HAS THE STORK COME CALLING?
We may as well warn you this is unconfirmed news, yet. But rumour’s rife in the industry that MADHURI DIXIT is already two months in the family way. About time, too, we might add, considering the Nenes have been married for well nigh a year now.
The queen bee could not be contacted for a confirmation. But the local press in Mumbai has already taken up the “story” of the stork’s visit in right earnest. The Nenes are thrilled, we’re told, and so is their family. Question is, are the producers of forthcoming Madhuri films equally thrilled by the news? They’d better be!
For fresh updates on the “expectant” mom, stay hooked to this space....

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A GOOD DEED IN SECRET
TALKING of babies, SUSHMITA SEN has just adopted a baby girl. Or so we’re told by a reliable source. So Sush has proved she wasn’t just talking through her hat at the Ms Universe pageant so many moons ago. She meant business, after all.
The deed’s been on Sush’s mind for quite a while now. Last week, the formalities were finally completed. And the baby’s arrived home. To stay.
Among Sush’s upcoming films are D Rama Naidu’s Aaghaaz, where she’s paired opposite Sunil Shetty, Goldie Behl’s film, where she co-stars Abhishek Bachchan, and a movie each with David Dhawan and Mahesh Manjrekar. So it sure looks as if the baby has a great deal to contend with for a bit of ‘momma’ dearest’s time.    

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THROUGH THE CRYSTAL BALL
KAMAL HAASAN reckons he’s no mean clairvoyant. After all, he’d predicted ten years ago that everything that’s now happening in Kashmir would happen just the way it did. Right down to the demand for a plebiscite.
Most people have forgotten that Kamal had tried his hand at editing a newsmagazine, which he’d managed to keep in circulation for a whole year, before it died of natural causes. “My editorials used to be quite farsighted, if I may say so myself,” he smiles. “I’d predicted ten years ago that democracy need not be the safest way to determine political will. But wasn’t it quite obvious to anyone with political acumen that Kashmir would come to this?” Well, prophetic though his editorials were, they certainly weren’t popular, if the mag’s dwindling circulation figures were any indication. And takers there were none for Kamal’s drastic views on matters political or otherwise.
His next feature, Tenali (Tamil) should hit the screens any Friday now. But Kamal himself is still raving about Sam Mendes’ multi-Oscar winner, American Beauty. “Have you seen the film?,” he asks us, rhetorically. “What a script! It has all its bases covered, without making a villain out of any character. It works only on film. And it took a Steven Spielberg to see the script’s potential as a film. On paper it would feel very arty. It’s because of the treatment that the film works so well,” he gushes...

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OVER CUPS OF COFFEE
SARIKA, Kamal Haasan’s better half, meanwhile, has hardly had time to savour the national award she’s just won. Those of us who’d seen Hey! Ram had predicted long ago, there was an award lurking in there for her for sure. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can make that claim even more emphatically.
Some of Kamal’s obsessive involvement with his projects has obviously rubbed off on Sarika, too. She’s responsible for the costumes of Kamal’s films, though her involvement goes far beyond that. What’s more, she brings all her passion for clothes to bear on the job. She pours through files of print before finalising every twist in the turban or fold in the sari, so that they seem authentic and suit not just the period but also the mood of the character. And she survives on little else on the sets, but generous helpings of her favourite tipple, black coffee.
Obviously, now that daughters AKSHARA and SHRUTI don’t demand her unflagging attention any more, she has time enough to spare for hubby dearest’s pet projects. Currently, she’s leafing through the files of material she’s collected from several French museums to decide what costumes will go best with each character, on the family’s forthcoming opus, Marudanayagam. Acting, which once made her every schoolboy’s favourite pin-up, is the last thing on her mind, as you can see. So’s the national award, we dare say.
Meanwhile, more black coffee for you, ma’am?

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IF WISHES WERE HORSES...
HER debut effort, Purab Ki Laila Paschim Ka Chaila, may never see the light of day, judging from the progress, or the lack of it, it’s made in recent times. She co-stars Akshay Kumar in it, and NAMRATA SHIRDOKAR reckons it would have made for a dream debut.
Sadly, it’s remained a dream gone sour. Instead, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai, where she had but a brief cameo, became her first release. Her subsequent outings, in Mere Do Anmol Ratan, Hero Hindustani and Pukar didn’t live up to the expectations at the turnstiles, either. And critics were already calling her a jinxed performer, this despite the fact that she had but a miniscule role in the last-mentioned film, where Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit hogged the footage.
Vaastav’s proved to be her come-uppance, though. It’s brought a new sense of purpose to her career, and revived media interest in her. And don’t forget she has a promising act to follow, in Albela with Govinda and Jackie Shroff. She essays yet another cameo in Rajkumar Santoshi’s multi-starrer Lajja, and follows it up with an exciting role in a forthcoming Mahesh Manjrekar movie.
So, if her fairy godmother were to visit her right now and offer her a boon, what would she ask? “I have no taste to be a queen bee. All I’d ask for is one emphatic box-office hit,” she smiles. Coming up! 

