Mumbai Diary: Sunday Dossier

Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Is that a bird?

A young man takes an impressive jump at Juhu Beach.

This is good news for the gut

Nicolo Morea. Pic/Instagram

Restaurateur Nicolo Morea, brother of actor Dino Morea, has started a new food venture tapping into the market for Greek yoghurt in India. Gutsy is artisanal Greek yoghurt, which is said to be good for the gut. The brand claims to be "thicker, creamier and loaded with protein." At present, they have six different, handcrafted flavours such as mango, mango passion fruit, apple and granola, strawberry Nutella, peanut butter and the natural plain one. It is available for Rs 50. Morea, who once owned Crepe Station with his brother, has been posting about this new venture on Instagram under the handle @gutsygreekyoghurt.

Polonsky and his fascination with Anne

Celebrated Israeli illustrator David Polonsky is in Mumbai. The award-winning book illustrator and artistic film director, who along with Oscar-nominated film director Ari Folman, created a graphic novel adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank took a room of audience at the ongoing literature festival in the city through the creative process behind the adaptation of the famous diary into a comic. "I spent close to three years working on this," he shares with this diarist, adding how he had refused when the work was first commissioned to him. "She has been used as a symbol for anything and everything, including a football fan club in Italy. She has been made a symbol of Holocaust, used to invoke emotions by politicians from all fronts, be it left or right, we didn't want to add do it."

It was when he read the book again - the first time he read the book, it was as part of his school curriculum - that he realised that "she is anything but a symbol". "Her sense of humour was striking, we saw her as an individual and not as a symbol," says Polonsky, adding that it was also a very different experience reading the book as a father of a daughter. "It was fun [creating these illustrations] until I reached the end, when I read her talking about how she doesn't see her as someone's wife but as a writer, while knowing that her end is near." This was Polonsky's first visit to India, which also marked 30 years of diplomatic relations shared between India and Israel. When asked how close India and Mumbai were to his imagination, he says, "it is what I thought it would be, but yet it is very different. Little little things caught my attention, from kites in the sky to the trees, similar to the ones you see in Tel Aviv."

How about a surprise visit please, Mr CM?

One of the oldest battles in the Mumbai book is hawker vs shop owners. Now, the latter has invited CM Eknath Shinde to experience the ground reality, pun intended. The Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association (FRTWA) has in an email on Saturday morning invited the CM to, "to make a personal visit [without any warning] to certain areas in the evening. You will witness blocking of roads, footpaths at Linking Road, all roads near the station, Dadar, Bhuleshwar, Lohar Chawl, Crawford Market , Ghatkopar, Malad, Churchgate, Mulund, Kandivli, Borivli, S V Road, Goregaon, Chembur and Grant Road." Phew. That covers most of Mumbai. The Federation communication cites the CM will see for himself, the hawker takeover of these spaces. "There are cases of threats and physical assault on shop keepers…" says the letter. Viren Shah, president FRTWA said, "before people can say ho-hum what is new about encroachment, we wanted to red flag escalation between hawkers and shop owners. Hopefully, these personal, and most importantly surprise visits lead to a permanent solution, rather than stop-gap action." Well, Mr Shinde, surprise us, with a very different brand of retail therapy.

The big 1981 press gang Down Under

Indian journalists pose for a photograph at the Adelaide Oval in 1981

India's exit from the T20 World Cup notwithstanding, there will still be a massive Indian media presence at today's England v Pakistan final in Melbourne. There were a substantial number of press men for India's 1980-81 tour of Australia as well, but nowhere as large as the current one. This diarist pulled out this photograph, posted it on Facebook and was surprised to learn that a few touring Indian journalists are not in this image, taken at the Adelaide Oval during the one-day triangular series. London-based writer Ashis Ray, who like the late Rajan Bala and Suresh Saraiya are not in this photograph, came up with a story. Ray wrote in response to a fellow journalist mentioning that journalists on that tour met Sir Donald Bradman: "I wrote to Bradman from London and he gave me an appointment to meet him in the lobby of the then Oberoi Hotel in Adelaide. The only person I confided in was photographer Amiya Tarafdar since I felt a record was important. The hotel was coincidentally the same as the one where the Indian team and a few media men were staying. Raj Singh who was commentating for AIR [All India Radio] on the Test series casually strolled into the lobby in his shorts and joined us. Then one or two others saw us and came over." Looks like it was hard to keep stories exclusive even then.