Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

The keeper of Mumbairsquos secretsOn the occasion of Gauri Ganpati devotees bid adieu to bappa at Juhu ChowpattyHospitality and reverence the Indian wayThe New Zealanders will be here next month for a threeTest cricket series Bangalore Pune and Mumbai As usual the tourists will lap up fivestar hospitality but there was a time when teams stayed at the grounds itself The 196970 Australians didnrsquot have very complimentary things to say about the facilities but the Kiwis who toured before them earlier in the season appeared quite happy with the accommodation at the stadium rooms in Mumbai and HyderabadGlenn Turner reading a magazine on his 197677 tour of IndiaPicmidday archivesGlenn Turner who would become the captain for their next tour of India in 197677 mentioned in his 1975 book My Way how the Kiwis met numerous characters during their 196970 series One of them was Naga who served them at Hyderabad The eversmiling Hyderabadi waiter father of nine children was a popular man with Graham Dowlingrsquos teamWhen they said thank you he would invariably respond with the words ldquoDonrsquot mention itrdquo The team members tried convincing him that he didnrsquot have to utter those words each time they showed appreciation but Naga wouldnrsquot relent They also remembered his ldquoIgetforyousaabrdquo response to their needs While we wonder if Naga is still around there is no doubt that Turner now 77 will remember him after 55 yearsThe ambassadorrsquos travelogueRomanian Amb Daniela Mariana Tane with singeractor Iulia Vantur at the launch of the Twilight Chronicles PICPRADEEP DHIVARYears ago the familiar gesture of a watermelon seller in Rishikeshmdashthe way he cut out a triangle of the sweet fruit and handed it to her to tastemdashinstantly made this country feel like home to Daniela Mariana Sezonovane Romanian Ambassador to India Nepal and Bangladesh This is one of the first anecdotes she recalls in her travelogue Twilight Chronicles launched on Thursday at the Taj Santa Cruz East The book began as a travel diary she says ldquoSome of the perspectives in the book are from 20 years ago A lot has changedmdashthe Rishikesh of that time has gone The world is in kind of a twilight if we donrsquot take better care of it it will disappearrdquoFor granny with loveLakshmi Madhavan grew up watching her widowed grandmother wear a differently bordered Kasavu mundu veshti all her life When she lost her in 2021 she wanted to find ways to reclaim her grandmotherrsquos memoriesmdashwhich resulted in the exhibition Generations in My Body on at Akara Contemporary till September 19 It includes 96 shuttles which are wrapped with Kasavu threads and hair ldquoThis led me to the Kasavu weavers in Kerala What started as a quest to thread a family memberrsquos history cascaded into understanding the communityrsquos generational beliefs that were entrenched in bodily functions of caste purpose and allowances of belongingrdquo she saysSo very Jerry poetic isnrsquot itPerforming poetry at Governorrsquos Palace Goa Arts amp Literary FestivalMumbairsquos man of many parts Jerry Pinto writer poet teacher believes if all the worldrsquos a stage he had better be on it Pinto will be sole protagonist in a theatre performance called A Life in Poetry to be staged on September 20 at Stein Auditorium in New Delhi The credits said of this 45minute act ldquoWritten and directed by Jerry Pinto and solo performance by Jerry Pintordquo Pinto said in response to a question about this being a monologue ldquoI think of this as an interaction It wonrsquot be a monologue because I engage with audiences whenever I am on stage I want them to understand the fire and the magic of poetry and I think that happens when there is breath and body involvedrdquoThough he is no stranger to the stage this time it will be Pintorsquos theatre debut as it is all his work writing directing and performing Ask about the belief that poetry is passeacute and Pinto refutes ldquoPoetry has never been as alive as it is today It is just that we tend to measure everything in the capitalist coin and so poetry looks like a poor cousin to the novel or the nonfiction book But tell me how many nonfiction books from the sixteenth century is anyone reading today Poetry lives and it lives long and it lives in your heartrdquo Well that is being solo and so highhellip on poetryHearts and rainbowsOn the last day of threeday leadership workshopThe Humsafar Trust under their initiative TRANScend and with the support of CSR initiative of TLG Pvt Ltd and Viva Glam successfully concluded the Emerging Queer Leaders Workshop EQueL 2024 a transformative threeday residential bootcamp aimed at fostering leadership skills of young Trans and Cisqueer leaders from Tier 2 and Tier 3 citiesVivek AnandThe threeday workshop concluded on September Vivek Anand CEO of The Humsafar Trust says ldquoThis is about equipping the next generation of queer leaders with the tools they need to create inclusive spaces and drive the queer inclusion in the society Itrsquos inspiring to see such passion and determination in this group and I am confident they will bring about significant change in the communities in the regions they come fromrdquo