The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Rekha with Jackie Shroff at a film screening
"Adjust kar lenge"
Jackie Shroff and Rekha fix their sleeve and pallu respectively when they meet at a film screening in Juhu on Wednesday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
Shanta gives the write advice
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The Tata Literature Live! that kicks off next week has announced the winners for two of its most important awards. While leading poet K Satchidanandan was named the poet laureate for 2019, city-based Shanta Gokhale won the lifetime achievement award. Speaking about receiving the news, the writer and translator stated that it came as a huge surprise. "Had someone been wielding the proverbial feather when Anil Dharker gave me the news, they could have knocked me down with it. It was the strangest feeling to know that, while you were enclosed in your own world, writing and translating — not always for money or even for publication, but out of an inner compulsion and for your own pleasure — you were actually making sense to others whose opinion you held in high esteem," she said. And when this diarist asked her if, in light of this honour, she has any advice to pass on to the younger generation, she said, "I really don't like giving advice, because everyone, young or old, is smart enough to fill their lifetimes with what they most enjoy doing."
When an MLA kneels down
While the ruling combine's MLAs are anxious about the formation of the government, a Shiv Sena legislator from Buldhana, Sanjay Gaikwad, took time off from a hectic political exercise to visit a Shiv Sainik, Anil Pawar, from Nehru Nagar in his Assembly constituency early this week. What was so special about Pawar that the newly elected MLA took the effort to meet him?
Pawar had taken a vow 15 years ago that he would walk barefoot until Gaikwad was elected to the Vidhan Sabha. He followed a self-inflicted decision without compromising a bit as many prickly summers, muddy monsoons and chilly winters took turns to trouble Pawar's weary feet.
Acknowledging the love and loyalty of the die-hard sainik, the MLA did the unexpected. Firstly, he bought a pair of chappals for Pawar and travelled to Nehru Nagar. And then he carried the chappals on his head to gift them to Pawar. After cleaning the sainik's feet with water, he helped him wear the chappals, kneeling down at the sainik's feet. He gifted Pawar a shawl and coconut, too, and told the villagers that his victory was made possible only by hard-working supporters like Pawar.
This pub milks a great idea
Since alcohol advertising is banned in India, brands come up with many different ways of surrogate advertising. Some take on the garb of soda, some pretend to be music companies, and some even advertise themselves as mineral water! When it comes to marketing, they depend on art forms like music and break dancing to sell their products. But a chain of pubs in the city that sell craft beer has gone one up on all of them in our books when it comes to online marketing. When you click on the website, you are asked whether you're of legal drinking age. If you click yes, then you are directed to the pub's site. But if you click no, you are directed to the website of Amul Dairy! Now that's a cool gimmick, which Amul wouldn't complain about given the free publicity that it is getting.
Nothing funny
There are more skeletons tumbling out of the closet as India's #MeToo movement refuses to die out. This time, it is comedienne Snigdha Jain who has accused two executives of a TV channel — Shelraj Patel and Nishchint Sohal — of sexually harassing during the after-party of a show she had shot with them. Jain alleges that Sohal, while talking to someone else, came and randomly sat on her lap without having ever shared any personal space with her before. Patel, meanwhile, repeatedly said loudly that she and her boyfriend were going to have sex when they were exiting the party since Jain was feeling uncomfortable.
He's not mincing words
Former Mumbai Police commissioner Julio Ribeiro has written a strongly worded public letter on behalf of the retired Indian Police Service (IPS) Officers Association of Maharashtra on the recent imbroglio between lawyers and police in the Capital. He says in his cracking and crisp communication "that the Association records its condemnation of the violence on police officers and men of the Delhi police by some lawyers in the various Court complexes in the capital". Ribeiro, as president of the association, adds that "the lawyers who took the law in their hands must face due legal process". He ends with, "The rights of the police personnel engaged in their lawful duties must be safeguarded at all costs." When Ribeiro speaks, the nation listens.
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