Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Meet the fruit ninjaA man practises a few Shaolinstyle moves on a road in JuhuA Kipling keepsakeRudyard Kipling Pic courtesyWikimedia CommonsThis month British auction house Christies will offer the collection of Mr and Mrs John H Gutfreund 834 Fifth Avenue across live and online sales In the collection spanning fine and decorative art jewels and books is a copy of Rudyard Kiplings The Jungle Book illustrated by Paul Jouve and FranccediloisLouis Schmied that was completed in 1919 Whats interesting is that it contains an original drawing by Jouve in India ink The book is from the couples library and commenting on the apartment Will Strafford senior international specialist European furniture and decorative arts said It is one of the most iconic interiors in New York with each room creating its own individual visual statementSaluting Astad DebooAs if 2020 wasnt bad enough already it took away from us contemporary dancerchoreographer Astad Deboo in December This Sunday at 7 pm the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture is hosting a celebration of the revered dancer The virtual tribute will be held on their YouTube channel Anuradha Parikh founder and artistic director confirmed with this diarist It will be attended by some of Astads relatives including his sister Gulshan Deboo nephew Xerxes Antia and close friends architect Ratan Batliboi and theatre director Sunil Shanbag among others A film that he made with his students will also be premiered Parikh who was close to Deboo shared the foundation has lost a mentor and comrade We were just consolidating our collaborations we had so many things planned for the next season mdash from his performances with the boys from Salaam Baalak Trust to a film on him and more I envied the easy special rapport he shared with my mother Shaila Parikh for whom he presented an incredible piece Dream of Sunshine as a farewell and a homage to their friendship I hope that we can in some way carry on the journey he so bravely took onNot your average murder storyIn 1925 Abdul Kader Bawla a rich corporator was murdered in Malabar Hill while driving with his mistress Mumtaz Begum It was revealed that the target was Begum who was saved by British officers The probe led to the abdication of Maharaja Tukojirao Holkar III of Indore Prominent names of the time including MA Jinnah Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Prabodhankar Thackeray Lokmanya Tilak and Sir Patrick Kelly an upright police commissioner of the city were interconnected with the episode The story will come alive in journalist Dhaval Kulkarnis book The Bawla Murder Case Love Lust and Crime in Colonial India HarperCollins India This case popped up during a conversation with retired police officer Rohidas Dusar who has written about it in Marathi This was not a runofthemill murder I have tried to address the larger narrative and weaved in sociopolitical movements of the time At the heart of it is also the story of the Begum who later left for Hollywood Kulkarni sharedGood idea periodNGO Muse Foundation conducted a survey last year on menstrual hygiene among 1000 women living in 15 slums in Thane It revealed that they face tremendous difficulty in managing their menstruation due to lack of water unsafe changing rooms and the lack of a disposal mechanism for sanitary napkins in community toilets Thats why they joined forces with Thane Municipal Corporation and design firm Recycle Bin to build a oneofakind period room in the district for such women It is equipped with a jet spray a dustbin that does away with the need to touch soiled napkins a soap dispenser hooks to hang clothes on and a urinal shared founder Nishant Bangera Great job we feelNostalgic notes for Fr AlbanFr Alban DSouza centre at a parish event in the city in 2017One year ago on January 6 2020 this paper had reported the sudden demise of Fr Alban DSouza a priest who had died of a cardiac arrest at his parish on a Sunday morning The report had stated that the Amboli Andheri resident who was formerly from Dadar brought everyone together through music On Tuesday January 5 parishioners and the community members whose lives he had touched paid a digital tribute to Fr Alban who passed away when he was 54 This mix of music and memories was to mark one year of his passing Music fittingly formed the central motif of the tribute Fr Alban was the late founder of the Band of Priests which played at different churches in the city At the time of his death Dadars Alfred Nogueira had said that Fr Alban had endeared himself to the youth encouraging them to find themselves through music He played the guitar himself Referring to the online tribute Nogueira who was Fr Albans schoolmate stated that the void he had left has never quite been filled The moving and emotional tribute is testament to that he shared