CINETALK

Too violent to be entertaining

Film: Baabarr

Cast: Om Puri, Mithun Chakbraborty, Sushant Singh, Sohum Shah

Director: Ashu Trikha

It’s a brutal world out there. Welcome to the killing fields of Lucknow. The paths and alleys are bathed in blood. The roads are strewn with corpses. It’s almost as if the city has no respite from violence.

Baabarr is arguably one of the most violent films ever made in Hindi. It inhabits a world where the characters live in crusty brick lanes, homes that have seen more slaying and slaughtering than the butcher shops where some of director Trikha’s characters work.

Full marks to the director, art director Jayant Deshmukh and cinematographer Suhass Gujarathi for giving the work a gritty, edgy lived-in feeling. From the first frame onwards, Trikha goes for the corkscrew effect. The tension is unpretentiously relentless and real.

Once we enter this doomed world, there’s no way out.

Writer Ikram Akhtar gets substantial help from action director Abbas Ali Moghul in giving the characters their sense of adrift despair.

The characters never sit back to watch their own damned lives. They are either running from or chasing their adversaries. The world of the normal is given the slip, as we slip and slide into kingdom of the doomed and the damned. The protagonist Baabarr’s life is chronicled in no particular scheme except the one that occurs naturally to the character’s destiny. There’s a ruthlessly rigorous rhythm to the narration, somewhat like a Ram Gopal Varma film. In fact there’s a reference to Varma’s Satya towards the end when the hero dismisses it as “just a film” when in fact his own life replicates the story of gangsterism in Satya with far more brutal candour. But the greatest virtue of Baabarr is also its undoing. The world that Trika creates is too devoid of the soft moments and too violent and barbaric to be accepted as entertainment.

The performances match the mood of heightened anxiety.

Om Puri as a cheesy, sidechanging cop and Sushant Singh as the protagonist’s arch-enemy blend with the fiercely bloody fabric of storytelling.

Tinu Anand has one outstanding sequence where he tries to stop the protagonist from killing him through emotional blackmail. Newcomer Sohum Shah gets bravely into the sanguinary act. However the soundtrack is ear-splitting. Does violence have to be so noisy?

A delightful movie

Film: Wake Up Sid

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Rahul Khanna

Director: Ayan Mukerji

Next time when a star son gets an opportunity to get an author-backed role, let’s not complain. That’s because if he actually goes on to come up with as flawless an act as seen in Wake Up Sid, there is no reason why one should really be looking around for anyone else.

Ranbir Kapoor comes up with a neat, simple and believable performance. When most actors would have been happy to establish their standing in Bollywood with a quintessential romantic hero role, Ranbir is anything but a hero here.

This is why he allows himself to be treated as a ‘kid’ by Konkona Sen Sharma, who by the way is happy to play a woman five years elder to him. However, there is this special something which brews between them that pretty much gives the true meaning of a platonic relationship.

There are five things that make Wake Up Sid a delightful affair. It has a constant flow throughout; no over the top or understated drama; no ultra emotional strangulation of audiences; absolutely no yuppie cool dude act; and last but not the least, this is an original and refreshing story. While the film actually becomes really engrossing in the second half, the first half facilitates an adequate groundwork for the story to progress. There are bitter sweet moments in the first half as well but one still wishes for that extra something to kick start that would make Wake Up Sid go beyond a regular “coming of age” film. This is where young director Ayan Mukerji’s writing comes in handy because unlike a conventional movie, he doesn’t just bring a turnaround in Sid’s character by throwing a song to bring in that ‘overnight transformation’. He keeps it soft and subtle starting from something as simple as Sid learning how to prepare an omelette, keep his comic books stacked, prepare his own bed and of course, earn his very first cheque. By the time he returns to his dad (Anupam Kher in a short but effective role), you realise that the destination was eventually met even as the journey wasn’t quite ‘on your face’ or ‘over the top’. Meanwhile Konkona gets yet another complex role for herself. She is brilliant. Watch out for her in the interview scene or the outburst when Ranbir decides to go back to his parents’ house. Her irritation in certain scenes with Ranbir is utterly believable too and so are the tender ways in which she looks after him.

