Press Council

It must be the traffic of stilettos and tight-laced Oxfords at night spot Trilogy that prompted the launch of Suara in the same hotel, a new spa that drives last night’s pain out of this morning’s feet (and body). Shall we dance…again?. 

This week-old spa sits snugly on level one of Hotel Sea Princess where the elevator opens out into an instantly calming white space with green accents. We were welcomed with a cold towel and a warm smile, but as soon as the rigid punctuality rules were read, the towel turned warm and the smile, cold. So they recommend you reach twenty minutes prior to your appointment to fully enjoy your experience and a no-show without prior notice means a 100% fee forfeit. We’re not sure how they plan on tracking those who don’t show up, but we didn’t ask.

Knock, Knock

bpb knocked on The Cellar Door, a fun new theatre company to find Shaun Williams, actor-founder and in his own words, “Knight of the Uneven Table”. Shaun has worked on several interesting theatre and TV projects, including the fun No Kidding Flipkart TV commercials where he coached little kids who were made to mimic grown-ups (see picture above) and has also worked on The Naked Comedy Festival. Besides training actors, he’s open to working with stone-face folk like you and us. All you have to do is get your friends together, call The Cellar Door and they’ll do a fun acting workshop for a fee.  

bpb gets Shaun to present his version of Mumbai, a six act play.

Best Underground Class in Mumbai: Spinning poi (fire spinning) by Janit Gambhir on his terrace in Bandra (W). Call 9833879338 for details.

Best Theatre Canteens: National Center for Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point for the coffee and cheese sandwiches. Also, Prithvi Theatre Café, Juhu for their simple cutting chai which has improved considerably over the years.

It happened a year ago at a grocery store in London, probably in the juice aisle but she can’t be sure. Six shoppers, with determined looks and to-do lists, broke into song and dance. Just like that. It was only later when she went to her dorm room (at School of Oriental and African Studies) did she find out that what she just witnessed was a flash mob.

Shonan Kothari returned to Mumbai and forgot about the grocery store experience until she saw an old bucket list. “Be part of a flash mob” it said, but there weren’t any in Mumbai. That’s when the 23 year old decided to organise her own, a 200-people strong flash mob that took place at CST last Sunday (November 27), a feat she pulled off in a month (see video here). Red tape and all. Shonan hopes that this will spawn more across the city and shares her ten step program on how to organise a flash mob with bpb:

Plan Your Own Flash Mob

1.       Pick a Venue: CST is a beautiful structure that offers a great indoor space and high footfalls, so that was my dream location for a flash mob. We’d also considered parks like Priyadarshini Park and other open spaces. It might make sense to short list a bunch of venues because some may not grant you permission.

2.      Make a Presentation and Show Up Unannounced: Create a solid presentation on what a flash mob is and how it will benefit the venue in terms of publicity, footfalls, virality etc. I didn’t have contacts or appointments at the cop station, railway station or park, so I just showed up during work hours and made sure they listened to me. I soon saw that everyone was super co-operative – that I had no commercial gain from this made it easier – and I received permissions from almost everyone I approached.  If you’re planning a CST mob, Mr Atul Jani, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Central Railways is the man you should be looking for.

3.     Sort out Permissions: You have to acquire three different authorisations - from the venue, as well as the BMC and police. In case of CST, there were a million internal departments that had to grant individual authorisations as well – we even needed a separate permission slip to get a ladder on the premises.

4.      Recruit Your Mob: In order to make my presentation attractive I lied about having 200 dancers on board. Since I lied, I had to make it happen. The best way to do it is send out an email to 20 of your closest friends, and get each one to recruit 20 more.

5.     Swear to Secrecy and Find a Good Practice Spot: It’s not easy to get 200 people to perform routine dance practises in public spaces and keep it a secret, but we tried our best. This involved not using any social media pre-event and splitting up practise into batches. Priyadarshini Park at Napeansea Road provided their grounds for the same.

6.     Rope in Experts for Less: If you are able to sell the idea well enough – it’s still novel in India – you can get cool choreographers and film companies to shoot the event at a subsidised cost or even for free! Ours was choreographed by Bhaumik Shah (he’s worked on a bunch of music videos and Bollywood shows) to the Rang De Basanti song because I figured you can’t go wrong with AR Rahman.

