing the grand production all the success.

Memories, gyaan and shelfies
One of the country's highest selling authors, Chetan Bhagat had some serious gyaan to dole out on World Book Day. He wrote: Read more books. They always say a well read person, never a well TV watched person, or a well Youtubed person. Even if 1/10th of his 12.1 million followers take this advice to heart, there's something to smile about in a country where reading is facing stiff competition from other pastimes.

We loved this post by one of our fave authors, JK Rowling. She posed a frame with her American editor, Arthur Levin (above, in pic), who according to her, 'changed her life forever' by buying the rights to her first book. Rowling caught up with Levin in New York recently. According to a Forbes report, her manuscript, which was rejected by nine publishers and picked up finally by UK-based Bloomsbury, who handed it to Levine. It's said that he loved what he read so much that he paid about 10 times more than the average going rate when the American publishing rights went to auction, or around $105,000. Talk about backing an author!

The popular will-travel-to-any-distance-for-food duo Rocky and Mayur also joined in the initiative by egging followers to post photos of their bookshelves, giving it a rather catchy term, 'the shelfie'. It triggered an unprecedented response on social media. May their tribe increase!

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