The supporting cast fits in well too. The young man who plays Rishi (Namit Das - last seen in The President Is Coming as Ramesh) is just effortless. Kashmira Shah, in her four-scenes act, is a pleasant surprise while Rahul Khanna is decent in the limited footage.

While Wake Up Sid would of course raise Ranbir’s stock in months to come, it would be noticed in a major way for Mukerji’s script sense and direction. He makes the kind of debut that made Farhan Akhtar hot property after Dil Chahta Hai.

Only for Salman Khan fans

Film: Wanted

Cast: Salman Khan, Ayesha Takia, Prakash Raj, Mahesh Manjrekar, Govind Namdeo and Vinod Khanna

Director: Prabhudeva

Though National Award-winner Prakash Raj’s flamboyant villainy and Ayesha Takia’s endearing cuteness miraculously find a place in the plot, this is the hero’s vehicle, like the very few masala movies in recent times.

Salman Khan adapts his goon’s name Radhe from his earlier Tere Naam, where he mixed violence with vulnerability in a heady brew. The mix in Wanted is far more brackish and tangy.

Wanted is an old-fashioned bone-cruncher with guns and goons creating a kind of orchestrated anarchy that was done with far more elan in Ghajini

In Wanted, the violence is far cruder and guttural. The hero is on a sort of societycleansing spree where the mode of conduct adopted by the villains and heroes become the same.

Director Prabhudeva retains the crude edges from the Telugu original Pokhiri. The villains are vicious and foul-mouthed and very often represent the kind of unfettered anti-socialism that can only be contained by the vigilanteism that Salman practices in the last-quarter of this bloodthirsty tale.

The plot is essentially about a one-man army who takes on a city filled with scums. The villains are everywhere in Mumbai. It was Hyderabad in the Telugu original. But what difference does it make? Cities change, morality doesn’t. The predators are everywhere - in boats, trains, pubs and warehouses.

One khaki-clad foul-mouthed villain (played with despicable authenticity by Mahesh Manjrekar) even infiltrates a decent woman’s house and threatens to sleep with both mother and daughter.

Mercifully the daughter, Ayesha, has Salman for a boyfriend. But the poor police commissioner (Govind Namdeo, in a positive role for a change) is unlucky with his daughter. She gets kidnapped and raped by the arch-villain. It’s a mean world out there...And thank goodness for the screen hero.

While Vinod Khanna is wasted, Manoj Pawa’s role as the overgrown boy-next-door doesn’t quite fit into the scheme of things. Prakash Raj as the villain gives celluloid diabolism an interesting new twist. He definitely looks menacing. His confrontation with the police commissioner is written with that polished panache that brings a twist to pulp fictions. But make no mistake. This is a madeto-order film for Salman. As a one-man army, he springs into every frame with that trademark mix of a bored swagger and agile comicality. His romantic moments with Ayesha have a lived-in credibility except when the songs take over. Strictly for fans of action flicks, and Salman...in that order.

Priyanka X 12, a pleasure to watch

Film: What’s Your Raashee?

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Hurman Baweja

Director: Ashutsoh Gowariker

A Gujarati downmarket wannabe bride dragged out of her traditional habitat into tight skirts tops and a 7-star hotel by her parents, to meet the eligible bachelor from Chicago. The girl’s longing to go West leaps out at you even when the guy politely rejects her.

“It must be snowing in Chicago,” she says with a warm wistfulness that melts your heart.

Elsewhere, almost at the end of Yogesh’s (Hurman Baweja) long and exhausting bride-hunt, a 15-year-old is passed off by her desperate parents as a purported bride. When our hero politely asks her which college she attends, the school girl burst into wracking sobs.

There are enough heart-melting moments in this lengthy treatise on how not to go bridehunting for money’s sake, to make Ashutosh Gowariker’s reputation as a filmmaker. His films constantly ventures into areas of filmmaking that seem at first commonplace but actually secrete the most valuable truths of life.