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CALCUTTA’S MAN MOST WANTED
THE famine in muscular, big-bodied, action heroes in Bengali cinema finally seems to have ended. INDRAJEET, the six-foot hulk, who makes a dramatic debut in Raja Sen’s latest feature, Chakravyuha, has arrived. The action hero is said to have come up with a sparkling performance as a young man who is trapped by the political mafia and turns into a mercenary killer.
The film won’t be his debut effort, though, for he’s already acted in three Assamese films, before this. A true-blooded Bengali, he was born and raised in Shillong. Like his army man father, he wanted to don the uniform, too. “But as luck would have it, just before a key test, I broke my collar bone in an accident and was bedridden for several months. By the time I recovered, I’d crossed the age-limit,” he rues. Later, while working with RPG and Reliance, Indrajeet drifted into part-time modelling on the ramp, doing live shows with the likes of Rahul Dev and Shikha Swaroop.
“During one of my live shows, Bani Das, director of Assamese films, who was right then corresponding with Manoj Bajpai for the role of a tough police officer for Maharathi, asked me to step in. The film turned out to be a superduper success,” he says. Soon, he did a romantic film called Priya O Priya, which, in turn, fetched him another role, as an ULFA extremist in Bishphoron.
Now, he’s beseiged by the Bengali press which seems impressed by his fresh looks, taut body and rippling muscles. A good boxer, he rides a mean mobike with the smooth elegance of a daredevil racer, and lends the right touch of softness to an emotional scene with screen mom Chitra Sen or screen girlfriend June Mallya. Indrajeet sure has his sights set on an eventual break in Hindi films. Anjan Shrivastav, who has brought a portfolio of his to Mumbai, has vowed to see to that.
“I’ve had to work really hard at acting,” he frankly admits. “My mother cautioned me to think twice before quitting my job in favour of films. Yet I threw up my job. Some challenges in life are really worth taking,” he philosophises.

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WAIT FOR GODOT’S OVER
MUMBAI’s theatre buffs are in for a rare treat. Didi and Gogo, the characters from Samuel Beckett’s famous play, Waiting For Godot, are soon to come visiting. A French adaptation of the play, titled Dos a Deux, will be performed in Mumbai this week.
The adaptation is an innovative play without language, and thus a wholly physical play. Words themselves become bodies, though this is no dance show. This is theatre where gesture and
body in motion substitute speech. The duet tells the simple, essentially funny and poetic tale of two men who are waiting for someone we know will never come. ANDRE CURTI and ARTUR RIBERO play the two men, Didi and Gogo in this adaptation. Brought to India by Company Theatre, the play will be staged at Prithvi on August 16. So, be there for a whiff or two of Beckett’s theatre of the absurd.   

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ARMS AND THE WOMEN
SHYAM BENEGAL is ready with his next release. And yes, it does star Shabana Azmi, along with other camp favourites Nandita Das and Rajit Kapoor. Though the film’s been made for the ministry of family welfare, and deals with the issue of population explosion, you can trust Benegal not to treat the theme like another boring docu. He’s made an entire feature film of it, with a thought-provoking story and hummable score to boot.
Titled Hari Bhari, the film was introduced to the press at a low-profile do at Mumbai’s NCPA Theatre, last week. It narrates the tale of three generations. One of these is represented by dadi ma, who was forced to marry her brother-in-law when her sister died in child-birth. The second generation is represented by her daughter, who is periodically thrown out of her house for only bearing a girl child, who represents the third generation. Dadi ma stoically takes it all in her stride, though she is heart-broken at the thought that she can do nothing for her daughter. Or for her sister-in-law, who compares herself to the family buffalo, whose sole function in life is to bear one kid after another.
Benegal is convinced there is a definite market for such a film. After all, such stories happen not just in the rural hampsteads, but in cities, too. “It all depends on how the films are marketed and distributed,” says Benegal. True. Now if only the concerned ministry were concerned enough...

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BLOCKBUSTER OR NOT
WHAT’S up with MANOJ BAJPAI? How come his films are taking so long to hit theatres? His histrionic potential has already been widely acknowledged both by the classes and masses, thanks to Satya, Kaun and Shool. But the movie trade seems to have second thoughts about his box-office potential, especially if the film in question isn’t a Ramgopal Varma production. Trade circles aver that distributors are fighting shy of acquiring his forthcoming films, Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar and Gaath among them.
There’s a feeling among distributors that Bajpai isn’t quite blockbuster material yet, unfair though it sounds. And that he prefers films that are whacky or offbeat in nature. Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar, especially, is widely estimated by the trade to be an offbeat film, though the promos hardly justify such a guess. Gaath, directed by Akashdeep of Miss 420 fame, pits him with Tabu again, and Om Puri. The latter is slated for release in September, that is if the distributors latch on to it on time. Come on guys, give him a break, will you?    

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MORE THAN JUST OOMPH
She played a woman who bought a married man in Judaai, a star-struck middle class girl in Rangeela, an aspiring singer in Satya, a murderer in Kaun and a film star in Mast. These are roles you’d hardly classify as the bimbette sort, women of substance, any way you look at them. But some how, the oomph tag has come to stick to URMILA MATONDKAR, much as she detests the term.
“I hate to be dismissed as merely a woman with a great body. Gimme a break, I’m not the only one in films who’s worn a figure-hugging trouser or mini. Yet I get all the brickbats,” she shrugs.
At long last, Urmila’s ready now to break free from the Ram Gopal Varma stable. With exciting roles, to boot. In the currently-showing Deewane, Harry Baweja has pitted her against Ajay Devgan. Also showing, is David Dhawan’s Govinda-starrer, Kunwara. She is cast opposite her Jungle co-star, Fardeen Khan, in a film to be directed by Rajat Mukherjee. Can this last overhaul the oomph tag she’s struggling with? We’ll keep you posted.

Shaju George Alex
With inputs from Subhash K Jha and Shoma Chatterjee

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