13 September,2026 07:44 AM IST | Mumbai | Team SMD
Pic/Ashish Raje
Even the dabbang ladies need to go Ganpati shopping at Lalbaug.
A hundred and ten years after her great-grandfather went to study in Heidelberg, Germany, against the backdrop of World War I, producer and screenwriter Devki Pande has brought his memory back to life - albeit in a fictionalised account - with her new novel, The Imitation Englishman (Bloomsbury India, Rs 799). The story, she says, is loosely inspired by her great-granddad, Padmadatt Pande, and his life there as a student in those tumultuous times. But over the five years it took to write the book, it grew into a historical fiction novel about an Indian student who gets involved in the secretive Hindu-German Conspiracy, a revolutionary gun-running plot.
For research, Pande tells us, she retraced her forefather's steps in the historical university town of Heidelberg, travelling there in 2019 on a grant from Columbia University. "It was so cool going to the university, and their museum, and even a pub called The Red Oxen, which my great-grandfather would have sat in 110 years ago," she recalls. "I had the same meal that he would have eaten; cured fish with potatoes and beer. So it was really cathartic."
Interestingly, he book dwells a fair bit on student dissent and how the campus can be a place of political awakening. It's ironic that student politics is now banned in Mumbai. "When I started this novel, I was still a young kid in university, just starting to read the newspaper actively for the first time in her life. It's a time of life when you solidify your ideology, and you want to change things," she says.
Co-incidentally, she happened to be in Delhi for the book, and joined the stir at Jantar Mantar right from the first day.
"I couldn't help but think that my protagonist is a student in revolution, and even though I'm not a student anymore, there is a student revolution happening amid us right now. If I didn't get involved with that, what am I even writing about? It may be a story from 100 years ago, but it remains relevant to this day."
What if your building could grow its own greenery? Mumbai-based architect Mangesh Kurund has invented Bio.Clads: lightweight tiles that can be fitted onto a building's exterior and are designed to grow moss and algae.
The tile contains tiny water reservoirs that help keep the biological growth hydrated, meaning the facade can gradually turn into a living surface instead of needing a conventional green wall system. "The facade itself becomes the next laboratory," Kurund says.
The moss and algae aren't just there to make the building look like a rainforest. They can help cool urban spaces, improve air quality, and capture carbon. "It gave me the confidence to begin thinking beyond laboratory specimens and towards architectural scale," he says. He's currently filing patents for this new technology and even got selected for the Swarovski Foundation's Creatives For Our Future programme, which provided a â¬20,000 fund.
Our in-house cricket nut arrived in our bay armed with an Australian Cricket Newspaper issue of 1981, a publication that also took a world view of the game. "It's a pity that there is so little talk of West Indies cricket personalities nowadays," he stated. "They were the true kings of cricket, and even if you were an Indian cricket fan, the attraction towards star West Indian cricketers was something else." Opponents of the all-conquering West Indies were never coy to praise them too. Turning to Page 12 of the magazine, our man pointed to what departed Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh said in an interview when asked the following questions:
Most respected rival? Andy Roberts (WI pace ace).
Most respected umpire? Douglas Sang Hue (Respected WI umpire)
Hardest-hitting batsman? [Super WI skipper] Clive Lloyd... marginally. A lot of those blokes like Viv Richards [WI master blaster], Graeme Pollock [South African master] and [Garry] Sobers can give the ball a bit of a whack.
In-house cricket nut says Marsh reckoned Lloyd was a more dangerous batsman than Richards, but his view won't be universally accepted knowing Richards's belligerent ways.
Indian-American singer-songwriter Raveena has returned with her first release of 2026, Blissed Out, a deeply personal single that traces the aftermath of losing her mother. It will be released on September 16.
For the artist, the track became a way of documenting a year marked by grief and healing. "âBlissed Out' (in contrast with its title) is one of my most vulnerable songs I've put out, about the aftermath of grief and loss," she says.
Raveena describes 2025 as "one of the hardest years" of her life, and says she wanted listeners to meet her "where I was at in the midst of all that change and pain."
The accompanying video, directed by Los Angeles-based creative Grant Spanier, combines archival family footage with images of Raveena in nature, turning the visual into both a meditation on loss and a celebration of life.
Blissed Out marks the beginning of a new creative chapter, with more music expected in 2027.