We saw him make a resplendent virtue of simplicity in the storytelling in Swades where Gowariker said “go back home” to the NRI played by Shah Rukh Khan. A lack of pretension and a thorough affinity to simplicity and grace in the narration imbue What’s Your Raashee? with shades of life done in the quirky satirical tones that completely reject obscure images and symbols.

Raashee relates the episodic story of the NRI’s search for a bride in the easygoing rhythms of a folk tale set to a contemporary but unobtrusive beat. The director’s eye for detail is unmatchable. When a postman huffs and puffs up that dusty village-road to deliver a much-awaited birthday card to a rich nanaji (grandfather) from his favourite grandson in Chicago, the postman’s shirt is sweat-stained.

When the first of Yogesh’s wannabe brides, arguably the best of Priyanka’s 12 spectacular turns, walks in, her shoes seem to have been bought only hours ago. Gowariker pitches the elemental tale at a satirical level. Some of the supporting characters - too broadly parochial to match the narrative’s mellow mood - needed to be toned down. Also the whole subplot about the marriage broker (Darshan Zariwala)’s extra-marital affair and a bumbling detective on his trail needed to be edited out.

Some of the music in the otherwiseinteresting mix of acoustics and sporadic melody by debutant Sohail Sen is also a burden on the narrative. But Yogesh’s bride-hunt never gets tedious, thanks to the unadorned interiors of the simple plot. The bride-encounters move from the poignant girl who frankly tells Yogesh she had sex with her neighbour to the satirical self-crowned yogini who gets horny on the flustered Yogesh; to the unabashedly idealistic barefoot doctor who invites Yogesh to move from Chicago to the village; to the satirical theatre actress who spews venom at the NRIs - each character brings her own little universe of flickering emotions and ideologies.

The film is the consummate post-date film. It tells us about what happens to the nice decent Gujarati boy Yogesh, played with heartwarming niceness and decency by Hurman, when he meets 12 prospective brides.

By now we all know Priyanka Chopra plays all the 12 brides. What we don’t know is how beautifully she balances every character’s inner life in the swarming but serene paradigm of the plot creating for each of the 12 intended brides an inner life and an outer glow within a restricted timespan.

It’s an amazing achievement. Priyanka gives soul to all the 12 characters she plays. In the climactic song, she brings all of them together, quirks and mannerisms all on display in one unified flow of feelings and body-language. The actress achieves individuality for all her characters while giving the plot a homogenous flow.

As for Hurman, this film is his actual debut. His equation with Priyanka is similar to Shahid Kapoor’s vis-a-vis Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met. Hurman is warm and sincere and ever-articulate before the camera. What a nice guy he has made out of Yogi. A lovely uncluttered, unassuming and transparent film from Gowariker!

Only for Salman Khan fans

Film: Wanted

Cast: Salman Khan, Ayesha Takia, Prakash Raj, Mahesh Manjrekar, Govind Namdeo and Vinod Khanna

Director: Prabhudeva

Though National Award-winner Prakash Raj’s flamboyant villainy and Ayesha Takia’s endearing cuteness miraculously find a place in the plot, this is the hero’s vehicle, like the very few masala movies in recent times.

Salman Khan adapts his goon’s name Radhe from his earlier Tere Naam, where he mixed violence with vulnerability in a heady brew. The mix in Wanted is far more brackish and tangy.

Wanted is an old-fashioned bone-cruncher with guns and goons creating a kind of orchestrated anarchy that was done with far more elan in Ghajini

In Wanted, the violence is far cruder and guttural. The hero is on a sort of societycleansing spree where the mode of conduct adopted by the villains and heroes become the same.

Director Prabhudeva retains the crude edges from the Telugu original Pokhiri. The villains are vicious and foul-mouthed and very often represent the kind of unfettered anti-socialism that can only be contained by the vigilanteism that Salman practices in the last-quarter of this bloodthirsty tale.

