Ash pips 'em all!
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Aishwariya Rai. Click for bigger pic!
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Aishwariya Rai's again pulled the rug from beneath the competition, in this case Manisha Koirala and Mahima Chaudhary, by snatching the role in Subhash Ghai's Taal from beneath their pretty noses.
Mahima may be well irked that despite those agreements, contracts, whatever, she didn't figure in the film. Even more annoyed, though, is Manisha, who winged her way to Bombay from Delhi where she was shooting just to bag the role opposite Anil Kapoor and Akshaye Khanna. But history has this monotonous habit of overstating its case and so, as in the case of model Ranjeev Mulchandani, the Nepali maiden lost out again to Ash.
History had nothing more original to offer Mahima, who apparently had resigned herself to its ways long ago. Remember how she was switched for Ash in a Pepsi ad with Aamir Khan? No? Oh well, she was. Dropped, that is.
Now if you are in the mood to get the lowdown on Ghai from people other than Mahima, who, like history, is also repeating herself, try Manisha. She'll come up with something original, sprinkling some old-fashioned stuff in the middle, of course.
Suman's shenanigans
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Suman Ranganathan. Click for bigger pic!
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Suman Ranganathan is hardly in the industry but she has already shown she doesn't lack the requisite filmi resilience, daintily ducking in and out of relationships with the grace and ease of a ballerina.
She was known first as Rahul Roy's girlfriend before the duo decided they'd rather remain "good friends". Of course, after some profuse bleeding in the glossies.
Then she brought friend Farhan Akthtar home but later returned him as reject material. She wasn't even present at his last party, instead boogeying the night away at Pratap Gaekwad, likely heir to the Baroda Rayon fortune.
And work? Ah, yes, there is Aa Ab Laut Chalein where she is believed to have a "great role" with Aishwarya and Akshaye Khanna. But not much else.
The press just knows!
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Kareena Kapoor. Click for bigger pic!
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Rakesh Roshan's been claiming he'd never thought of Kareena Kapoor with his son Hrithik in Kaho Na Pyar Hai.
The idea came to him, the director claims, only after the fourth estate concluded that such a deal had acutally been inked.
So, according to him, when he saw the papers scream -- well, on page 7 or so anyway -- that he had picked the Kapoor kudi for his film, he thought, 'Hey, why not call Babita (Kareena's immediate female ancestor) and ask if it's okay if her babe and mine gambol together on screen?' That kind of thing.
Critics might claim it is just is his way of not accepting that he himself opted for Kareena, a thought that could give the youngster a swollen head. But if the filmi bigwig was laying it straight, then the press can think up his thoughts before he does. What's your pick?
Abhishek to act opposite Chinky?!
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Abhishek Bachchan. Click for bigger pic!
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Rajesh, Dimple, Twinkle and... Chinky?!
Yes, that's the last of the Khannas who is slated, we hear, to appear opposite Abhishek Bachchan in what is also meant to be the latter's debut, Aakhri Mughal.
ABCL is indeed making a film with Abhishek though the last Mughal will get roll out first.
But Kareena got first crack at rejecting the offer that Chinky later didn't.
There is a small role of another girl in the film, but the German-born Mink refused it.
Going by the rejection rate of female roles in the film, it appears quite clear why J P Dutta has been reduced to the last of the Mughals.
Biswajeet returns -- to Calcutta
Biswajeet, that dashing hero of the sixties, the same one of the wrinkling brow and baby cheeks... He's back -- in Tollygunge. But he's thrown up all that dapper stuff he used to revel in and is to play a Naxalite in a film called Shreeman 420.
The return in Dulal Bhowmick's Bengali film comes 35 years after Biswajeet left the Bangla industry to become a hero in Hemanta Kumar's Hindi Bees Saal Baad opposite Waheeda Rehman.
Pretty tough
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Ayesha Jhulka. Click for bigger pic!
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This happens to many actresses -- they drop out of films for a man till the man drops them. Then they try to find their way back and find the doors have closed behind them. And then crib their lives away.
Not Ayesha Jhulka. She went through all the preliminary steps -- a long affair with Armaan Kohli till he found another woman, then she went into eclipse.
But she's got grit, elbowing her way back into films with a small role in Chachi 420 and a better one in Mehul Kumar's Kohraam which also stars Amitabh Bachchan and Nana Patekar. Of course, the latter role, in which she replaced Rani Mukherji opposite Mukul Dev, was attributed to Nana's influence; Ayesha and Patekar, the glossies insist, are an item.
Ask her and she frowns. " No, that's not true. Actually I have already worked with Mehulji in one of his earlier films Meet Mere Man Ka which is why he knew me very well."
Whatever the reason, this is indubitably one gritty return from the wilderness.
Tailpiece
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Sanobar. Click for bigger pic!
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We just can't get over this one -- the character Rekha plays in Saawan Kumar Tak's Mother, that celebration of modern motherhood (Tak said it) is called Mrs Britannia.
We aren't certain if the first name isn't Marie or it is an allusion to the gay Nina Pillai.
But, anyway, the heroine of the movie, and it's got to be one oomphy enough to give Rekha a run for her money, is Sanobar. Check that pic if doubts about the oomph persist.
She's hopefully the last of the daughters Rekha will have to switch in the film and Tak tells us she's something else. You doubt it?
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