Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Different journeys

“Finally, I can see Mumbai. She is still 2,000km away. I am in Kolkata and shall ride through central India to reach my destination,” says Aditya Raj Kapoor, who has just returned to Indian shores after leaving India 10 months (“or some 310 days”) ago for a world tour on his motorcycle on a life-defining magical mystery tour. “It has been an experience of a lifetime,” says the dreamy, public school-educated, middle-aged son of the iconic 1960s star Shammi Kapoor, who we had the privilege of calling a friend and fellow early Mac user in Mumbai. “It has been a great classroom of a journey. Truth cannot be heard or read, it has to be experienced. And I have,” he says, adding, “So I am ending my ride, The Quest, at Prithvi Theatre on April 16 to offer my condolences to Kunal Kapoor, on the passing of my uncle and his father, the late Shashi Kapoor. That will close my ride.”

Aditya signs off with an unspoken-but-understood salute to the spirit of his family, especially grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor, who went on a similar voyage from Rawalpindi to Mumbai a century ago.

Different journeys for different generations… the learnings more or less the same perhaps?

NAHINNN!!!

Salman Khan found guilty in the #BlackBuckPoachingCase

Finally, some justice for that blackbuck’s great-great-grandchildren.

Tweet by Ramesh Srivats

TRUE LIES

As our friend Anupam Kher had so vividly and patiently explained to us long ago: “The life of an actor, however successful, is one of constant climbing.”

Kher had meant this in the context of an actor’s constant aim to be relevant and ‘in’ with the numerous top camps and important personages in the industry. But the struggle encompasses all aspects of an actor’s life, it seems, if this story about one of Bollywood’s best and brightest is anything to go by.

The actor was ensconced in one of the Capital’s leading five-star hotels for a shoot this weekend, when he heard from the hotel’s public relations team that a leading politician was to attend an event at the hotel in the evening. “Could I get a picture with her,” asked the actor, a major star in his own right.

Fine, he was assured, show up at 7.30pm and we will try and organise it.

As it turned out, the actor’s shoot went on way past the appointed hour and he showed up at 9.30pm, by which time the politician had left, leaving one very disappointed star.

Ah well, good to know that fanboy moments are not the monopoly of us ordinary people alone, and that mega stars experience them too.

IN PRAISE OF FOLK ART

“Another kind of Kati Patang...” says film critic, author and putative artist Khalid Mohamed, about this delightful selfie of folk art in the form of a kite painted like a celestial being he had posted on social media. Of course, the veteran movie maven was also alluding to the film of the same name, a big hit of the 1970s with outstanding music.

“The picture was clicked at Delhi Hatt, where I always manage to scour folk art,” he said. “The kite was obviously too huge to bring back home. So just bought some Madhubani paintings. The ones available in Mumbai stores aren’t of prime quality at all.”

We heartily approve of his support for affordable art shopping. Wooden puppets with vivid expressions, fans resembling peacocks and intricate wall hangings created by anonymous hands in humble abodes are proof of the artistry and potential of the people of this country. “It’s all so inspiring. Of course, the greatest inspiration of them all will always be MF Husain saab,” he says. Mohamed had been a friend of the late maestro’s and had often been spotted in the legend’s lean tall iconic company in the corridors of the same newspaper headquarters where we had worked. The friendship also spurred Mohamed’s painterly zeal. After all, painting with words or colours and lines is often the same thing. “Yes, I’ve been painting—oils, colors and charcoal,” he says shyly, “Who knows maybe one day I can still reinvent myself.”

Inshallah!