Mumbai Diary: Monday Dossier

Taken for a rideA trolley bag plays the role of a vehicle carrying two children outside Vidyavihar stationThese songs of freedomThis weekend marked 300 days of activist Umar Khalid being put behind bars under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA in the Delhi riots case An event called Lyrics of Liberty was held to mark the occasion and also pay tribute to Father Stan Swamy who passed away last week It featured protest poetry and songs with a lineup that included actor Danish Husain and theatre personality Quasar Thakore Padamsee who recited a poem by Roque Dalton Garcia an El Salvadorian poet who was killed by the oppressive regime in that country ldquoItrsquos important to understand that UAPA is not new Itrsquos a fascist playbook that has been going on for hundreds of years to silence peoplersquos voicesrdquo Padamsee saidLooking at the NorthEastAmid all the despair that wersquove seen in the past year the situation in the Northeast has been underreported The ZubaanSasakawa Peace Foundation Grants for Young Researchers from the NorthEast hopes to make a difference and is thus inviting scholars writers and photographers from states in the region to capture the multiple narratives of how the pandemic was experienced there Proposals for A Year of Loss And Resilience can be sent to projectszubaanbookscom by July 15Restaurant bodyrsquos appt responseWe had carried a report in this page last week which spoke about how the National Restaurants Association of India NRAI had filed a complaint with the Competitions Commission of India against the alleged malpractices of food delivery aggregators Zomato and Swiggy such as indiscriminate commissions and enforced discounting The two sides have been in a tussle for over a year now with no resolution in sight and a recent online report stated that NRAI was planning to launch its own food delivery app soon The report billed this app as a direct competitor to Zomato and Swiggy But when we reached out to Anurag Katriar the associationrsquos president for a confirmation he clarified that the news was premature The food delivery app is indeed in the works but it will take time Meanwhile NRAI is working on a different loyalty app ldquoIt will be an industrywide app that will reward people for dining at various restaurantsrdquo Katriar told this diaristMessing up the burgerAfter extending the footprint of Farzi Cafe mdash one of its signature franchises apart from Masala Library and multiple others mdash to Canada the ninth country to have a Farzi Cafe outlet Massive Restaurants have now announced the launch of a new chain called Louis Burger It will soon open outlets in Delhi and Mumbai Its founder Zorawar Kalra shared ldquoLouis Burger is a virtual burger restaurant with a single focus mdash to create a true burger experience for India It will have messy burgers with fine ingredients and is named after Louis Lassen the inventor of the original hamburger The project has been in the works for years but extensive work started in the last lockdown and after multiple trials we have finally reached a level where all the ingredients talk to each otherrdquoPlaying the sweet notes of chocolateParth Chandramani left and Vinesh Johny make the chocolate fluteLast week on World Chocolate Day Bengalurubased chef Vinesh Johny teamed up with flautist Parth Chandramani to create a oneofakind edible yet functional chocolate flute ldquoIt all started with Vinesh watching a few of my YouTube videos and proceeding to get in touch with me to try and make this chocolate flute When he proposed the idea I was sure wersquod be able to get some kind of sound out of it the challenge was to get music because when you think of a flute you think of music not just soundsrdquo said Chandramani The flute took about 10 days to create keeping the physics of the medium of chocolate in mind ldquoWe had to think of things like body temperature because the minute you touch chocolate it begins to melt awayrdquo he added Head over to vineshjohny on Instagram for a chocolatey rendition of the popular song Urvasi Urvasi This also is a perfect example of how you can hear your song and eat it too