27 September,2026 10:05 AM IST | Mumbai | Team SMD
Pic/Satej Shinde
The visarjan procession of the Mumbaicha Raja on Anant Chaturdashi near Chinchpolkli.
Comparisons are generally warped, but when they are made by an all-time great who the opposition highly respected, one just has to take notice.
The latest from our in-house cricket nut is about England's legendary fast bowler Fred Trueman, who contributed a first person piece on Indian cricketers for Sportsworld magazine in 1982.
Trueman, who demolished Indian teams on their 1952 and 1959 tours of England, felt that those sides were better than the outfits of the 1970s and 1980s. Trueman took into consideration though the heroics of Indian teams in 1971 and the famous 400-plus run-chase at Trinidad in 1976. Also, the presence of Sunil Gavaskar, who he described as the "best opening batsman in the world." Come to think of it, who wouldn't think so then considering Gavaskar's sheer brilliance. He also spoke highly of the Indian spinners of the 1970s. However, he said this about the 1950s Indians: "The team in 1952, for instance, had the great [Vijay] Hazare, [Vijay] Manjrekar, [Vinoo] Mankad, who notched up an astonishing all-round feat at Lord's - [Polly] Umrigar, Subhash Gupte, and Ghulam Ahmed and a couple of useful medium pacers in [Dattu] Phadkar and [Ramesh] Divecha."
Oh, these greats and their families may have felt so proud in 1982!
American composer and theatre artiste Sheherazaad is set to release her debut album, Khudgarzi, on November 20. The 10-track album builds on her debut EP Qasr.
Meaning "selfishness", Khudgarzi examines autonomy, identity and survival through the figure of the so-called khudgaz aurat - the selfish woman, whose desire for agency is rebuked by society.
"Selfishness became a kind of silent prayer," Sheherazaad says, "A portal into a haunted universe of anxieties and desires. I was made to fear a âselfish' kind of woman; embracing her felt like stepping into a forbidden forest I'd been running away from." Sung primarily in Urdu, with passages in English and Tamil, The second single, Pakeezah, releases on September 29.
Is it possible to navigate Mumbai relying only on directions from strangers?
The answer lies in Island Wars, a new YouTube competition by The Having Said That Show, centred on the city's seven islands.
"Bombay is a city we've all grown up in, and in many ways, it feels like a part of who we are. But despite that, there are still so many parts of the city we haven't experienced or understood - especially the Bombay that revealed itself to us when we explored it through the lens that this opportunity provided." says Aditya Lodha, Co-founder of The Having Said That Show, "That became the starting point for Island Wars. We wanted to take the show out of a traditional studio environment and into the city itself, turning the city into the playing field. The contestants had to navigate its streets, interact with its people, use local modes of transport and figure things out as they went and rediscovered the city," he added.
The show, presented by Seven Islands Pure Malt Whisky, has taken the contestants to Worli and Mahim in the first two episodes. Parel, Mazgaon, Bombay, and Colaba & Little Colaba are next. Catch the third episode today on YouTube!
The centennial celebrations of Satish Gujral's legacy has now come to Mumbai, where the acclaimed late artist came of age at the Sir JJ School of Art, right alongside the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group in the 1940s. From October 9, the National Gallery of Modern Art will host a landmark exhibition to honour Gujral, one of India's most significant modernists, with over 100 works spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, mixed media and architecture, alongside personal archives, photographs and accolades. The retrospective, titled Satish Gujral 100: The Modernist Returns, also brings together the voices of his family, including Feroze Gujral and architect Mohit Gujral, offering a more intimate perspective on the artist's practice.
"Mumbai holds a special place in my father's story. It was here, at the J J School of Art, that he began to find his voice as an artist, and the city remained an important part of his journey throughout his life," Mohit Gujral says.
Feroze Gujral, Founder, Gujral Foundation, says, "For the Gujral Foundation, the centenary is not simply about looking back at Satish Gujral's extraordinary life and legacy. It is about bringing his work into conversation with new generations and allowing his ideas, his experimentation and his remarkable creative spirit to continue evolving."
The exhibition will go on till November 20.
