Desi Galaxy

Many British citizens of Indian origins are trying to make themselves a career in Hindi movies. Katrina Kaif, Jiyah Khan and so hot and sexy Upen Patel. Getting work in show business needs charisma and popularity but how once could achieve popularity with out getting a major role in a big bollywood movie? Well, the answer is quite simple, get yourself involved in scandal and use your connections in the media to get the scandal published. Breaking the scandal on Television is good but even gossip columns can do wonders.

Latest in an NRI’s Bollywood scandals is Hazel’s casting couch story. You may have noticed her in nokia, sunsilk and lays commercials. This English beauty arrived here with dreams to make it big in Bollywood. During her struggling days she was once invited by some filmmaker (She doesn’t want to reveal his name) for an audition. The film maker wanted to see her in Bikini but as she didn’t bring any bikini costume with her, the film maker asked her to strip because he wanted to see how she looks in her under garments. Hazel walked out of the audition.

I don’t see the reason behind her walking out of an audition for a big bollywood movie. May be she was not wearing any undergarments. But when going for an audition, I think that any professional actor would at least keep extra clothes and other accessories in some bag. Its not that getting undressed is the usual auditioning routine, but what if something bad happens like an accident or something getting your clothes ruined. Hazel’s story is a reminder for all the girls trying to get work in bollywood, “Always carry bikini with you on auditions”.

When I heard that Amitabh is going to do another movie with a young heroine (love interest), I thought that movie would be just like Nishabd (worthless). But, I was wrong. Cheeni Kum is a light romantic comedy with beautiful music composed by Ilayaraja. Director Balkrishan is debuting into Hindi movie with this movie and it also marks the come back of Ilayaraja.

Story of Cheeni Kum

The plot of Cheeni Kum is simple. Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is a 64 year old chef who works at a resturant in Lodon and lives with his 85 year old mother. He never married a woman and never fell in love until he meets Nina Verma (Tabu). Nina and Buddhadev fall in love. Now Buddhadev comes to Delhi to ask Nina’s father for her daughter’s hand to marry. Omprakash Verma (Paresh Rawal) is an idealistic follower of Gandhi and 6 years younger than Buddhadev. It is Buddhadev’s job to make Verma change his mind about the age boundaries and allow Buddhadev to marry his daughter.

Review

Three critically accalaimed actors in the lead roles and a light romantic comedy with beautiful music, how could this go wrong. In fact it is quite a good recipe for a good bollywood movie. But it could go wrong if you have an unexperienced director like Mr. Balkrishnan. Paresh Rawal is nearly wasted in the movie. He has no comic lines and the director failed to shed more light on his character. I mean being Gandhian could be hillariously funny in this age if you know how to do it. Remember how Munna Bhai did it in Lage Raho Munna Bhai?

But then who claimed that the movie would be a non-stop laughter package? It is cheeni kum so the humor is light and sweet. Some good emotional scenes that are going to touch you and beautiful Tabu. I would say that the movie is worth watching, utleast once. You get to see some great acting and a story line thats quite mature. Forgive the new director if he fails to tell the story correctly. But if you are going to tell the story to your friends, then I am sure you can do better than Balkrishnan.

Priyanka Chopra is going to sing an ad jingle. Unlike some other actresses it is said that Priyanka has real talent for singing. You may have seen her singing live at KBC with Shahrukh Khan.

Shobha De, talks about scandals, sex and Bollywood

Kareena has refused a film with Abhishek Bachchan. She said she wont feel comfortable working with him. How so unprofessional. But this similar not so professional attitude and flame war was actually initiated by Abhishek Bachchan who refused to work with Kareena in a Karan Johar production (many actors in the industry would do any thing to get one such movie). If I were Kareena I might have told Abhishek that he is a lousy actor and that who needs Abhishek when we have Karan in our pocket?

Film makers in Bollywood love to cast rivals together. In 1949, Director Mehboob presented Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor together in the movie Andaz. Both actors were the top heroes of the industry at that time and the movie created the ‘who is the best’ kind of hype. The film was recieved well by the audiences. But considering Mehboob’s casting options at that time I don’t think that this casting scenario was entirely designed to took advantage of the rivalry. In fact Mehboob didn’t have much choice. he needed a triangle and Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Nargis were the best actors to do the job.

