Desi Galaxy

Another MMS clip made in the University of Mumbai’s Kalina campus has sparked another scandal. The mms video clip shows two students of the university having sex on the floor of the student council office. The faces of both students are not visible in the video but the male student is the general secretary of the University’s student council. He is affiliated with Samatvadi Chatrabharati party.

Since the student polls are due in two months it seems like this new MMS clip scandal is politically motivated. According to police, the man who filed the complain and informed the media is National Students Union of India’s president Sadaf Aboli. Mr. Aboli has previously accused a college professor of sexually harassing a female student. However the professor was given clean chit by police. It looks like Aboli is a person with a very dangerous and dirty mind. Aboli told the media that they were at the second floor when they hear noises coming from the ground floor office. They went down to invesitgate, when the peered from the window they saw General Seceratry making out with a girl.

Meanwhile the accused male student claims to be innocent. He says that he was not involved in any such incident. His party’s senior leader claims that the boy shares a brotherly love with the girl in the mms clip.

It is not the first time that MMS video clips caused serious problems, previously a girl from Jamshedpur became a victim of such an incident. MMS videos are used for marketing latest bollywood movies and music albums and are very effective marketing. But such viral and pornographic desi mms clips are most of the time illegal and they cause serious damage to the lives of innocent girls on these videos.

In response to Zee network’s desire to create their own sporting content by organizing Indian Cricket League, BCCI decided to organize their own Indian Premier League.

The King of Indian Film Industry Shahrukh Khan decided to sponsor Kolkatta’s team which has resulted into termendous media response for Indian Premier League. Soon Priety Zinta with her boyfriend Ness Wadia joined the league as sponsor of Mohali. Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani is sponsoring Mumbai’s team with the highest bid of 111.9 Million US Dollars.

This was quite enough for creating magnificent market buzz and spark interest among cricket crazy Indians. But then there was a bidding by sponsors to select players for their teams. Chennai made a bid of 1,500,000 US Dollars for India’s star cricketer Mahinder Singh Dhoni. Australia’s Andrew Symonds is part of Hyderabad’s team with the bidding amount of 1,350,000 US Dollars. Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj singh will be playing for Priety Zinta’s Mohali Team.

The groups investing huge amounts in the league’s cricketing event surely recognize the event as a great opportunity for them. Not to mention that the higher stakes involved in the process mean great mind blowing battles between the teams.

Further more:

Wikipedia Indian Premier League
Official Website Indian Premier League

I recently wrote a post about Bollywood Tourism. South Asian Post reports that Percept Holdings is planning to start a $100 million ‘Bollywood Experience’ venture. The project includes Bollywood cafes, museums, a theme park, film set replicas, movie memorabilia, simulator experiences, 3D virtual gaming booths, a walk of fame Shailendra Singh of Percept Holdings told South Asian post that:

Bollywood is 75 years old and it’s time we show our pride of this rich heritage. Watch out, Bollywood tourism will be big business.

It is really a wonderful idea. I mean just imagine a Bollywood Museum where you can learn about the history of Hindi movies, the legendary artists who remained behind the camera and other aspects of Bollywood. Walking down the sets of movies that you have seen and seeing for yourself how these scenes were filmed. Buy DVDs of popular Hindi movies. This sounds like a hell lot of fun to me. I wish Percept Holdings get in touch with Incredible India project and gets their Bollywood tourism packages showcased there as well.

Tags: Tourism, Travel, Incredible India. Image courtesy: David Wilmost, Wimbeldon, UK.

University of Washington President Mark Emmert and seven other university and government leaders are on a State Department-sponsored mission to Mumbai and New Delhi, India.

Talking of Music, check out a Treat for Bollywood Fans, Melvin Rivera shares an NPR interview with legendary Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle on NPR’s Soundcheck. Asha talks about the 20000 Hindi songs she has sung so far, the Hindi film music, bollywood and her husband R.D. Burman.

Basab Pradhan writes an Open letter to the Bollywood Music Industry.

Most people want to buy music legally, if it is made simple and inexpensive for them to get it. Say this to yourself three times every morning after your morning prayers. And then think about your pricing strategy. There is a vast, relatively untapped appetite for Bollywood music amongst NRIs. If you just got rid of your pre-conceived notions.

Suneil Shetty’s company Popcorn entertainment offers Bollywood Tourism package in collabration with Travel Mart India. The Bollywood Tourism package is your chance to see the real bollywood on the actual sets and locations and meet the people involved in making those fantastic movies that you have loved so much. It is a day long trip to bollywood, during the first session you are taken to a specially created studio called BollywooDrome. This will be an interactive session where tourists are told about the filming and technical aspects of movie making. Choreographers would show you how they arrange dance sequences and action directors would tell you how they perform those fight scene stunts. At the end there would be a Q&A session where you can ask questions directly to the artists and technicians.

Lunch is offered at the studio just like a studio lunch is served during the shooting of a movie.

In the next session you will be taken to a real set to witness the making of an upcoming Bollywood movie or a tele-serial.

Sounds like a fantastic package. Prices are nominal and travel accommodation at hotels in Mumbai, dinner and transportation is available with platinum and other packages. You can also arrange for tavel lodge on your own before arriving to save some money. So if you are a Bollywood fan it is a perfect travel plan to see how dreams are transformed into movies.

