21 June,2026 07:16 AM IST | Mumbai | Team SMD
Pic/Satej Shinde
A seagull grabs a fish from the water in a stunning moment near the seashore at Marve Jetty, Malad West.
Anyone who has moved to the maximum city knows how hard it can be sometimes to find your community here. As a software engineer and artist, Naman has moved cities a lot. Each time, the hardest bit has been rebuilding his social circle from scratch. "Everyone seems busy or settled or waiting for someone else to make the first move. So I decided to become that someone," he says. He started by hosting game nights in his own living room, and then movie nights, potlucks, themed-parties. At first, it was a few friends, then friends of friends, until eventually even strangers began to show up for the camaraderie.
It's this idea that he's now expanded into The Q Living Room, a casual gathering where one can meet new people in a low-pressure environment. While the sessions are open to all, Naman has made it a point to make it a safe space for the queer community. "It's even harder for queer people to meet new people because they have to be very careful; not everyone understands their lived experience," he says. That's why Naman organised a Pride month special games night this Saturday at the Humsafar Trust's HQ in Santa Cruz, and part of the proceeds went to the Trust as well.
Upcoming sessions too remain a safe space for the queer community. "The Q Living Room's spirit remains the same: it's a gathering big enough to meet new people, but small enough to remember their names. This is a space built on curiosity, kindness, and respect for different people, identities, and experiences."
At just 21 and 19 years old, Indian founders Agnay Srivastava and Pulkit Gupta turned their own struggles in the job market into a fast-growing startup. After collectively applying to more than 3000 jobs and internships, they experienced first-hand how frustrating, time-consuming, and competitive the hiring process had become. This experience became the inspiration behind Tsenta, an AI-powered platform designed to simplify and automate the job application process.
Mumbai-based Srivastava, who moved to the United States for his studies, said, "We built something that matches you with jobs based on your preferences and optimises your profile through AI. The startup has gained significant momentum in a short period. Tsenta was selected for the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program and received Rs 4.7 crore in funding. Today, the platform serves 17,000 users in the US and India.
The Australian documentary feature âShared Table: Regional Heroes' had its World Premiere at the prestigious Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2026. The film is the only Australian selection at MIFF this year.
Shared Table' follows a small, diverse group of filmmakers on an improvised road trip across regional Victoria, visiting four unsung migrant heroes who open their homes and kitchens. Directed by Indian-Australian filmmaker and author Nandita Chakraborty, she says, "Stories of trauma are often heard from the battlefield or in news but when real stories are heard from 500 km away from the city of Melbourme in Nhill then you realise there is life stories of displacement as similar to what we hear. At MIFF the audience questioned about me leaving India to make Melbourne home so what were my experiences and the love of audience poured in when I said I made friends in tram carrying Parle G."
On uesday, this diarist's was grabbing brekkie at Benne's Juhu outlet. On the breakfast table, we ran into chef Wilson Kenneth Suchitha, who ran a cloud kitchen specialising in biryani. Naturally, we asked him, "Is there such a thing as veg biryani?" This diarist is vegetarian, but the chef is "a hardcore meat lover," he told us, "But biryani is more a technique to cook rice, than the name of a dish," he said, "A legendary biryani master once told me, âJisme yakhni hota hai, woh pulao hai [Whatever has yakhni, is pulao].' So the technique of layering rice over raw meat and ingredients and sealing the pot for the âdum' technically is biryani. By that logic, pretty much all biryanis are pulao." "Traditionally, biryani is only cooked with beef. So if we can accept mutton, and then chicken, then I guess we can also have veg biryani," he said. Language evolves, and one must evolve with it. This diarist is glad to have an answer for her friends who eat meat and shame her veg biryani!
In-house cricket nut came up with a fascinating football World Cup and Indian cricket connection. Not that the Indian cricket team are touring England right now in the midst of the FIFA World Cup fever, but he tells us that Indian cricket sides soaked in football World Cup fever on as many as seven tours to England, the last one being in 2018. The first Indian team to be in England during a football World Cup was in 1974. In later years, Indian teams were in England during the football fiesta in 1982, 1986, 1990, 2002, 2014. In 2002, Sourav Ganguly's side ruled the NatWest Series amidst World Cup football fever. And remember Ganguly is a football buff.
Kiran More, India's wicketkeeper on the 1986 and 1990 tours of England, remembered he and some of his mates following the controversial England vs Argentina quarter-final on June 22, 1986 while the Indian cricketers were in Leeds en route to a famous series win which this paper features on P18.
