The incubator of excellence

What do conductor Zubin Mehta the late Freddie Mercury Homi K Bhabha director of the Humanities Center at Harvard poet Dom Moraes Attorney General of India Goolam Essaji Vahanvati Azim Premji chairman of Wipro actors Boman Irani Kunal Vijaykar and Hindi film director Sooraj Barjatya have in commonNot much except that they all at some time or the other attended that venerable incubator of genius and good manners known as St Maryrsquos School in MazgaonBoman Irani at St Maryrsquos alumni dinnerAnd last Saturday amidst much singing and dancing and nostalgia a sizeable swathe of its devoted alumni gathered to celebrate the schoolrsquos 150th anniversary at an alumni dinner on the school groundsHomi K Bhabha andZubin MehtaAnd on display for the occasion amongst other memorabilia was an exquisitely worded missive to the late poet Dom Moraes from the then principal Fr F Ribot SJ in 1958 for winning the Hawthornden Literary Prize ldquoMy dear Domrdquo it began ldquoYou must feel a sick surfeit of congratulationsrdquo The St Maryrsquos school Where legendary Jesuit priests turned Mumbairsquos callow youth into sophisticated men of the worldKunal Vijaykar andDom MoraesItrsquos raining girls HallelujahAs wersquove said before old models donrsquot fade away they just grow more glam and party together in Goa And if the temperatures in Godrsquos own country have risen this week blame it on the presence of Sabah Kahlil from KL Aparna Sharma from Geneva Rubaina Khan from New York Suzanne Sablok Beverly Soares Sangeeta Chopra Colleen Khan and Sharmilla Khanna and Sheetal Malhar from Mumbai and Kimmy Katkar who now lives in GoaldquoSangeeta Chopra and me just decided at one of our reunion lunches in Mumbai to organise a trip for the girls to meet and travel together like old timesrdquo said an exuberant Sharmilla from Goa when we caught her between laughs on the phone ldquoWersquore staying at the SOL done by Tarun Tahiliani Today we go to the Anjuna flea market lunch at a local Goan shack drinks at Calamari and then to Bardo to partyrdquo said Sharmilla adding ldquoAnd breakfast tom at Leela CaferdquoBetween them these girls all self respecting women call themselves lsquogirlsrsquo have moved quantities of shampoos fabrics boot polish white goods and pressure cookers So it comes as no surprise that when they posed for this picture in matching Ray Bans they looked likehellip well a million bucksFeeling BlueHis smokey voice introducing great Blues numbers each afternoon on the radio has become a liet motif of the city and so when Brian Tellis says about the upcoming Mahindra Blues Festival this weekend that lsquoAnand Mahindra was quite right in believing that only Mumbai could host a blues fest because of its pain angst and gritrsquo one can almost here a guitar riff in the backgroundAnand MahindraThe fest has become something of a city landmark over the last four years ldquoNot just in Indiardquo says Tellis with pride ldquoThe American Blues Foundation voted it among the top five international blues festivals worldwide for keeping the blues aliverdquoJairam Poppa Chubby Dana Fuchs Walter Trout Jimmy Thackrey and Brian TellisAnd for his personal faves amongst this weekrsquos line up he says ldquoBesides the legendary bluesman Jimmie Vaughan who will close the festival Irsquom looking forward to the Tedeschi Trucks Band The husband wife combination of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi who have great individual pedigree They will be fronting a 11 piece blues outfit that has seen incredible success with their album Revelatorrdquo NiceCuriouser and curiouserA side story in the increasingly curious saga of the blue chip runaway industrialist scion to one of Indiarsquos best known business families is that along with his wife one of the people representing him while he runs from the law is a relative of his who insiders say had been responsible for cleaning out the family safe of cash and money after a family tragedyldquoThe industrialist was young beset with grief and perhaps had no clue what had been donerdquo says a source ldquoBut what this gent is doing now representing him after robbing him dry earlier is any onersquos guessrdquo See what we mean The case just gets curiouser and curiouserPearl before MumbaikarsldquoMy mother Pearl was the eternal mother I think she was mother to half of Bombay From Shashi Tharoor to Kumarmangalam Birla to kids from the poorest of the poor she taught them all with her booming voice and twinkling eyeshelliprdquo says theater director and impresario Raeumlll Padamsee about her mother the late Pearl Padamsee the pixieshaped dynamo who gave Mumbaikars some of their most memorable theatre experiencesPearl Padamsee and her daughter Raell ldquoNot a day goes by without someone coming upto me to says your mother taught merdquo she says adding ldquoAnd I smile knowing that she imparted not just elocution tips but life skills as wellrdquo says the doting daughter who established in memory of her mother the Create Foundation which works to integrate children from all walks of life on a common platformldquoCreate recently held the 9th Pearl Padamsee Trophy the interschool elocution competition and now it will hold the 4th Create Trophy for Artistic Excellence which is a talent competition amongst the NGOs the finals of which will be held next Wednesdayrdquo she saysA few of the participating NGOs are The Victoria Memorial School for the Blind Salaam Baalak Trust Aseema The Akanksha Foundation and the Central Society for the Education of the Deaf Pearl would have loved that