The city — sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Guthrie Govan
A bit of jazz by the bay
Within months of touring the country with jazz/rock trio The Aristocrats, English guitar virtuoso Guthrie Govan is set to return to India to perform across five cities. This time, however, he will be accompanied by bassist Mohini Dey and drummer Gino Banks.
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“I’m looking forward to the tour. Mohini and Gino are both gifted musicians and have worked with each other before, which is always an advantage,” he says. In February, Govan will hold a workshop at the Furtados School of Music, where he will talk about his life and his journey with music. Govan first visited India in 2010 to conduct guitar clinics. “Indians take their music very seriously. I love the palpable energy and musical intelligence,” he adds.
Have a sunny new year
Actor Sunny Leone and her husband, Daniel Weber, were spotted at the airport as they returned to the city just in time for New Year’s Eve. Pic/Yogen Shah
Coming out
In 2013, when author Vasudhendra published Mohanaswamy (2013), a collection of gay short stories in Kannada, it created quite a stir in the Indian literary world. In his previous interviews, the writer, who was then struggling to come out of the closet and found the book as a means to open up about his sexual identity to the world, had revealed how he was at the receiving end of several hate mails and letters.
Pic courtesy/AN Mukunda
Some good came out of it, though. Mohanaswamy introduced Kannada literature to the gay world. Young gays started approaching him, and narrating their life stories, he recalled. Three years on, the path-breaking novel is getting a lift with its first English translation (published by HarperCollins India). And Vasundhendra is hopeful that these stories will be accepted among a wider audience without any resistance. He says it will only take these conversations forward.
Keep me where the light is
Last week, we got to know about Sheetal Gattani’s enchantment with bulbs. Turns out that the artist has a collection of more than 3,000 filament bulbs at her home. If you think she bubble wraps her collection and stores them on a shelf, you’d be mistaken. The artist, verily in her style of using light sources in her works, has made an installation using 2,700 of these and hung them on the ceiling of her Colaba home.
Sheetal Gattani and her collection of lightbulbs
Most of them are fused bulbs and are sourced from an array of locales — from shipbreaking yards to industries — and are in as many sizes and shapes too. Collecting for about a decade now, Gattani tells us that she doesn’t know how it all began, but now, her friends forage for bulbs to add to her installation. “I think there is something endearing and old-fashioned about filament bulbs,” says Gattani.
Eden Gardens tickets riot is 50 today
Exactly 50 years ago, on New Year’s day of 1967, a riot broke out at the India vs West Indies Test match at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
The cricket authorities in Kolkata reportedly caused an uproar when they sold more tickets than the iconic venue could hold. The crowds spilled on to the field on the second day of the Test and when the police started to stop them from occupying the turf, angry exchanges broke out.
The Eden Gardens stands were in flames and the players believed the dressing rooms were safer until they heard that the pavilion above them was burning. Some players likes West Indies captain Garry Sobers were taken to the hotel in a Ford Perfect car, according to Sobers’ autobiography and Charlie Griffith (in pic), who had injured Nari Contractor in the West Indies five years prior to the Kolkata Test, decided not to take any chances of being stoned in a vehicle. Sobers revealed that Griffith decided to run back to the hotel even though it was two miles away from the ground.
“We decided we would get the hell out of it the very next morning and take the team back home to the West Indies. But the Indians told us that was the worst thing we could do. It was explained to us that if we went back the next day and continued the match, nothing would happen, but if we were to leave, we could be seriously hurt; the bus would never reach the airport. They advised us to go back and play,” wrote Sobers.
Mumbai on the menu
Whenever Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal’s foodie friends come visiting from abroad, she makes it a point to take them around the city for a culinary tour. So next week, when Renae Smith from the sixth series of Masterchef Australia, will be in Mumbai, Ghildiyal will play host. “In February, when I was Down Under for Noma Australia, she showed me around. So, when I learnt she was keen to try the local cuisine here, I chalked out an itinerary,” she tells us.
Rushina with Renae Smith
The tour will start at the Idli House in Matunga for a South Indian breakfast. “It’s a quirky, no non-sense place where they charge you if you waste rasam. Since Udipis have played an integral part in making Mumbai what it is, I want her to see it.” This will be followed by a tour of the Grant Road market and lunch at Soam. “The idea is to encapsulate everything into that one day,” she says. Sounds like a plan.
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