Short Takes

IT AIN’T FUNNY, SAYS THE CHIEF

Pahlaj Nihlani's had a busy week, shooting off angry letters in several directions. He’s had not one but several reasons to lose his cool. And the stifling summer heat isn’t one of them. First to offend the AMPTPP chief was the Maharashtra CM, with good reason, too -- the abominable sales tax on all movie and music deals is rearing its ugly head again.

And Nihalani’s quoted figures and even a bit of history in an effort to urge Vilasrao Deshmukh to see reason. He’s even thrown in a threat for good measure, appropriate, perhaps, considering the mood he’s been in practically all week. If the tax isn’t scrapped forthwith, prepare for some song‘n’dance, in the form of an indefinite industry strike, the seething Nihalani’s hinted, darkly. Others caught at the receiving end of Nihalani’s tirades? Well, there’s the Star Plus top brass and those at Zee Cinema. Nihalani’s grouse against them has been that they allow a certain Sajid Khan to get away with character assassination on their channels, Sajid No 1 and Ikke Pe Ikka. In fact, Shekhar Suman and Sony TV have also had to contend with the filmmaker’s vitriolic pen, for time and again making cracks at filmfolk in overs & Shakers. The industry survives on its image, and therefore, it’s detrimental to filmfolk when they’re mocked on TV, go the letters.

All said and done, Nihalani’s had fax rolls churning out angry copy this week. Including at SCREEN, where we keep getting cc mails of all the missives sent by the APTPP chief. Among other things, his tenure at the helm wilkl be remembered for this, we guess -- his colourful letters. We’re not sure we can say the same for the chief’s sense of humour, though.

INDULGING THE TRAVEL BUG
Call it the downside of success, if you like. AFTAB SHIVDASANI, yes, he of the dimpled grin and chocolate hero looks, no longer has leisure enough to spare for an evening at his favourite joint, the local club. But it’s a small price to pay, for a cushy career that’s taking him places. Like Mauritius, for instance. May’s hardly the month to be visiting the island country, but Aftab’s game, any day. He’s just touched base after a couple of weeks, there. No, he hasn’t exactly been sun-bathing, but cavorting before the moviecam with Amisha Patel for company.

Soon, he’ll be off to the Swiss Alps and Scotland, shooting for the Rajiv Rai movie, Pyar, Ishq, Mohabbat, that pits him against hunks Arjun Rampal and Sunil Shetty. What with the prospect of indulging the travel bug, work, for Aftab is rather like getting paid for having fun. Talking of work, there’s a lot of that, too, coming his way. There’s a Ramgopal Verma movie that costars Manoj Bajpai, Fardeen Khan and Sonali Bendre, and not to forget, films with the likes of Vimal Kumar and mentor Boney Kapoor. Lots of opportunities there to be living off the suitcase, as he"s been doing of late, and Aftab’s looking forward to it, you bet.

Mast may have gone phut like a wet firecracker at the b-o, but Aftab’s one man who’s had no reasons to complain of the exposure. It’s sent his stocks soaring, as the floof of offers he has on hand indicates. Problem is, he could do with a bit of variety, though, for all the offers he’s wading through, seem to be of the second hero kinf, the gooey, chocolate and whipped cream routine the audience may soon tire of seeing him in. And with his kind of looks, offers of other kind may well be a long time coming. There’s a catch in every success story, they say. This may well be the pesky little fly in Aftab Shivdasani’s ointment.

LET THE "JOBLESS" CRIB
Pity Sajid Khan isn’t around to react to Nihalani’s letters -- he’s in the US, we’re told, hosting shows. But SHEKHAR SUMAN’s wasted no time over his own rejoinder, and as expected, he’s spared no punches either. Pulled up for "unnecessarily ridiculing famous, senior and legendary personalities of the film fraternity" in his show Movers & Shakers, he’s dismissed the letter as the handiwork of the "jobless," and advised his peers in tinselville to go get a sense of humour. His show, he’s said, was intended as a satire, and pulling it up like this was tantamount to penalising RK Laxman for his cartoons. In any case, he said, he is is neither the producer nor the writer of the show -- all he does is mouth somebody else’s lines. "If Movers & Shakers is insulting, what about the film glossies?," he asks, "don’t they create scandals by gossiping about them?" The drift of his argument was, he is as much a part of filmdom as Nihalani is. Only more so. Working as he is, in a Kundan Shah movie, he is still a part of it, while "Nihalani hasn’t made a film for the last eight years."