The plot is essentially about a one-man army who takes on a city filled with scums. The villains are everywhere in Mumbai. It was Hyderabad in the Telugu original. But what difference does it make? Cities change, morality doesn’t. The predators are everywhere - in boats, trains, pubs and warehouses.

One khaki-clad foul-mouthed villain (played with despicable authenticity by Mahesh Manjrekar) even infiltrates a decent woman’s house and threatens to sleep with both mother and daughter.

Mercifully the daughter, Ayesha, has Salman for a boyfriend. But the poor police commissioner (Govind Namdeo, in a positive role for a change) is unlucky with his daughter. She gets kidnapped and raped by the arch-villain. It’s a mean world out there...And thank goodness for the screen hero.

While Vinod Khanna is wasted, Manoj Pawa’s role as the overgrown boy-next-door doesn’t quite fit into the scheme of things. Prakash Raj as the villain gives celluloid diabolism an interesting new twist. He definitely looks menacing. His confrontation with the police commissioner is written with that polished panache that brings a twist to pulp fictions. But make no mistake. This is a madeto-order film for Salman. As a one-man army, he springs into every frame with that trademark mix of a bored swagger and agile comicality. His romantic moments with Ayesha have a lived-in credibility except when the songs take over. Strictly for fans of action flicks, and Salman...in that order.

Priyanka X 12, a pleasure to watch

Film: What’s Your Raashee?

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Hurman Baweja

Director: Ashutsoh Gowariker

A Gujarati downmarket wannabe bride dragged out of her traditional habitat into tight skirts tops and a 7-star hotel by her parents, to meet the eligible bachelor from Chicago. The girl’s longing to go West leaps out at you even when the guy politely rejects her.

“It must be snowing in Chicago,” she says with a warm wistfulness that melts your heart.

Elsewhere, almost at the end of Yogesh’s (Hurman Baweja) long and exhausting bride-hunt, a 15-year-old is passed off by her desperate parents as a purported bride. When our hero politely asks her which college she attends, the school girl burst into wracking sobs.

There are enough heart-melting moments in this lengthy treatise on how not to go bridehunting for money’s sake, to make Ashutosh Gowariker’s reputation as a filmmaker. His films constantly ventures into areas of filmmaking that seem at first commonplace but actually secrete the most valuable truths of life.

We saw him make a resplendent virtue of simplicity in the storytelling in Swades where Gowariker said “go back home” to the NRI played by Shah Rukh Khan. A lack of pretension and a thorough affinity to simplicity and grace in the narration imbue What’s Your Raashee? with shades of life done in the quirky satirical tones that completely reject obscure images and symbols.

Raashee relates the episodic story of the NRI’s search for a bride in the easygoing rhythms of a folk tale set to a contemporary but unobtrusive beat. The director’s eye for detail is unmatchable. When a postman huffs and puffs up that dusty village-road to deliver a much-awaited birthday card to a rich nanaji (grandfather) from his favourite grandson in Chicago, the postman’s shirt is sweat-stained.

When the first of Yogesh’s wannabe brides, arguably the best of Priyanka’s 12 spectacular turns, walks in, her shoes seem to have been bought only hours ago. Gowariker pitches the elemental tale at a satirical level. Some of the supporting characters - too broadly parochial to match the narrative’s mellow mood - needed to be toned down. Also the whole subplot about the marriage broker (Darshan Zariwala)’s extra-marital affair and a bumbling detective on his trail needed to be edited out.

Some of the music in the otherwiseinteresting mix of acoustics and sporadic melody by debutant Sohail Sen is also a burden on the narrative. But Yogesh’s bride-hunt never gets tedious, thanks to the unadorned interiors of the simple plot. The bride-encounters move from the poignant girl who frankly tells Yogesh she had sex with her neighbour to the satirical self-crowned yogini who gets horny on the flustered Yogesh; to the unabashedly idealistic barefoot doctor who invites Yogesh to move from Chicago to the village; to the satirical theatre actress who spews venom at the NRIs - each character brings her own little universe of flickering emotions and ideologies.

