Real-life hero Jackie!
By Madhur Mittal

EVERYONE is familiar with the larger than life heroic image of Jackie Shroff, okay? But, perhaps, few know that this macho leading man is quite a hero in real life, too. Want me to spell it out for you....?

Look, the fact is that our man has a real soft spot for kids — his own two, as well as those who are, most unfortunately, deprived of a normal lifestyle as we know it. Little wonder then, that Jaggu dada is inveriably one of the first film celebrities who responds to a call for a charitable cause even at the "cost" of cancelling a movie shoot.

Just the other day, Jackie took a lot of time off to be present at the Rang Sharda auditorium as an (active) participant in the goodly activities of the WE CARE Trust. The trust runs a thalassaemia screening and prevention centre for the underprivileged young ones. Shroff came armed with four well made short films produced by him on the subject — and, needless to emphasise, their screening was greeted with a thundrous applause — genuinely.

What’s more, Jackie had (don’t ask me how!) pulled in colleagues Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Shah Rukh Khan to do clips on thalassaemia in a very sincere effort to get the vital message across, imagine! Great job, great guy. Incidentally, Sony TV will be airing these soon, so watch out!)

Rumour has it...

... that Naseeruddin Shah has agreed to star in Kaizad Gustad’s sequel to Bombay Boys and that the main female cameo will be played by Pooja Bhatt!

...that, after the success of her role in Aa Ab Laut Chalen, the highly sensuous Suman Ranganathan has hiked her price to an all time high (and has also ditched old flame Rahul Roy for a popular young actor as her new "my man").

... that Gulshan Grover wants to quit Hindi films and get adopted by a wealthy female movie producer in Santa Barbara.

Unlucky Lucky?

I’m told by a much in demand music arranger and composer that famed comic Mehmood’s songster son, Lucky Ali, may just have missed out on one of the biggest mainstream cinema playback singing breaks — simply because a music company has put in a libel suit against him for over 50 million in damages — as in defamation!

It appears that he was (finally) hooked up with one of the top music directors to playback for two special numbers that went with his voice and style. But — it was not to be. Because BMG Crescendo (India) Ltd, are suing him "for fraud and false claims made public"!

The entire brouhaha is about Lucky’s album — Sunoh — for which the BMG guys flaunt documentary proof of having made a whopping payment to the singer after Lucky was unlucky enough to remark in a magazine interview that he gifted the album virtually free to the music company! Honestly, this bolt from the blue couldn’t have struck at a worst time for this popular Indipop artiste.

Besides, in case he loses the case, where the hell is he going get all that heavy moolah from, man?

The latecomers

Everbody knows that stars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Govinda, Anil Kapoor et al are famous (and increasingly incorrigible) latecomers. It is generally taken for granted that, for the 9 a.m. shoot shift they’re will not show up before 2 p.m.

However, now it appears that a lot of heroines have decided to follow suit — the prominent ones being Manisha Koirala, Kajol, Aishwarya Rai, Karisma Kapoor, Raveena Tandon and even newcomer Preity Zinta, imagine! Agreed that no artiste wants to waste time twiddling thumbs or whatever while waiting for ‘the hero’ to make his grand (belated) entry... but if this is the leading ladies’ way of getting back at the guys, I’d say it’s a rather stupid one. For the age old simple reason that, in Bollywood (as in Hollywood) it is still a man’s world.