The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce
Pic/Anurag Ahire.
The valentine's effect
A couple gets into the mood during a photo shoot on the beach at Malad West on Saturday morning.
Look who is on air!
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Last week, Polish Ambassador to India, Adam Burakowski, was invited to Akaashvani for a radio interview. This meeting turned out to be a nostalgic affair for the diplomat. He took to social media to reveal that he worked at the Polish national radio broadcaster, Polskie Radio, for 11 years. Obviously, he misses the good old days, Burakowski told this diarist. “We can call it a Polish Akaashvani. I was never a journalist there, but I worked in the administration, in departments dealing with international affairs. I also represented Polskie Radio in the European Broadcasting Union and Euranet—an international radio project financed by the European Commission. I believe in the mission of public broadcaster, in reliable news, quality music and culture. I appreciate my time spent there. So last week, when I was invited to Akaashvani, which I listen to quite frequently in my car, I was excited.”
A pipe dream
Mumbai’s iconic Jehangir Art Gallery is set to reopen on February 16, nearly a year after the pandemic. The opening show, titled Faith and Fury–Unveiling the Eccentric, is by artist Bibhuti Adhikary. On display will be one of his most celebrated works, for which he has received a gold from India Book of Records and Asia Book of Records. The Rolling Painting is a 5ft x 4ft installation using 594 PVC pipes. “These rollers when rolled manually formed 12 different compositions and I brought all of these together under one theme: nature. The beauty of this painting lies in its serene wildlife wherein if one creature appears the other disappears. It has been painted very carefully so as not to disturb the other compositions,” shares Bibhuti.
Books: A hospital for the mind
Mental health among children has been a topic of growing concern, especially during the pandemic. In these trying times, books have proven to play an important part in ensuring children’s’ well-being. Launched in 2005 by Tata Trusts, Parag, an initiative, focuses on the development of children’s reading habits by providing them access to illustrated, engaging storybooks in various regional languages.
The Parag Honour List 2021, released on Saturday, features 35 titles in Hindi and English and was created after careful screening and multiple reviews. “The PHL 2021 aims to enable access and awareness about outstanding Indian books for children and young adults,” said Swaha Sahoo, Head of the Parag Initiative at Tata Trusts. Some of the books that made it to the list were Queen of Earth by Devika Rangachari and Friends Behind Walls by Harshikaa Udasi.
Another feather added to Taran’s cap
Mumbai-based author-journalist Taran N Khan, whose book Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul (Penguin Random House) recently won the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award (Non-Fiction), has bagged another coveted honour. The book, which documents the time Khan spent in Kabul when she arrived there in 2006—five years after the Taliban government was overthrown—has been shortlisted along with seven others for the prestigious 2021 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, in the Travel Book of the Year category. The other nominees include Without Ever Reaching the Summit by Paolo Cognetti, The Border by Erika Fatland and Travelling While Black by Nanjala Nyabola. “My editor in the UK told me about the award shortlist and I was really happy to learn that Shadow City is up for this prestigious international honour, and in such interesting company. It’s good to see women writers on the shortlist and writers from diverse backgrounds. I am grateful that these stories from Kabul are finding readers, at a time when the city is vanishing from the attention of the international media,” she told this diarist. The winner will be announced in March.
Here’s wishing Vishy the very best
Gundappa Viswanath creams one through the off-side during his century in the New Delhi Test against England on December 26, 1981. Pic/Getty Images
It was Gundappa Viswanath’s 72nd birthday on Friday and our in-house cricket nut stumbled upon a 1976 article on Vishy penned by brother-in-law and fellow cricket great Sunil Gavaskar for Sportsweek’s World of Cricket magazine. Under the headline Vishy-Washy, Gavaskar revealed to his readers Vishy’s fondness for a filet steak with “lots of French fries” and Chinese food, which he especially relished in the company of his captain Ajit Wadekar while on his 1971 and 1974 tours to England. “He likes to smell sweet too. He buys a variety of after-shave lotions, colognes and deodorants and liberally sprays
himself with these before stepping out for an evening,” wrote Gavaskar. Vishy, we can assure you, is a sweet man and if there is a teammate or opposing player who doesn’t have any admiration and respect for him, we don’t know him. Pardon the cliché, but we’ll have to say—great player and even greater human being.
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