CHI CHI’S CHALLENGE TO CHANGE
Good news atlast for all you Govinda-lovers Good, because this one time
He’s going in for a big change
Going out to prove that the Chi Chi
Who was branded as an actor who could only play
All those frivolous, flimsy roles
Sing and dance and revel in double meaning dialogue
Dress in clothes worn by beings from some other planets
Walk and talk and work with the will
To sacrifice so much, so much of his talent as an actor
To give his people the entertainment they are starved of
He is a complete actor, one of the best we have
But it was only Chi Chi, the entertainer who was respected
And Chi Chi had no way out
He was the complete be Indian, live Indian
Mahaan entertainer of mahaan Bharat
But then Chi Chi himself realised
He couldn’t go on like this
For all time, not play Tom and Jerry and Henry
In film after film after film
It was just when he was trying to break his own image
N Chandra approached him with a shocker
Anyone who knew Chi Chi would wonder
Whether Chi Chi would say "yes" to Chandra
He shocked them all and signed Chandra’s Shikari
He had agreed to play his first negative role
He had signed the films to put his image at stake
Chi Chi, then is playing a bad man in Shikari
A man who haunts, churns, churns your heart, scars your soul
He’s out to scare the daylights, to give souls a jolt
He is out to kill, to maul, to be merciless
He is a shikari (a hunter) out to threaten, to terminate
He is out to play havoc with every human being with a heart
That is human in a human being
This is the test Chi Chi was waiting for, for years
He is happy he’s found the chance to change
He has shown he can play the shikari, he has played in Shikari
It’s a turning point in Chi Chi’s career
It’s a point that comes after making a million points
And as I feel glad about Chi Chi going in for a change as an actor.
And I am sure he will change further, change for the better
And as I think of his great change
I think of his dear mother, the late Nirmaladevi
Would she like Chi Chi going around ruthlessly killing people
I think she would, she would love him to be happy, make others happy,
She always wanted her Chi Chi to make a Nam as a mahaan kalakaar
I feel Chi Chi has fulfilled her wish, his wish but
What about the people, the people who want their Chi Chi
Only to entertain them, only to bring joy in their lives
Lives which are otherwise loomed. to suffer endlessly
Time for Chi Chi to think, it’s time for so many To think just because of out lovable Chi Chi

MANISHA, GIVE US HOPE
If there is one actress I had, I have and will always feel sad more than bad for, it is Manisha Koirala, the actress who I first called "the poet’s delight", "the Prophet’s prayer", "the painter’s miracle on canvas". Let me be a little immodest and tell you that I was among the first to tell the showman, Subhash Ghai, who had discovered her that he had done great service to Hindi cinema by gifting Manisha her first break in Saudagar, the film he made with the two titans, Dilip Kumar and Raaj Kumar. Manisha proved how good she was in her very first film (all the showman’s female discoveries are good in the films he discovers them in and then ...) Manisha was good in some other films too (1942: A Love Story) but then suddenly I don’t know why God was angry with her (was it because of her many affairs of the heart and her lifestyle which gave the gossip glossies some of the best fodder for their mills?) She signed some of the most insignificant films while her contemporaries far less pretty and far less talented than her, were dancing and prancing around, playing all kinds of believe and make-believe games. She wanted to do some of the best films, roles that would tell the world what she was worth as an actress. She wanted to do the English version of Fetdora, that all-time classic. She wanted some of the best directors to change her, to add quality to her class.

Her wants have finally taken charge of her and I see a very big change coming about her in a very short time. My reason for my hope is Rajkumar Santoshi signing her to play the central character in his film, Lajja, inspite of having actresses of the calibre of Rekha, Madhuri Dixit, Mahima Chaudhary and Aishwarya Rai and a whole lot of male talented titans.

I have still not lost hope for Manisha. Some of the best critics and filmmakers have not lost hope in her and that man who sits outside her multi-storeyed apartment every morning before she leaves for work just to have a glimpse of her has not lost hope in her. It is Manisha who has not lost hope in herself and then all will be well and we will have a new Manisha walking around, looking out for new directors, new roles, roles which can add to the talent she already has in plenty.

Manisha, incidentally, comes from a family of politicians in Nepal. Of late, she has also been appointed as the Ambassador to the UN on population control. The girl who came as a delicate flower now makes bold to walk into the streets and bylanes and gullies and gutters of the red-light areas to talk to the ill-fated fallen women. The way things are it looks that Manisha has ambitions which rise above the ambitions of an actress. It is still not time to give up, Manisha, all you critics of Manisha Koirala. I will not allow you to because she will not allow you to.

TIME TO THINK, SON
It is high time Abhishek Bachchan took himself aside (even away from his most loved ones, his advisors and friends, the Bachchan family, even boyfriends and girlfriends) and gave his career some second thoughts, gave reason and sense all the importance they demand because reason and sense (the two are very closely related) demand his attention at this particular and most crucial time in his career. I am saying this after studying his situation, his position in the bazaar because of the way people who talk and talk any which way, their tongues twist and turn (and there are many who are cursed with those malleable and malicious tongues). Abhishek himself must realise that he has not had a very great beginning. All his three films released till now, Refugee, Tera Jadoo Chal Gayaa and Dhai Akshar Prem Ke have not done him any good even though he has tried to be as good as possible, tried his very best to keep the Bachchan flag flying.

If you ask me not one of these films were the kind of films that could give him a good take-off. Of the three, the first was okay but it was still not what was expected from a man of the status of JP Dutta. The other two films, Tera Jadoo... and Dhai Akshar... were rank bad films, films which couldn’t be saved even by the Marlon Brandos, the Al Pacinos, the Dilip Kumars, the Amitabh Bachchans and the Anil Kapoors, they would not be able to do justice to Abhishek’s roles.

For the life of me, I don’t know why Bachchan Jr. did these films and why he was allowed to do such sad films. You know, my heart sank when people walked out of the Chandan cinema after the first half of one of his three films and the other two films were also not treated as they should have.
They didn’t expect such inanities from the son of the sun. Where is the hurry, my son? You have all that it takes to make it as big as your father, if not bigger, something that will make your father a proud man. Take care, my son. Take the right steps because it is only the right steps that lead you to the right direction or that is what your great father said during one of his greatest shows on TV, the KBC show. And, all you critics, rivals and so-called colleagues, give the son some time to shine. I have a strong feeling that God himself had taken some time before he gave the sun its full shine, its full glory.