Mumbai Underground: Work and play

Actor Ajay Devgan’s popular character Bajirao Singham may have performed some over-the-top stunts for the camera, but his style has surely caught the fancy of some men in khaki. Cinema buffs in the Mumbai police are sporting a new look, they call it the stylish ‘Singham Stache’. Customising their moustaches to look like that of the on-screen Deputy Commissioner of Police in his recently released movie Singham Returns, officers even recognise each other as Singham, only because of the ‘stache’ rather than for their bulky built.

NO HARD FEELINGS

Tired of facing opposition in the name of “hurting religious sentiments” in the city, a senior bureaucrat from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said that decisions are delayed in the civic body owing to people taking offence to the slightest of things. While discussing the recent Bombay High Court order that restricted govindas from not forming more than four tiers during the Dahi Handi festival, the official said, “We are living in times when people take offence for everything. I am 100 per cent sure that if Lord William Bentick were to ban the practice of sati (self-immolation) in today’s day and age, it would have been completely impossible for him to do so.”

ADDRESSING ISSUES

The residence of Assistant Police Inspector Subhash Sawant, who jumped out of a window to dodge an Anti-Corruption Bureau trap a month ago, has become something of a landmark in police circles. Recently, a police officer invited his colleague to his home in Carter Road, Bandra (West) during the Ganpati festival. The colleague asked him for the specific address — where exactly on Carter Road — to which, the officer said “The building Sawant jumped from.” The colleague almost instantly recognised the location of the house and said, “Oh, that one! Got it.”

THICK AND THIN

A man accused of various marital offences recently moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash a series of complaints filed against him by his estranged wife. His lawyer told the court last week that the complaints were an after-thought and were filed by the wife with the sole intention of harassing the husband. The judges, however, said that the husband should have first sought anticipatory bail from the sessions court and not approached the HC directly to quash the complaint registered against him by his wife. The husband’s lawyer continued to harp about his client’s innocence but the court said that the alleged offences were serious. The judges, however, gave a word of advice while asking the husband to go before the appropriate court, “Once you get married, you have to be prepared for all the good and bad things that come after it.”