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These are the winners, in random order, since they all won it on their own steam, as it were, not against each other:

Zenzi. Bandra

Vong Wong, Nariman Point

Gajalee, Vile Parle

Samovar, Kala Ghoda

Mahesh Lunch Home, Fort

Moshe's, Cuffe Parade

Rama Nayak Shree Krishna Lunch Home, Matunga

Frangipani. Trident

If the success of an event is gauged by the number of gatecrashers, then the DNA After Hrs Food Awards, presented by Seagrams Ninehills held on June 20 at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai was a huge success. The idea was to reward Mumbai's restuarants and 20 awards were given out to restaurants which got the best ratings in the first two years that DNA's restaurants reviews started (we are only four years old as a newspaper). That means there are zillions of places yet to be reviewed, so watch out!

The evening was a fun-filled event, with guests being a mix of restaurateers, celebs, film stars, the ad crowd and lots more. There were also some off-beat awards like the dishiest female (deepika padukone), dishiest male (arjun rampal), dishiest couple (sanjeeda shaikh and aamir ali) and ms sweet tooth (amrita rao). The comedian Vir Das was irrepressibly funny while something relevant played some great music. The award, the Gourmate -- a cute little chef -- was made by creative awards and rewards and guests got an elegant gift hamper of cosmetics and toiletaries from shiseido.

One of TN Shanbhag’s favourite anecdotes was about how in 1951 he was one of the few booksellers in the country to order 1000 copies of Boris Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago. Pasternak of course won the Nobel Prize soon after and Shanbhag’s related favourite story was about how Jawaharlal Nehru, then prime minister of India, stopped by his shop at 10.30 one night in 1952 to pick up a copy. The prime minister bought another 21 books that night. Indeed, every regular at Strand was made to feel as important as a prime minister because nothing gave Shanbhag greater pleasure than people loving books.

For an indigent journalist scraping the barrel for a bit extra, Strand Book Stall was a haven. Mention a book you wanted to read and fabulous discounts were thrown at you. Of course Strand and Shanbhag did this for all book worms and there is no other bookshop in Mumbai, or maybe even the world, that envelopes you with a love and reverence for books the way Strand does. And what a treasure trove. A tiny space, shorn of all the gloss and fripperies we have come to associate with book shops, Strand was yet packed with gems. And packed with people who knew and had read all those gems. There was no author you asked Shanbhag about whom he did not know. And in his absence, the other staff filled in. The last couple of years, Shanbhag, 84, had been ailing and so meetings had become unfortunately rare.

So the film won after all. And our TV channels of course behaved as it was the only news of the day (or two or three days), our usual carpers carped, others went goo-goo and gaga, and we got to know the history, geography, psyche, layout, sitemap, inner workings, outer face of Dharavi like never before. Incidentally, the film was shot in Dharavi but did not mention it. In passing in the film, we are told Jamal was from a slum in Juhu. I think the slums of Juhu have been short-changed here – should I start a Facebook movement? Kidding. Also, to my knowledge no one interviewed dogs, whether in slums or elsewhere.

But hey, it was a gripping enthralling film, like I said before. And you can understand why it won. It had all the elements – a love story, a survival against all odds story, exotica, shit, poverty, some good cameo roles, an ensemble cast that somehow gels well, gritty “reality”, fairy-tale expectations. It’s a rollicking good tale and a roller coaster cinematic experience. Typical Danny Boyle stuff. The greatest movie ever made? Is that what an Oscar proves? C’mon, get real, lighten up and cool down.

Get this: they’re not the same thing. I am a great admirer of Hinduism. It has a breathtaking range of thought, belief, idea of worship, understanding of humanity and the cosmos. It can touch you on a number of levels from the mundane to the profound. The depth and wisdom of the Upanishad are unmatched by any other belief system in the world. The mythology is a fascinating chronicle of the relationship between humans and the divine.

But Hindutva? Now that contains neither wisdom nor understanding. It is an insecure idea, based on a feeling of inferiority. It engenders and propagates hatred of others and seems to have bypassed Hinduism completely. It claims to protect Hindus, but this protection largely seems to be by killing or subjugating everyone else. The tenets, ideas and beliefs of Hinduism play no role in Hindutva at all.