<h2>Awash with hope</h2>
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus bears an unusually calm, almost romantic, look after a monsoon shower. If you look closely, atop the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai/mumbai-news/article/mumbai-csmt-dome-leak-railway-board-seeks-cr-report-action-plan-in-3-days-23639454" rel="nofollow">CSMT dome</a>, the Statue of Progress has donned a tarpauilin &lsquo;raincoat&rsquo; as well to match the weather
<h2>When Sobers&rsquo;s humility came shining through</h2>
As admirers of Sir Garfield Sobers get set to say their final goodbye to the cricket legend (the funeral will be held at the Kensington Oval, Barbados, on Wednesday), there&rsquo;s no shortage of fascinating Sobers stories about him.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Yashvant-Chad_e.jpg" alt="Yashvant Chad" /><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Yashvant-Chad_e.jpg" alt="Yashvant Chad" width="1280" height="720" /> Yashvant Chad
Yashvant Chad, the well-known scorer, who has also been the official scorer of the Indian team, came up with a gem the other day. Chad was the scorer in the television commentators box for the 1994 India vs West Indies Test match at Mumbai&rsquo;s Wankhede Stadium.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I consider it a great honour to have worked with Sir Garry in the commentary box where he was a commentator. During the 1994 Test, I had fractured my right hand and was scoring with a plaster on. I was busy scoring as tea and coffee were being served. Suddenly, I felt a tap my back. It was Sir Garry telling me, &lsquo;Mr Scorer, I am holding your tea. You can continue your work.&rsquo; Firstly, I had never dreamt of working with him in the commentators box and here he was holding tea for me,&rdquo; Chad revealed. Some great moment with the great man!
<h2>Uncorking heritage</h2>
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Tandoor_e.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" />
At the From Tandoor to Terroir, dining experience hosted at Jyran, Sofitel Mumbai, bold flavours of India&rsquo;s Northwest Frontier by Chef Waris Qureshi came alive with thoughtfully curated global wines imported by Flipsydee. What made the evening stellar was the stories behind each pairing by Romi Purkayastha, creating a seamless dialogue between Indian cuisine and world&rsquo;s most celebrated wine regions. Present at the dinner were singers Lesle Lewis and Kavya Jones, actors Jayati Bhatia, Pubali Sanyal, Bhaktyar and Tanaz Irani, Vivek Vaswani, RJ Gaurav Sharma among others.
<h2>When the sun met the moon</h2>
If there&rsquo;s one thing Gaurav Gupta knows, it&rsquo;s how to make couture feel like a full-blown cosmic affair. And on July 17, at Jio World Centre in <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai/mumbai-news/article/mumbai-motorists-to-get-direct-signal-free-route-to-bkc-as-sclr-extension-nears-completion-23641480" rel="nofollow">BKC</a>, the designer brought his latest collection, Light Song, home to Mumbai with plenty of drama, shimmer and, naturally, sculptural fashion.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/GG-show_e.jpg" alt="Gaurav Gupta&rsquo;s new collection debuted in Mumbai on July 17. PIC COURTESY/GAURAV GUPTA" width="1280" height="720" /> Gaurav Gupta&rsquo;s new collection debuted in Mumbai on July 17. PIC COURTESY/GAURAV GUPTA
The collection, which follows his Paris couture outing The Divine Androgyne, took the designer&rsquo;s fascination with duality and sent it skywards. &ldquo;I wanted to expand that dialogue into the cosmos,&rdquo; Gupta tells us. Inspired by the relationship between the moon and the sun in Indian philosophy, it explores the two not as opposites, but as &ldquo;complementary energies&rdquo;.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Gaurav-Gupta_e.jpg" alt="Gaurav Gupta" width="1280" height="720" /> Gaurav Gupta
The result? A three-act couture spectacle &mdash; Lunar, Solar, and Cosmic Union &mdash; moving through midnight blues, silver, and crystal, before bursting into rich reds, molten golds, and deep copper. &ldquo;We spent months developing new embroidery engineering, custom jacquards, surface techniques and reinterpreting some of the House&rsquo;s defining signatures through a contemporary lens,&rdquo; he says. And why Mumbai? &ldquo;Bringing the show home allowed us to celebrate Indian couture with the people who have been part of the House&rsquo;s journey.&rdquo;
<h2>Microdosing fiction</h2>
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Natasha-Joshi_e.jpg" alt="Natasha Joshi. Pic/Atul Kamble" width="1280" height="720" /> Natasha Joshi. Pic/Atul Kamble
The good folks at The Deodar Prize have launched their third anthology of short stories picked from the 2025 edition of the award set up to give a platform to emerging literary voices in the country. Readers can get a copy of the book, A Sort Of Homecoming, at Fictionary in Bandra West, or order it online.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Contemporary fiction in India is coming into its own; it&rsquo;s native, and bold. Writers have shed the self consciousness that might have existed in Indian English writing before. Indian readers will find a resonance with this work,&rdquo; says Natasha Joshi, founder-director, The Deodar Prize.
<h2>From mind to cyber space</h2>
Cyber psychologist Nirali Bhatia has launched a new Instagram page &mdash; @cyberpsychologistnirali &mdash; with the aim of helping people better understand the emotional and behavioural impact of technology on their everyday lives.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jul/Nirali-Bhatia_e.jpg" alt="Nirali Bhatia" width="1280" height="720" /> Nirali Bhatia
Having spent years working with people on issues ranging from cybercrime and online relationships to parenting, artificial intelligence and social media, Bhatia says she noticed a gap in the conversation. &ldquo;While we talk a lot about technology, we rarely talk about the psychology behind it,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;The objective over here is to make cyber psychology simple, relatable, and relevant through bite-sized insights, some real-life case stories, trending scams, online behavioural patterns and strategies that people can apply in their digital lives.&rdquo;
The page will feature insights into emerging online scams and the psychology behind them, anonymised case studies, online relationships, digital behaviour, parenting in the digital age, and the impact of AI and social media on mental health. &ldquo;Technology is no longer an alien thing or something we&rsquo;re using for a specific need. It&rsquo;s consuming a lot of our lives, and our lifestyle is also influenced big time. It is shaping how we think, feel, trust, connect, and, majorly, how we make decisions,&rdquo; she explains.
Ultimately, she hopes the platform encourages healthier digital habits. &ldquo;If understanding these patterns can help people become a little more mindful, resilient and safer, then the page has achieved its purpose,&rdquo; she says.

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Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Awash with hope

When Sobers’s humility came shining through

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