Bollywood’s Tendulkar
By Madhur Mittal

DON’T we all know this gutsy, gregarious (and gorgeous) young woman, Priya Tendulkar? Though no relation of India’s skipper of the cricket team — Sachin Tendulkar — Priya too has an uncanny knack for hitting out (verbally) and singeing the audience with red hot scorchers.

Whether it’s movies or telly shows, Priya is a tough cookie, indeed. Yet, her feminine look belies the fact. She hardly appears to be the unflinching social protagonist that most film folk fear her for. Give Ms Tendulkar a soap box (or a mike) and she suddenly undergoes a dramatic transformation as she launches forth into one topical tirade after another — punching with a devil-may-care attitude underscored with astute aggressiveness.

This was witnessed once more (and how!) when she anchored the highly popular Aap Ki Adalat episode for ZEE TV... and her ‘adversary’ was none other than the mighty Shiv Sena supremo — Balasaheb Thackeray — famous (or would "infamous" be more apt?) for giving interviews with his tongue dipped in acid! The camera confrontation had to be put off twice, I’m told, but when it did take place, each one of the specially invited guests and Press were left awestruck......

Singer turning star?

Without a ghost of a doubt, Pankaj Udhas is a singer extraordinaire; his ghazals and geets are chart topping albums more often than not, right! Our man, however, personally more interested in being a celluloid star more than anything else.....

Well, he’s already made a number of (prominent) picturisations in quite a few biggie films. And, of late, his music cassettes are backed by elaborate music videos that consequently swamp the various cable telly channels — "Starring" the singer in large than life plots and scripts shot extensively (and expensively) on foreign locales, with a redhead beauty traipsing in and out for the frames. Sure, T-Series deserves kudos for Mehak — the album has all the filmi fragrance!

That vital number!

I’m told that filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma is feeling rather anxious about his latest offering, Shool. Notwithstanding the fact that the movie was singularly saluted at almost all the trial and preview shows... what with the knock-out performances put in by Raveena Tandon and Manoj Bajpai, to mention but one (two) puissant plus points of the picture, okay?

Then what’s biting Ramu, huh? Well, the secret is that some Punditji happened to mention to the maker of hit movies such as Rangela and Satya etc, that he should avoid four-letter words if he doesn’t want his films to bomb! I mean, in the titles, guys. Like, look what happened to Ramu’s Daud, Kaun, Raat and recently, Mast — they were eminent commercial disasters! And they were all four alphabet titles.

Granted that Shool has five letters in it, but our man is worried sick about poster/banner painters who might be hopeless at spelling and could just make it Shul or Shol, see? And a four letter word is the last thing he wants after what the soothsayer saint told him!!!

Weight on, Gulu!

I say, what’s with baddie ladie Gulshan Grover, anyway? He hardly ever attends filmland functions nowadays, y’know. Isn’t he getting invited over or what...?

The one Bollywood bash he did make his presence felt was at Deepa Mehta’s do for 1947 Earth... and boy, what a portly presence it was! Yes, Grover’s put on lots of lard and has bloated to virtually twice his normal size! Just like the exaggerated (read stuffed) get ups he’s used in a number of his films — pot belly et al. I wonder whether he’s gorging himself on some grub grilled by wifey Kashish or he’s priming himself for a new Hollywood role or he’s in love all over again???