The film is the consummate post-date film. It tells us about what happens to the nice decent Gujarati boy Yogesh, played with heartwarming niceness and decency by Hurman, when he meets 12 prospective brides.

By now we all know Priyanka Chopra plays all the 12 brides. What we don’t know is how beautifully she balances every character’s inner life in the swarming but serene paradigm of the plot creating for each of the 12 intended brides an inner life and an outer glow within a restricted timespan.

It’s an amazing achievement. Priyanka gives soul to all the 12 characters she plays. In the climactic song, she brings all of them together, quirks and mannerisms all on display in one unified flow of feelings and body-language. The actress achieves individuality for all her characters while giving the plot a homogenous flow.

As for Hurman, this film is his actual debut. His equation with Priyanka is similar to Shahid Kapoor’s vis-a-vis Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met. Hurman is warm and sincere and ever-articulate before the camera. What a nice guy he has made out of Yogi. A lovely uncluttered, unassuming and transparent film from Gowariker!

Blue’s going to be big Akshay Kumar says when Blue director

Anthony D’Souza approached him for the underwater thriller, the first thing he asked was, “Are you sure you can make the movie?” Touted to be India’s first underwater film, which is said to match international standards of filmmaking, Blue promises to bring with it some never-seen-before visuals and stunts.

“The first thing I did was to look straight into his eyes and ask him - ‘Do you actually think you are capable enough of making a film of this scale, genre and setting? You may say that you want to shoot the film in space or on the moon, but saying something and doing it are two different things. So how will you actually shoot the film?” confided Akshay. As things turned out, D’Souza had done his homework well in advance and took the sceptical actor through some of his work which included certain advertisements he had directed, as well as some groundwork on Blue

“Honestly, it all led me to at least start listening. I got really interested in how he intended to execute Blue,” said Akshay.

“After all, there were going to be extreme stunts in it and that too under water. Then Tony (D’Souza) also showed me the work of the DOP (director of photography) Pete Zuccarini, who shot Pirates of the Caribbean.” Akshay spoke to Zuccarini, which finally convinced him that D’Souza had the talent to pull off the movie. Once on board, Akshay wasn’t too worried about the fact that a film like Blue had never been attempted before on the Indian screen.

“I am sure that it would be legendary in its own way. Let’s see how the box office treats it, but while doing the film we went all out for Blue,” confided the actor.

“With the backdrop of a treasure hunt to it, it involves real sharks. I had to go through some training, take diving lessons and earn a certificate for myself,” he added proudly. But that’s not all. Akshay had to get back to reading after years - but this time underwater. “Can you beat that? I had to read books under the water. Tony made me do so much for this film, and it has a minimum of special effects. In fact, not a single shot has been taken against a green screen,” said Akshay. “My cameraman, Peter Zuccarini, who is famous for underwater swimming, also helped me a lot. I thought it would be easy because I know how to swim, but this man taught me how to ‘belong’ underwater. That’s the kind of encouragement I was looking for,” admitted Akshay with enthusiasm. Also starring in Blue are Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan along with Katrina Kaif and Kylie Minogue. Let’s hope Blue’s run at the box office doesn’t run into the red.

Aish-Abhi

Steal The Show

Bollywood’s first couple made quite an impact on the Oprah Winfrey show recently, talking about their family traditions and generally glorifying their Indian lifestyle and culture. Aishwarya Rai, looking stunning and svelte in a sari and the tall, dark and handsome Abhishek Bachchan graced the sets of Oprah’s show, exuding confidence, flair and a sense of humour.

Aishwarya told Oprah that there was a family tradition of eating one meal at home with all the members of the family, if they are present within Mumbai. She elaborated that it enhanced their closeness and kept them in touch with each other’s lives. It was time spent with family in the true sense of the word.