7.      Blend In: The whole point of a flash mob is to look like people at the venue, in our case, commuters.  No loud or revealing clothes, no garish make-up.

8.      (You Could) Sell Your Flash Mob: Although we kept it under wraps, word got out to a few brands who approached us for in-mob branding. I chose not to do it, but you could.

9.     Crowd Control: Where we failed was to control the crowd, who formed a ring around the first five dancers, thereby ruining the initially planned formation, as well as some really cool entries and exits. Make sure you take measures for crowd control.

10. Make it Viral: You should have a multiple camera set up at the venue to get shots from several good angles, do a quick edit and put the video online as soon as possible.

Shonan Kothari is a 23 year-old CSR consultant who previously worked as a researcher at Harvard Business School.

What: The Pilates And Altitude Training Studio, 301-304, Business Plaza, Gazdar Bandh Road, opposite Dhan Potohar Sports Ground, Santacruz (W), call 9821154492/ 9987511511, Rs 5,900 for eight classes.

Why: Tired of being an ab rat? Withdraw from strange fitness experiments and sign your tummy up for definitive results at The Pilates Studio, co-owned by celebrity trainer Samir Purohit and Rajasthan Royals physiotherapist John Gloster. Here, group classes and one-on-one sessions take place at a studio that is small but bright, clean and offers some A-list sightings.

When: You want to be the crunch-back of Notre Dame.

You may not get the day off for Children's Day any longer, but who says you can't kid about a bit? Start with our reading list, which blurs the line between kiddie and adult fiction. All books available on Flipkart.com:

Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Salman Rushdie wrote this magical caper for his young son while he was under fatwa. Highlighting the importance of free speech, it is populated by all kinds of fantastical characters and lands, including Princess Baatcheat, Prince Bolo, the Land of Chupp, and of course, a magical (if slightly polluted) Sea of Stories. Also check out the more recent sequel, Luka and the Fire of Life.

The Daydreamer: Atonement author Ian McEwan's first book for kids. Need we say more?

When Banshee Kissed Bimbo and Other Bird Stories: And you thought you were the only one getting in trouble for PDA. In Ranjit Lal's hilarious short stories about a bunch of birds that live in Goa, owls are penalized by the minister of cultural propriety for smooching their beloveds, parakeets speak English, and an over zealous hornbill tries to shield his wife from roving eyes. 

Where The Wild Things Are: Winner of the Caldecott Prize, this awesome picture book has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Centering around Max, a kid who gets sent to his room for being naughty, it explores how anger can be a propellant for the imagination, turning a tantrum into a mad and wonderful journey into a land of monsters. Written by Maurice Sendak, it was recently turned into a critically acclaimed film with a killer soundtrack. Watch this music video by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's for a taste.                                         

Peter Pan: Sure, we all know the story and have watched the film, but if you haven't read J. M. Barrie's original version yet, drop what you're doing and get it now.                                                                                                     

Au Pear

The Silver Pearl building at Waterfield Road, Bandra has become rather bottom heavy in the last few months, with Fro-Yo, Saks Salon, Urban Shore and the indulgent San Churro Chocolaterie occupying its burgeoning ground level. Saving it from this pear-shaped predicament is F2 Fitness, a new exercise studio that’s opened up on level one, with a legion of instructors ready to whip it into shape.

Bulletin Board: Mumbai's First Art History Course

This makes us want to go back to school: Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum is offering a brand new Modern and Contemporary Indian Art History course - they say it's the first in Mumbai - that will help you tell your Tagores from your Husains. But before your dad goes on about how a tryst with Tyeb will make you money, you should know that this one year postgraduate diploma doesn't require you to quit your job. The course is on Friday evenings and weekends, with each lecture set to last about three hours.

Exploring art from the 1850s to the present, this course will offer theoretical study as well as hands on training with fun visits to exhibitions and field trips to museums and artist studios. You will also learn about art techniques employed in the 21st century, including print, photography, video and digital media. The faculty will include a mix of visiting professors and local experts including art historian, curator and gallery owner Arshiya Lokhandwala and art critic and columnist Girish Shahane. As far as your dad is concerned, the course also focuses on careers and are expecting the graduating class to be art writers, curators, managers and conservators. They even promise to help with job placements.

And while they prefer that you have some education in Art History, even art enthusiasts without degrees are welcome. The museum's website mentions the sign up date as October 31, but the deadline has been extended to November 15. Go on, sign up. Don't wait for the paint to dry.