TEN, FIVE OR MAYBE NONE
IS it a gimmick, a lie or a statement of fact? SHAH RUKH KHAN’s come up with that extravagant ban again. A couple of weeks ago, he took the media by total surprise, telling SCREEN he was going to boycott the press for a year. Then last week, he broke his own ban, only to tell a trade magazine he’d boycott the media for not one year but ten. He seemed to change his mind yet again, in the course of the same interview, too, reducing the ban y half. Now, if only he’d make up his mind, we’d know where we stand with him, say our friends in the media.

Yet, what’s behind the ban, no one seemsto have a clue. And the Khan ain’t telling. At the moment, what we have are speculations. Some say he’s peeved about his name being mentioned in connection with the Ashraf Patel murder. Others, that he’s simply put off about the bad press his movie, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani fetched on release. Some even suggest he hopes to do an Amitabh Bachchan -- the big B had banned the press in the 70s, remember, after he got fed up with all the gossip surrounding his name. And it seemed to have worked in his favour, then, for it helped build up a certain aura around him that other stars lacked. Question is, will the big B complex help the Khan?

AFTER THE HONEYMOON
DOES the name Ajay Sharma ring a bell? Well, we’re not talking about the Delhi cricketer whose name is now being mentioned in connection with the betting racket. This one’s a director, who started off with a series for the BBC, and has since switched over to films. The son of music composer, Padmashri Ravi Sharma, Ajay hit the headlines in March, wedding VARSHA USGAONKAR. For Ajay, it was love at first sight, we’re told. He’d met her the first time when he offered her a role in a series for the BBC -- a region-based one that featured celebrities from the region acting in and dancing to the tunes composed by his father. Then, he approached her again, this time with a film offer, but Varsha no longer had the dates to spare. Later, Ajay’s family met the Usgaonkars with the proposal, and the latter, we’re told, were impressed by the groom’s credentials. Varsha says she was tense, meeting Ajay for the first time as his prospective wife, especially since they’d had a director-actress relationship before. Now, following the honeymoon, the couple are back in Tinselville. And Varsha’s discovered she needn’t have been tense about Ajay, at all. "We’re made for each other," she gushes.

WHISTLE STOP AT AHMEDABAD
J P Dutta’s launched into high drive, publicing his much-awaited magnum opus, the Bachchan Jr, Kareena Kapoor movie, Refugee. He’s been taking his lead pair and a couple of others from the team on a tour of the metros and other cities, treating the pressfolk to sneak previews of the movie, that’s scheduled to hit the screens on June 16. Last week, it was Ahmedabad’s turn to play host to the Refugees, who it seemed, comprise a close-knit, mutual admiration society, bursting at the seems with kind words for each other.

For his part, JP himself described the film as a love story set on the Indo-Pak border. Also playing key roles are Ashish Vidyarthi, who was also among those who visited Ahmedabad, Shadab Khan, Sunil Shetty and Jackie Shroff.

Said Abhishek, "I’m glad I’m making my debut in a JP Dutta movie, an offbeat one, which could well prove to be a trendsetter of sorts. Normally, teeny-boppers debut in masala movies, but this is for the first time that newcomers have chosen an offbeat film to make a debut in," The small B sure got the history bit wrong. But well, never mind.

SECOND HOME, MUMBAI
Talking of the jet-setting club, now here’s one more addition to the Mumbai set, the Devatai and Tholi Prema sensation, KEERTHI REDDY. With her mom in tow, she’s now shuttling between commitments down South (where she’s stopped taking on new assignments) and Mumbai, where she’s been signed by Vashu Bhagnani for his next, an Abhishek Bachchan movie.

So has she hit it off with Bachchan Jr? "Not quite," she’s been quoted saying, "I think I’m as shy as he is." She’s very impressed with his parents, Amitabh and Jaya, who keep dropping by on the sets every now and then -- they’ve been very "encouraging," she confesses.

Incidentally, the Abhishek movie isn’t the only Hindi assignment Keerthi’s taken up. She’s plumped for a key role in Rajiv Rai’s Pyar, Ishq, Mohabbat, that features Sunil Shetty, Arjun Rampal and Aftab Shivdasani.
A happy traveler, she enjoys living off a suitcase. It’s coming back to an empty hotel room she dreads, though she declines to specify what she intends to do about it, beyond letting on that she’s considering acquiring a Mumbai home.

