Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

Take a breath, but safely

A young girl, with her mask intact, enjoys a ride atop a ferris wheel in Matunga.

Heritage Olympiad set for April debut

Anjchita Nair

Heritage and history enthusiasts can finally put their knowledge to test at a first-of-its-kind Olympiad, which is being held on April 18. The Heritage Olympiad, which mid-day had first reported about, has been created in collaboration with experts in the cultural and education sector, and will deal with all aspects of cultural heritage—tangible, intangible and natural. The curriculum is broadly aligned with the syllabi followed by the major national and international boards, and integrates concepts of global citizenship, with protection of traditional knowledge, heritage sites and historic cities and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Our vision is to strengthen heritage education and sensitise young minds to India’s rich and multi-faceted cultural heritage,” Anjchita Nair, co-founder and COO of Cultre, the heritage and culture consultancy behind the event, told this diarist.

Kem cho?

Recently, Mumbai comedian Manan Desai created a short, crisp video for Tinder on online dating within the Gujarati community. It stars National Award-winning actor Shraddha Dangar and Mitra Gadhvi of Chello Divas fame. “I was always sitting on this idea and co-incidentally, Tinder happened to approach me. I feel the more regional you go, the more hesitation there is in establishing communication with strangers. We wanted to break that barrier or mind block,” says Desai, who has done the sound design and produced the background score for the video as well.

A beautiful tribute to life

RAM Varma was born in a bricklayers’ family to unlettered parents in a small town in Jaipur. Motivated by his mother, he did Intermediate (Arts) from Jaipur’s prestigious Maharaja’s College and graduated from Rajasthan College in 1960. In 1964, he joined the IAS and was posted in Punjab. His life journey has been nothing but inspiring, and his latest book, From Gillidanda to Golf, is proof. Published by Rupa, this book is a memoir about a young boy, who went on to become a seasoned bureaucrat. When this diarist asked why he decided to write this book, Varma said, “In my previous book, Life in the IAS, I spoke about my bureaucratic experiences. However, details about how I grew up and my overall childhood were missing. I felt the need to go back to those old days and share where I actually come from, how much I struggled and became what I am today. From Gillidanda to Golf is for anyone who dares to dream big.”

A tale from Bombay 400003

Journalist Jitendra Dixit, whose last book, 35 Days: How Politics in Maharashtra Changed Forever, looked into the political drama that unfolded soon after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, has now made his debut with his book Bombay3 (Bloomsbury India). Set in a locality of old Mumbai with the zip code 400003, the novel tells the story of a Hindu boy and his two Muslim friends, and how their mutual relationship gets impacted due to events in the neighbourhood. “I was born and brought up in Masjid Bunder, an area with the same zip code. It was only when I grew up and became a crime journo, did I realise what place this locality held in the megapolis. It was where Dawood Ibrahim and others resided till 1986. It is [also] that part of the city, which has seen tremendous violence in the form of gang-wars, communal riots and terrorism. One of the blasts on March 12, 1993, ocurred here. I have seen many real stories of conflicts, struggle for survival and have witnessed the complex inter-relationships of various religious, regional and linguistic communities,” says Dixit. It’s these that he has intertwined into fiction.

We need more media pros like Murgers

England’s media manager Brian Murgatroyd. Pic/AFP

The cricketing fare that the India v England series dished out across all formats recently will not be easily forgotten when it comes to engrossing and engaging home seasons for India. The media who covered the series on the ground and virtually (depending on which way the COVID-19 danger needle moved) also had something to savour - the efficiency of the England team’s media manager Brian Murgatroyd. Murgers, as some like to call him, played true to potential as it were with his constant and elaborate updates. There were a few apologies too. When there was no option but to organise a skipper Eoin Morgan’s pre-ODI series press conference as early as 8 am from Pune on Zoom, Murgatroyd wrote: “Apologies for the early hour for this tomorrow but we are going straight to the stadium afterwards, and it’s an hour’s drive away, we then are training until mid-evening and then it’s an hour’s drive back. This is the only real option.” Murgatroyd’s professionalism comes as no surprise to us. We’ve been seeing it since the year 2000 and with due respect to other good media managers, we need more like Murgers.

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