Course Details: Duration: mid January 2012 to December 2012. Last date for application: November 15, 2011. Application forms available at the museum. Fee: Rs 50,000 for a one-year diploma.

Getting there: Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, Rani Baug, 91/A, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road, Byculla (E), call 23731234.

Waking up at 7 am on Sunday for that heritage walk around Mumbai is no easy feat. Enter Alisha Sadikot, an expert who conducts fun and cheap city walks - under the newly launched Inheritage Project – that can revolve around your schedule. And you don’t even need to get a big group together – go solo for Rs 1,200 for two hours or bring two friends and pay just Rs 400 a head. Day time slots are encouraged though, as heritage buildings aren’t well-lit at night.

Meet Your Guide

After having recently moved back to Mumbai with a Masters in Art History from SOAS, University of London and a Diploma in Heritage Education & Interpretation from Newcastle University, you can be sure that Alisha can tell her Gothic from her Greek. Her resume also boasts a curatorial stint at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, one of her favourite places in Mumbai.

Convinced? Then call Alisha and she’ll set up a walk taking into account your likes and dislikes, and also the area (so far restricted to South Mumbai) that you’d like to explore. Leave the route up to her and she’ll draw up a mad graphic like this one, including landmarks like Watson’s Hotel, Sailor’s Home and Bhuleshwar’s heritage markets with the promise of hidden statues. While she will serve tourists, what Alisha’s really excited about is taking locals to mundane sites like The Rajabai Clock Tower and revealing little-known secrets about them. We tried our best to get one out of her, but we’ll only know next week during the bpb walk. Set group tours will start in December, she tells us, once the weather's better.

Besides private walks, she also conducts workshops, still in beta, which focus on educating school and college kids as she believes that “heritage is rendered meaningless without the people that inherit it, that understand, interpret, value, use, and eventually transmit it.” 

Sneaker Peak

More economical and definitely more interesting than treadmill-ing at the gym, The Inheritage Project offers a walk that will make you fitter and wiser. Call to get dial toned.

Getting there: The Inheritage Project, call Alisha on 9930317897, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or view the Facebook page here, Rs 400 per person for a two hour tour for a group of three.

Browse Guest

“The only place to browse art in Bandra is probably Satguru’s (a store that sells generic paintings of Ganeshas, plus statues and name plates and clocks and things). And that’s more about buying the right frame rather than the art itself,” says graphic designer Karthikeyan Ramachandran, who, prompted by this dearth of art galleries in the suburb, recently opened his own and called it False Ceiling.

Housed on an industrious little strip connecting Dr Ambedkar Road and Pali Naka – on this stretch you’ll also find Pali Village Cafe, The Shop, Calmhrim Cali – False Ceiling is exactly what you would expect a Bandra gallery to be like. A non-descript flight of stairs leading to a pretty bungalow where the browsing experience is more akin to viewing art in someone’s living room, rather than at a plush gallery.

Father Up the Stairs

Currently, the main room displays works by artist KN Ramachandran (owner Karthikeyan’s father), who paints scenes and people that reflect the South Indian culture. Some of these traditional landscapes you’ll find, are suddenly startled by cool iron suits and well-armed superheroes.  There are the canvas collaborations between father and son that Karthikeyan describes as “futuristic antique”. See for instance, Safeguarding Tradition, where a Terminator-style warrior watches protectively over a sari-clad woman with a puja thali.

Thai Scurry

From knits to kneads, you don’t have to wake up and smell the Thai curry to realise that Bandra has a whole lot of Bangkok in it. Taking it one step closer is Sawadee, a new Thai body spa that moved to Mumbai from Australia, and promises to open more branches in the city soon.

Just take a tuktuk to 33rd Road to treat your feet, as well as the rest of you to a whole range of wellness treatments. What’s great is that if you go between 10 am to 4 pm on any day of the week (before November 30), you can score a 40% discount. Chang My!

Red Light

We visited on Friday to find a maze of red-hued rooms sectioned with screens -  a reception area (with an unpleasant colour-changing fountain) leading to a spacious foot spa that further opens out into ten private cabins. Sprays of orchids, pools of water and Asia appropriate music set the scene. We got two treatments – a thirty minute foot massage and a thirty minute back-shoulder-neck rub.