However, when Oprah turned the spotlight on Indian way of marriages, and especially that of Aishwarya and Abhishek in Mumbai, they seemed somewhat embarrassed. Footage of fans being lathicharged outside Bachchans’ bungalow for trying to get a glimpse of the star-studded

Aishwarya And Abhishek

atmosphere light with one-liners and witty remarks. So kudos to the couple, for showcasing the true traditional side of India, albeit with a bit of Bollywood glam!

Sambo Kat

Odd couple are adorable wedding drew instant regrets from the couple.

He’s 43 and she’s 29, but the difference in their ages doesn’t seem to matter. That’s why Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor make an “adorable” couple on screen in the soon to be released movie, Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna.

Talk also veered towards Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan still living with his parents. But they fielded this one well, stressing the importance of Indian traditions and revealed that when their grandparents were alive, they too lived together with the rest of the family in the same home.

Aishwarya has been on the Oprah Winfrey show once before, but it was a first for Abhishek, who did well, keeping the

Her fans have often referred to her as ‘Kat’, but now actress Katrina Kaif has a new nickname - Sambo - courtesy her Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani co-star Ranbir Kapoor. “Ranbir coined the name on the sets of the movie when both were required to shoot for an action sequence,” said a source. For the scene, Katrina and Ranbir were required to climb a ladder placed at a height of 200 feet. Ranbir had to save Katrina from goons and then escape on a jet ski. While everyone was doubtful about Katrina doing the stunt, she shocked everyone with her confidence.

“Everyone on sets was quite sceptical about Katrina. But she amazed everyone as she comfortably climbed the ladder leaving Ranbir lagging behind. Ever since that day Katrina has always been addressed as Rambo’s sister, Sambo by Ranbir,” said the source. Well, cats are good climbers too…

“The age difference between Salman and Kareena was never a consideration. They make an absolutely adorable couple and complement each other on screen,” said debutant director Prem Soni. “They look good together in the film as there are no loud or awkward moments between them. The film has romantic instances here and there, but it has a very subtle treatment. There are cute scenes in the film and both of them have carried these really well,” he added.

Newcomer Soni considers Salman his “godfather” and says the superstar was on board the project as soon as he heard the script, and even asked his brother to produce the film. “I had written the script and then fixed an appointment with Salman. His reaction after the narration was overwhelming. All he said was, ‘I’m doing it!’ That’s how the project began,” the director said.

“Salman is indeed my godfather in the industry, as he is the one who has given me a break,” he added.

For Soni, it was a cakewalk to get

Kareena to play the heroine. “I went for the script narration to Kareena in Goa where she was shooting Golmaal Returns. She loved the role and when I told her that Salman was doing the film, she said ‘Why would I say no to Salman?’ She instantly agreed,” he said. “Kareena is such a delight to work with. She is among the finest actors these days. She is so effervescent and completely dedicated as an actor,” he enthused. The film’s plot is a story about three people, but is not based on an extramarital affair, Soni hastened to clarify. “The movie is very ordinary, very simple. It will touch a billion hearts with its real touch and that is what will make the story effective to the audience. We have given it a very contemporary look, but it isn’t flashy at all,” he added. Salman and Kareena – a jodi made in heaven, would you say, Saif Ali Khan?

Lara and her threesome

Lara Dutta, the sizzling hot Bollywood babe who won the crown of Miss Universe before entering tinsel town, plays the character of a supermodel in upcoming flick Do Knot Disturb opposite Ritesh Deshmukh, Govinda and Sohail Khan. Yes, Lara is involved with all three at the same time. Lucky guys!

Lara Dutta also acted in Bhagam Bhag with Akshay Kumar and Govinda, which was a super success at the box office. Looks like the former Miss Universe has found her genre. Her combination of beauty and comedy is formidable indeed!

Prateik pitches into tinsel town

Sanjay Leela Bhansali has signed on late actress Smita Patil’s son Prateik Babbar for his next production My Friend Pinto that will go on the floors later this year. And the youngster is naturally delighted.

“It’s a privilege to be working with Mr.Bhansali. When I met him I was amazed to find out how normal he is in spite of being an artist of such a high calibre,” said Prateik in an interview.