I feel that people from other parts of the world should contact Tavel Mart India first as they might have plans to arrange better tours. They can arrange tickets for flights to India, find hotel, assist you with travel insurance and other travel hassle. I mean traveling all the way to India just to spend a day in bollywood is not as satisfactory as one might wish for. Instead it would be better if you start from different Indian towns, see the Indian culture, Indian art and the impact bollywood has on the lives of Indians. Visit historical ruins, temples, forts and palaces. Travel to India and see the life in the big cities of India like Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi, etc. But don’t forget to get vaccination for travel to India information before arriving. These tours will familiarize you with the country itself and then you can truly understand and appreciate these people who are converting dreams into movies.

Tags: Travel, incredible india, Tourism, movies, hindi movies.

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy’s Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai]

The Telegraph India reported on February 26 that the venue of Aishwarya Abhishek wedding is Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. The guest list includes, Ambanis, Amar Singh and Bollywood fraternity. Neeta Lulla and Anna Singh are working on Aishwarya’s wedding trousseau, Sharbari Datta is doing Abhishek’s Kurtas and Shawls.

There is contradiction between the Observer’s report and The Telegraph’s fact check. It is also reported that the venue is actually Jaipur India Rajasthan and the date is 19th March but this news is not officially confirmed by either Bachchans or Rais.

We still haven’t got a date. The two of them are so busy, we haven’t been able to sit down and work it out. Amitabh told while talking to IANS. “Now Abhishek’s schedule for ‘Drona’ is postponed so I’m hoping we’ll be able to sit down and work out a date. But Aishwarya is in Karjat shooting and Jaya has gone off to parliament. Everyone is impatient. So are Aishwarya and Abhishek. Let’s see. I think far too much is being made of this affair. It’s just another wedding.”

During the recent Award marathons, we have seen that the Bachchan family has already whole heartedly accepted Aishwarya Rai as a part of their family. During the Stardust Awards when Aishwarya came on stage to recieve her award from her soon to be father in law Amitabh Bachchan, she took wrapped her Sari around the shoulder, like typical Indian daughter in law and touched Amitabh’s feet for blessings.

“The day Abhishek announced Aishwarya was the girl he was going to marry, she became a part of our family. I look on Aishwarya as a daughter” said Amitabh Bachchan while talking to IANS.

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy’s Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai]

The Observer has reported that the wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan would be the greatest wedding in the Indian history.

This will be a 10 day long event, expected to take place with in a month. More than 5000 people are on the guest list. Venues are a private estate outside Mumbai and a Palace in Rajasthan India. The Observer quotes Bollywood columnist Amita Ghosh:

‘For Indians across the world this wedding will be as big as Charles and Diana’s was for the British,’ said Bollywood gossip columnist Amita Ghosh. ‘The question people are asking here right now is: why all the fuss about Liz Hurley? Perhaps this is why the media here have turned against Liz, nobody really knows who she is. Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan are our real stars and their wedding is the only one that counts.’

She added: ‘This wedding is a fantasy come true for many Indians. We are talking about the biggest and most star-studded guest list in Bollywood history. The couple have a hit film out in which they star as husband and wife, but this is only the start. A marriage of two such mega brands from Bollywood will result in a $100m payday for both couples from spin-offs.’

The Observer also reports that the bad signs on Aishwarya’s horoscope are calm now and astrological charts now report that the marriage would be a truely blessed one. We have talked earlier here on Desi Galaxy about Astrology and bollywood, and Aishwarya Rai marrying Trees.

There is this wonderful article on the Telegraph UK, ‘My Big Bollywood Break‘.

The dress is red, tight and very short. It has a plunging neckline and is held up by a cheap brass chain. It is hideous.

“Take, take,” says the costume director, flapping it impatiently. I stare at him. He stares back. It dawns on me that he actually wants me to wear this. I’m about to achieve the ultimate dream of millions of women across Asia and dance in a Bollywood movie. And this man wants me to do it dressed as a prostitute.

Last night I was watching ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, It is one of my most favorite movies. There are some really stupid scenes in the movie. Like the one, when it starts raining in the Simla Camp, and Shahrukh Khan takes Kajol with him to a place. There Shahrukh asks her to dance and Kajol gestures that there is no music. Shahrukh khan plays his fingers in the air and some one starts playing piano in the background. No matter how impossible it seems but in the movie it looks magically wonderful. And the regular Hindi film viewers would assume that the music is coming from either the hearts of the two lovers or the magic box director had hidden somewhere on the location.

In the same movie, during the song ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ Shahrukh Khan and Kajol (Rahul and Anjali) suddenly start singing a song started by Rani Mukherji (Tina) without rehearsing. Bollywood Heroes do not need any training in singing and dancing, they dont need to rehearse and the viewer automatically assumes that they know everything already. They could jump from high rise buildings, fight with a gang of twenty hard muscled gundas with bare hands, sing and dance at any time and make the lead female actress fall in love with them with no difficulty at all.

Francisca Kellett is right Bollywood is world’s largest dream factory.