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Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Updated on: 18 June,2017 10:04 AM IST  |  Mumbai
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Actress Elli Avram exits a Bandra restaurant with a spring in her step on Saturday afternoon

Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier


Actress Elli Avram exits a Bandra restaurant with a spring in her step on Saturday afternoon. Pic/Shadab KhanActress Elli Avram exits a Bandra restaurant with a spring in her step on Saturday afternoon. Pic/Shadab Khan



Music is all about the human touch
Red Bull Music Academy's popular series Studio Science, that has featured biggies in modern music like Brian Eno, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, features the Karsh Kale collective in its latest episode. The new installment, that was shot in the city, has Kale (in pic) take us through his inspirations and how he uses the tabla in an electronic context. "The years have proven one thing to me — that there is no software, controllers, loopers, or other gear on this planet that can come close to replacing the chemistry that happens when musicians come together to make music. I think young artists need to be less concerned with what gear they are using and more interested in gaining human experience," he says.


Shiv Pandit
Shiv Pandit

A 100-year-old charming vampire?
Last month, we managed to catch the Shiv Pandit-starrer LOEV on Netflix and we were charmed by the sensitive homosexual love story, which also discussed the serious issue of same-sex rape. The movie, which won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2016 Tel Aviv International Film Festival, brought the focus back on Pandit, who last got rave reviews for 2011's Shaitan. Now the young actor is rumoured to also star as the lead in the Indian remake of Vampire Diaries, which is supposedly being directed by Milap Zaveri, who has been screenwriter for Heyy Baby and Masti. Pandit will be playing an irresistible 100-year-old vampire, who a young girl falls for. This diarist, who remembers Pandit from her college days at Delhi University [Pandit went to Hindu College], recalls girls fawning over the good looking actor back in 2002. Let's see if he can work the same magic this time around.

Former Sri Lanka batsman Roshan Mahanama at the MIG Cricket Club in Bandra (East) on Wednesday. Pic/Prakash ParsekarFormer Sri Lanka batsman Roshan Mahanama at the MIG Cricket Club in Bandra (East) on Wednesday. Pic/Prakash Parsekar

No international performance, no trainer!
Roshan Mahanama, the pleasant Sri Lankan, who was part of the islanders' victorious 1996 World Cup-winning squad, was in Mumbai this week. Naturally, Sri Lanka's greatest cricketing achievement came up during conversation at MIG Cricket Club, Bandra (East) where the 51-year-old former batsman was invited to be chief guest of the club's prize distribution function. Mahanama (51) caused some amazement among the press corps at the club's conference room when he revealed that the Sri Lankan board in the 1990s would not rope in a fitness trainer until the team started hitting the high notes on the international scene. Their Aussie trainer Alex Kountouri came on to the scene only a year before the 1996 World Cup win and he did wonders with Arjuna Ranatunga's side which kept battling injuries. Mahanama compared that delayed appointment to present-day cricket by saying that now there is a support staff member for every player.

Kountouri returned to Australia after his eight-year stint with Sri Lanka, but the Sri Lankan board paid him the ultimate tribute by naming the gymnasium at the Board's headquarters in Colombo after him. Mahanama paid Kountouri a fine tribute the other day as well when he credited him for the longevity of Chaminda Vaas' fast bowling career as the highly successful left-arm fast bowler was plagued with various injuries. Yet, he ended up 761 international wickets.

Eve Lemesle
Eve Lemesle

Calling all curators
The only not-for-profit gallery in city which exhibits experimental and contemporary art is set to turn into a curatorial lab. After undergoing a change in its management structure, Colaba's Mumbai Art Room has a new managing director, Eve Lemesle, the name behind the productions of some memorable exhibitions and arts management agency, What About Art? In Mumbai Art Room's new avatar, emerging curators will be nominated by eminent curators from India and abroad, and invited to submit proposals for the four exhibitions that it hosts annually. These curators will be mentored by a curatorial advisory committee, which will include academics and curators such as Iftikhar Dadi and Nancy Adajania, among others. On June 22, the gallery will host History Zero, an installation by Stefanos Tsivopoulos and curated by Abhijan Gupta. This is the first time it will be exhibited in India.

Ravi Subramanian
Ravi Subramanian

Subramanian's temple troubles
It's been exactly a decade since bestselling writer Ravi Subramanian (in pic) made his debut with If God Was A Banker. His new book sees him exploring the nexus between the richest temples in the world. In The Name of God, which releases next week, deals with the security of the riches of Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Subramanian claims to have found inspiration for his 'faction' in the Amicus Curiae report on the maintenance of the secret vaults of the temple, which had been submitted to the Supreme Court in 2014. "I am surprised that given the happenings at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, no one has written a story, yet, with the temple as the backdrop. I have been very respectful to the deity as I have gone about building the thriller that is based in the temple and its surroundings," he says. Having said that, Subramanian says "he'd like his readers to read this book as what could have been than a true story."

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