My Friend Pinto will be directed by Raghav Dar, who assisted Mani Ratnam during Guru and then served as associate director on Abbas Tyrewala’s Jaane Tu...

Ya Jaane Na. That’s when Dar and Prateik got to know each other.

My Friend Pinto will be Prateik’s first author-backed title role. He had a captivating cameo in Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na and his second film Dhobi Ghat apparently has Aamir Khan playing the lead.

While she is the mistress of Govinda, who is married to Sushmita Sen, her actual ex-boyfriend is Sohail Khan. Ritesh Deshmukh is involved in pretending to be Lara’s boyfriend, to deflect attention from Sushmita. This complication of relationships amongst the characters leads to a comedy of errors, with misunderstandings galore. David Dhawan, with his reputation of directing super-hit comedies with Govinda, has also directed this flick.

The buzz around the industry is that Lara Dutta has given a superb performance in the film, under the able direction of David Dhawan. In fact, her comic timing in the film has come out superbly and she is Govinda’s equal in enacting her character.

David Dhawan was so impressed with Lara Dutta’s comic timing that he compared her to Juhi Chawla, the only actress who has done full-on comic characters in her flicks.

Lara Dutta’s stunningly hot looks will also help her attract the attention of audience when the movie releases.

Ritesh Deshmukh is equally impressed with Lara, praising her comic talent, which he feels surpasses Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, from the current breed.

Prateik’s aunt Manya Patil is thrilled by the progress he is making. “When Abbas Tyrewala told me about the role in Jaane Tu ...Ya Jaane Na, I wasn’t so sure. It sounded like a small role. But Abbas told me to trust him and the role turned out to be tailormade for Prateik. I’m glad Prateik’s career is working out,” she said proudly.

“Today, there is room for all kinds of cinema. And like his mom, we want Prateik to be adventurous in his choices. I’m there to guide him, though I’m not really part of the film industry,” added his Aunt. Speaking on Prateik’s life as a child since he lost his mother when he was born, Manya said, “Actually Prateik has so many self-appointed mothers including my mother, my elder sister Anita and me, of course.” Good luck Prateik, if you get your talent from Smita, you’ll definitely be a star.

Birthday bonanza for Ranbir

Ranbir Kapoor, the latest heartthrob of Bollywood who plays the role of Siddharth in Karan Johar’s upcoming flick, Wake up Sid opposite Konkana Sen Sharma, watched the first trial of the flick on his birthday.

Ranbir was accompanied by his parents Rishi and Neetu Kapoor, as well as gorgeous girlfriend Deepika Padukone for the viewing. Sources say that Rishi and Neetu were thrilled to see their beta’s performance in this Ayaan Mukherjee directed flick, and prayed for its success at the box office.

The film is cited to be a lavishly produced offering, mounted on a grand scale. For Ranbir, the viewing was the icing on his cake. Just before the viewing, he found himself at his surprise birthday bash hosted by Deepika, and went on to have a blast. And that wasn’t all…Deepika’s surprise birthday gift was a high-end laptop, a thoughtful one for Ranbir, who loves all kinds of gizmos and gadgetry. Lucky Ranbir, looks like love and success are in the air…

Manna Dey’s day

Ninety-year-old playback legend Manna Dey - who belted out evergreen songs like “Ae mere pyaare watan” and “Zindagi kaisi hai paheli” - is being honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, confirmed his family recently. “We got a call from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, informing us about the award. We are very happy for him,” said Anuradha Dey, a member of his family.

Manna Dey lent his voice to the movies of Bollywood from the 1950s to the 1970s. He has recorded more than 3,500 songs over the course of his career. Some of his most memorable hits are “Sur na saje kya gaun main”, “Ye raat bhigi bhigi, ye masta fijzayen”, “Jhanak jhanak tori baaje payaliya”, “Tu pyar ka saagar hai”, “Chunari sambhal gori udi chali jaye re”, among others. Congrats, Manna Dey, well deserved recognition indeed!