In 1982 Amitabh was the acclaimed angry young man and he was then signed up to face Dilip Kumar in the movie Shakti. Even though Dilip Kumar was playing the role of his father but fans and media expected the movie like it is a contest between two giants. And it was, Shakti was a story of a broken relationship between a father and his son. There were intense dialogs, emotionally charged scenes, tears and lots of drama just to make sure that audience get what they wanted from the movie. Shakti wasn’t major blockbuster but Dilip Kumar won filmfare for his role in the movie. This was the last time Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan appeared together in a movie.

In 1991, Rajkumar Santoshi signed Aamir Khan and Salman Khan together for his movie Andaz Apna Apna. Santoshi made a right decission with a hillarious script and wonderful timing. At that time Aamir and Salman were the heartbeat of the youth and the movie created much pre-release press hype. Unfortunately, it took Santoshi three years to complete the movie. By that time the media and the fans lost interest in discussing who is best. Movie didn’t perform well at the box office. But it has its own cult following and is one of the best comedy movies ever (My own opinion).

Even the Shahrukh-Amitabh setting has been tried before. They have worked together in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein (2000) and Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). Both movies did well at the box office. So it seems like Shahrukh Amitabh rivalry is profitable for film-makers.

Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are once again going to appear together in the movie ‘Bhootnaath’. This came out when we have already consumed an over-dose of news about the growing tensions and rivalry between the two stars. The rivalry sparked by media is now going to help with the promotion of the new movie.

While looking at the Mohabbatein page on Wikipedia I found this interesting bit:

On January 9th 2007’s episode of The Colbert Report, during the “We the Mediator” segment. Stephen Colbert mentions the New Year’s feud between Khan and Bachchan. By botching the names of the other stars who arrived at Bachchan’s party, he decided to judge the winner by viewing clips from Mohabbatein (he pronounced as “Mohabah-tee-yahn”)and from Khan’s dancing to Bachachan’s angry look clips, the undisputed winner was Khan. Stephen Colbert described Khan as “Dilip Kumar” to Bachchan’s “Raj Kapoor.”

History repeats itself and Bollywood loves repetition.

I love Shahrukh Khan so much and I fantasize him as my real life hero. To me he is like Spiderman. He came to work as an actor in Hindi movies with hope. People must have told him that he is very ordinary looking, and that he has no control on his vocal chords and that he can not act well. But despite all this, he didn’t let the hope fade away and worked hard to achieve success as one of the most popular Indians ever.

It never stops surprising me that how things change for a person when he becomes successful. The same voice of Shahrukh Khan became his plus point, the fudge colored, big nose, fat lips, boyish body and bad hair became his plus point and he was hailed as the sexiest man in Asia.

It is not easy being Shahrukh Khan you know. He has worked really hard. This charisma that surrounds him didn’t came to him naturally. He learnt it on the way. His sense of humour improved with the time. His clothings, residence, office, hairstyles and body has changed. He has learnt the secret to remain in the hearts of people, he knows the secret to be loved. He wont tell you his secret because he knows that you will never believe him.

People love him and it is not that people are always kind towards him. They sometimes say harsh things about him, and sometimes label his performance as trash too. But the fact remains that people like to talk about him. Being one of the most successful Hindi movie actor, he is still easily available to the press for interviews and PR campaigns for the projects he is associated with. These interviews are his chance to touch his fans as the Shahrukh Khan, a person that any one can idealize. He knows that well and when talking to the media he tries his best to be genuine and honest. Or at least he makes it look like that.

In the next few posts I will be talking about Shahrukh Khan and would be linking to the interviews, blog posts, articles and every thing that talks about Just how great Shahrukh Khan really is. Meanwhile, you can watch a video I found on YouTube. It is a scene from Shahrukh Khan’s first movie ‘In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones’ released in 1988, thats 19 years ago and Shahrukh Khan looks so young and ordinary. But if you truly love him like me then you would see just how out of this ordinary world he looked at that time.