Have It/Eat It of the Week

Heard of perfumes named after stars? But Bobby Deol Cakes? Milanda Jagtiani’s cake has celebs licking their lips. It was a made-to-order cake with ingredients that Bobby loves. This special cake takes more than a day to make and includes layers of brownie cake, walnuts, caramelised nuts, praline, chocolate mousse, New York cheesecake. Then it’s covered with chocolate ganache and is topped with a cute brown marzipan puppy. Schmack!

Priyanka Chopra

Pri-Jaju war stalls Krrish

The Actress vs Secretary war is still on. And Rakesh Roshan may have to pay the price! Well, Priyanka Chopra is the heroine of his Krrish and her ex-secretary Prakash Jaju has filed a stay order. Jaju is annoyed with Chopsy Baby and claims she still owes him Rs 1.34 crore. One would think bechaara Roshan is the bali ka bakra here? But, no, Jaju has a score to settle with Roshan directly as well.The secretary had requested Roshan not to sign Priyanka till she paid him all his money, but Roshan still went headlong ahead and signed her opposite Hrithik in Krrish. But Roshan denies knowledge of it now. He claims he approached Chopsy Baby directly and is determined to take legal action against Jaju for stalling his film. Jaju is hell-bent on making Priyanka pay up, and recently in an an open letter to Salman Khan requested him to stop recommending her to big filmmakers! Aage aage dekhiye hota hai kya!

Sallu’s where the buck stops!

There has been a sudden fallout between Salman Khan and Ganesh Hegde. Sallu was so miffed with Ganesh that he asked him to step out of his Rockstar concert. Ganesh has suddenly become a rockstar himself after the release of his album. And he has been showing attitude, that too to Sallu. The choreographer who would be rockstar was unavailable for rehearsals and was sending his assistants to fill up. What’s more he’s been dedicating all his time to Shah Rukh Khan’s Don. Though caught a little off-balanced with the sudden ouster, Ganesh is putting up a brave face and hoping Sallu will work with him again soon.

Iqbal Khan

The great gen leap

Nandini Singh had reservations playing mom. So Ekta eased her out of Balaji for good. She is already out of KavyAnjali and soon her contract for Kesar will expire. But what about Iqbal Khan, the latest TV heartthrob in Kaisa Yeh Pyaar Hai? He too has refused to go for the gen leap. He hates the idea of playing an old man and wants to remain the hero, at least for now. Ekta doesn’t seem to be dealing as harshly with him, she knows this handsome hunk means TRP at the moment. But Iqbal, look at the Kyunki...Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi... team. They are bouncing with joy in spite of ageing in leaps. The team is gearing up for another 20-year-leap and Ekta has announced a 25 per cent hike in salary for all of them. Wow, playing great-great-grandma/pa sounds great!

SPOTLIGHT

Nandana Sen traumatised; back from LA

She has come back from the US shattered by the experience of working on a film called Rockin’ Meera. Sighs Nandana Sen, “When I signed the film I never knew what awaited me. The director, Param Gill, had apparently been following my work. He told the casting director, Patricia Rose, that he wanted me for the film. I was shooting another film called The Forest at the time. Now I regret ever going for Rockin’ Meera.”

She’s not willing to go into details of what happened in the US. But she’s shocked that “informed sources” claim she was “unprofessional” during the shooting. “I’m bewildered because there isn’t even one fact that’s true in what’s been said about my involvement with Rockin’ Meera! Obviously, the journalist’s source is entirely unreliable.”

She doesn’t want to discuss on-record what transpired in LA. “I don’t want to discuss why I didn’t do the film because it’s unpleasant. A key person involved with the film behaved extremely unprofessionally. His behaviour was shockingly inappropriate, in breach of all laws of professional and personal ethics, and made me extremely uncomfortable.” She pauses to gather herself together. “This project had been offered to me through my American manager Jill. Given the unfair and intolerable circumstances, and the production’s inability to take appropriate measures to mend the situation, Jill and my lawyer Jodi both advised me to not do the film.”

Nandana is shocked at the way basic facts have been distorted by “informed sources” to prove her unprofessional. “Not even the basic facts are correct. I shot for only one day for the film, not five, and I was the first person to arrive on set at 5 am, along with the American makeup artiste, long before any others arrived. There’s no question of being late. Nor did I ever demand a personal trainer, etc. That is laughable and preposterous! Contrary to what’s been written, the director was so delighted with my attitude he openly praised my performance as well as the patience with which I dealt with this long day. He said he was especially impressed by my professionalism when during one of the first shots, heavy shooting equipment came crashing down on my head. Far from throwing any alleged ‘tantrums’, I just continued with the shot with no complaint even though others on the set were horrified. The director even left me voicemail messages thanking me for being such a sport, and voluntarily sent me a DVD of the scene we shot because he enjoyed working with me so much.”

The abrupt disruption of Nandana’s schedule for Rockin’ Meera has left her with a lot of unused time. “But I’ve three films coming in the next three months. I’ve just completed an eco-friendly film, Ashwin Kumar’s The Forest. It’s an entirely American film produced by actor Richard Dreyffus. It’s a love triangle featuring me, Javed Jaferi and Ankur Vikal formatted as a thriller set in the forest. The sales agents are the prestigious Arclight Productions. We shot at Jim Corbett. It’s so beautiful and so out of it. We shot it at a stretch in two months. It was a beautiful experience.”

Nandana has also completed a “cute romantic comedy” called It’s A Mismatch, directed by Ajmal Ahmad. “I play a Gujarati-American girl falling in love with a Punjabi guy. My dad is Boman Irani who’s amazing.” Finally, there’s the Salman starrer, Marigold. Nandana admits she has a cameo in the film. “But it’s the third-most important character in Marigold. In fact, I’m dubbing the Hindi version shortly. They had a screening in LA in February which went very well. These are the positive developments in my career. As for Rockin’ Meera, I’d rather forget about it and move on.”