Of course, that is if the Hindi audience receives her well enough.

IN THE BIG LEAGUE, UNDAUNTED
Other stars are welcome to arrive late on the sets, but you can count on her to be the first to get there. What’s more, she arrives with her homework duly done, all eager for the moviecam to begin to roll. As with everyone who’s as committed and involved at work, AMISHA PATEL’s had a hard time putting up with the tardiness and lackadaisical attitude of the others on the unit.

She’s also made no bones of her bitterness, at seeing co-star Hrithik corner all the footage in the post-release promos of blockbuster Kaho Na.. Pyar Hai. She feels she ought to have cornered as much of the limelight as Hrithik, because she was as much of a success in it as he was.

Be that as it may, Amisha seems to have hogged enough of the limelight to have several exciting offers coming her way. First off the block was Zee Films’ Gadar, the film that ran into rough weather at Lucknow, what with Shia Muslims disrupting its shoots at the Imambara. Work on the movie’s begun again, and Amisha’s eager to know how it fares. She plays a character who goes on from a college student to a wife and mother. Playing her hubby is Sunny Deol, the obvious difference in age between them, notwithstanding. The script required a young girl to play the Pakistani Muslim caught in a moving tale of romance set during the Partition, and she’s done it with gusto.

Also lined up and vying for her time are films by David Dhawan and Vikram Bhatt, in addition to projects with Ajay Devgan and Hrithik Roshan. But the one she’s looking forward to most eagerly is a Tanuja Chandra venture, where she has a tailormade, woman-centric role.
But first, of course, comes her next big test at the b-o -- having to prove she’s no flash in the pan, no one film wonder. Come Gadar, and we’ll now.

THE FREQUENT FLYER CLUB
For Aishwarya Rai, it marked a return to the international limelight. And for Hindi cinema, which already has a glut of prestigious national awards and at least one other international award coming its way, practically all year round, this was, well, just another award.

The spinning, gleaming fibreglass statue, all eight metres of it, the closest resemblance to the Oscar statuettes we have, caught the eye at the Nassau Coliseum, New York, as Mumbai cinema took centrestage at the second Zee Gold Bollywood Awards 2000.

Ash continued her winning run, making a clean sweep of all the major awards, a run that began in January, with the SCREEN Award for best actress. Here at the Coliseum, she took not one but three awards -- best actress, best actress in a sensational role (whatever that means) and best actress (critics’ choice for her role in Sanjay Bhansali;s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam).

Ghai’s musical Taal was adjudged best film, while Bhansali brought back home the statuette for best director for HDDCS. Sanjay Dutt, too, continued his bull run at the awards, adding the Zee Gold to his kitty, that already boasts of SCREEN and other awards.

Next month, Bollywood Inc travels to London for another clutter of international awards, When last heard, the organisers hoped to fly the movie glitterati down to London on a chartered plane. There’ll be fun and games on board, and during the rest of the trip, making it every bit an all expenses paid round trip to London for Hindi cinema’s chosen few. Few will resist a junket like that.

So what does Mumbai’s movie celebs do when they aren’t shooting?? Why, collect awards around the globe or jet around to get there, of course. It’s turning out to be a major, leisure time activity.

DAUGHTER OF THE MOON
If Aparna Sen’s daughter is just about making an entry into films, Moon Moon Sen’s offspring has already taken the lead. RAIMA SEN makes her debute in a Bengali film directed by Abhijit Sen. Shooting had begun last year, at Falta followed by a sequence at Siliguri. The film, Moyna, is now complete, but for two scenes that are still to be dubbed, and should hit the screens by August.

Raima says she plays a foundling in what purports to be a teenage romance, with the Delhi-based Madhab Dalvi (son of former cricketer, Michael Dalvi) paired opposite her. Ranjit Mullick and Anuradha play her parents.

Though Moyna marks Raima’s debut as actress in a Bengali film, she’s already had a release in Hindi, Godmother. Soon, she’ll follow it up with Kalpana Lajmi’s forthcoming release, Daman. Guess what she’s playing in the film? Why, Raveena Tandon’s daughter, of course.

So the acting contagion has been passed on to the third generation Sen. Does that inspire another take off on Raj Kapoor’s Kal Aaj Aur Kal?

Compiled by Shaju George Alex
With inputs from Anit Mukerjea