Short Takes

ANOTHER BEDI BUMBLE
It's been another classic bungle with the Bedi trademark. Last time, it was step mother, Nikki Bedi’s turn to goof up on an interview for Star TV, with gay rights activist, Ashok Row Kavi. This time, it seems to be POOJA BEDI’s. And whose feathers do you think she’s managed to ruffle, with her questions on the Amul India Show? Why, the Big B’s, of course.

Pooja is at pains to deny she was at all disrespectful, although she’s never really been a fan of AMITABH BACHCHAN’s. She insists she only asked him a bunch of "simple, straight-forward" questions on the show. "I didn’t ask him about his love affairs, about his alleged involvement in the Bofors scandal or about the failure of the ABCL. I was dying to know why his hair was black and his beard was white. I’m sure a lot of people would have been keen to ask him that, so what’s wrong if I did?," she asks.

Bachchan, she says, was keen on acquiring some furniture from her husband’s store. He’d telephoned to have some catalogs sent to his home. Later, he called again, this time, asking that some pieces be sent over. "But my husband refused because that’s not the way we do business. My husband said he was welcome to come over and have a look at the stuff himself," she says.

Pooja says she’s disappointed with the way the interview, initially scheduled to be telecast on the Amul India Show, went. For she was trying to do a fun interview in keeping with the show’s image. "But there was Mr Bachchan, grumpy, with not even a smile for his audiences," she says.

Well, the long and short of it all is, the episode’s been spiked. Star TV has denied that Bachchan himself had any hand in the cancellation. The network says it pulled the interview off, deeming it an "embarrassment." But Pooja says it’s a lie. She insists she was still sitting with the producers half an hour after the interview was over and done, when they got a call from Star TV, scrapping the show because Bachchan had complained.

Obviously, then, it’s Bedi’s word against the network’s. Only, whom do we believe?

AT HOME IN KARACHI
SPOTTED JUHI CHAWLA in Karachi, of all places, on May 11. She was in Pakistan on a week’s halt, visiting her ailing grandmom, Kaushalya, at the city’s Medicare Hospital. She visits the hospital twice on the same day. And judging from the way she’s mobbed by staff and visitors at the hospital, she could as well be on a Mumbai set.

"I don’t feel like a stranger in Pakistan, at all in Pakistan," she said. "And Karachi’s very much like downtown Mumbai, the streets are similar and so are the people. What’s more, Karachi-ites recognise me as much as Mumbaikars do."

As with every visiting Indian celebrity, Juhi, too, pays lip service to the need for closer ties between the two countries. "I wish I can come back on longer visits, for there’s so much more of Pakistan I’d love to see. Showbizfolk can play an important role in uniting the two countries, and concerted bids must be initiated for the same," she says.

Leading Paki filmmaker and distributor, Satiate Chained Anna, an uncle of Juhi’s had been to the airport both to welcome her and see her off. "Had she stayed longer, I would definitely have arranged a meeting for her with the local press," he said.

Of course, Juhi also utilised her visit to catch up with the latest trends in Pak fashion. She met up with the Lahore-based dress designer, BG, who flew down especially to meet her. BG, we’re told, is to design the costumes for a forthcoming Juhi movie.

HIS DAYS IN THE SUN
ALL he wanted at one time, was fill his days with cricket. He even represented Delhi at the under-19 level while he was still in school. But he was forced to give up the game he loved when he enrolled for an engineering degree in Bangalore. It was while he was back home on holiday that he met Rohit Khosla, the guru of Indian fashion, at a friend’s birthday bash. And he was immediately signed up to model Khosla’s latest creations.

Call him destiny’s blue-eyed boy, if you like. RAHUL DEV has never had to struggle to hit the big time in the media spotlight. Soon after walking the ramp for Khosla, Dev snagged endorsement deals with Raymonds’ range of Park Avenue collections, shot by Atul Kasbekar. And soon, he was flooded with so many assignments that he had to spike his leather business, for which he wasn’t able to spare time, any more. Followed campaigns like Hercules, MTB, Drakkar Noir, and of course, the sizzler Kama Sutra, and, not to forget, music videos like Nirmal Pandey’s Jazba and Raat Baki and Anchal Kumar’s recent Jalwa 2.

If ad campaigns and music videos came seeking him out, so did the movies. It was the late Mukul Anand who first offered him a film role, for his Dus.

The movie was shelved, following Mukul’s untimely death, but Rahul soon bagged another role -- in the forthcoming Champion, alongside Sunny Deol and Manisha Koirala. He also has plum roles in Indra Kumar’s next, and actor Attley Brar’s debut effort as director.

He sure has the looks, and the sculpted sinews of the Greek gods. Question is, can he act? Come August, and we’ll know, for that’s when Champion’s scheduled to hit the turnstiles.

Compiled by Shaju George Alex
With inputs from AR Slote.