Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier

Wheel you take a pictureA man on an ebike on Palm Beach Road in Navi Mumbai poses for photographsFarewell Rashid IraniRashid Irani at his Marine Lines residence in May this year PicBipin KokateYesterday was a sad day for Mumbairsquos film fraternity Rashid Irani a beloved critic who wrote film reviews for national dailies and publications passed away at his Marine Lines residence This paper had run an interview with him in May this year where Irani had confessed how he was facing a crippling sense of loneliness due to the lockdown He lived alone for the better part of his life and hardly had any worldly possessions apart from about 5000 books and movies which he described as his ldquoreal wealthrdquo His friends became suspicious when there had been no contact from him since July 30 and they broke open the door with the policersquos help to find he had collapsed in the bathroomRashid Irani at the Brabourne Restaurant in Mumbai in 1984 PicExtracted with permission from Sooni Taraporevala Parsis The Zoroastrians of IndiaThe Mumbai Press Club said in a statement ldquoHe was one of the Press Club Film Society pillars and a core member of the club who didnrsquot miss a day at the media centre writing his reviews and watching filmsrdquo Meanwhile longterm friend and fellow film journalist Rafique Baghdadi shared with this diarist how Irani was a ldquocomplete cinema manrdquo ldquoHe ate and slept cinema a medium that was the most important thing in his life He attended all the different festivals across the country and watched all films that various consulates screened Lately he had been watching a lot of films on Mubi an OTT platform and with his passing away there is hardly anyone else left to tell you what cinema in Bombay was like in the old times which film societies existed and where you could get to watch rare filmsrdquo Baghdadi told us adding ldquoBut the lockdown made him lonely for which there is no remedyrdquoNostalgic about PartitionRagini Kashyap who runs an initiative called Third Culture Cooks has launched a series of postcards called Postcards from Partition Itrsquos an extension of a project she started last year where she invited food researchers and historians and people who are still surviving from that era to share a photograph and a recipe of dishes that date back to that time Food show director Shubhra Chatterji in pic contributed with details of besan ka halwa for example ldquoMy grandparents made the dish in India after being uprooted from Pakistan because of a shortage of flourrdquo she shared To know more log on to thirdculturecooks on InstagramTune into a piece of historyA seminal musical event took place exactly 50 years ago this week The Concert for Bangladesh was held at Madison Square Garden in New York to raise funds for Indiarsquos neighbour after that country was ravaged by the genocide that took place as a consequence of the Bangladesh Liberation War Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and exBeatles member George Harrison below had helped organised it and Anoushka Shankar the formerrsquos daughter shared a throwback video in which the duo talk about the concertrsquos influence and how ldquoin one day the whole world knew the name of Bangladeshrsquorsquo Mumbaibased veteran rock musician Gary Lawyer also reminded us of a funny moment at the concert He said ldquoRavi Shankar had been tuning his guitar and the audience clapped thinking it was part of his performance He then told them lsquoIf you like our tuning so much I hope you will enjoy the playing morersquordquoOf the city and the seaThe webinar will examine how the sea has shaped the architecture in MumbaiAs an island city Mumbai rose to prominence due to its favourable location and natural harbour The sea and its proximity have been a major influence on the cityrsquos architecture as well its social and cultural fabric This is what Atul Kumar foundertrustee of Art Deco Mumbai will examine during a webinar this SaturdayldquoBombayrsquos development layout social and cultural evolution and architecture have drawn heavily from the sea from the very first reclamation to the recent coastal road We will look at how this spatial and cultural transition has taken place with the help of visual illustrations In terms of architecture the cityrsquos port status has contributed various styles including Victorian IndoGothic Neoclassical IndoSaracenic to give a unique character to its built form that was functional and meaningfulrdquo he shared To register visit artdecomumbai on Instagram