TALK TIME: Karan Johar

‘Koktails’ with Karan

Karan Johar says that he will be returning to television, probably in October, with a new series of Koffee with Karan, the chat show that has gone down very well with viewers in India and, to some extent, abroad as well.

And just in case you cannot wait that long, “the DVD of the first series will be out in June”.

He reckons his show worked so well “because films stars come across not as film stars but as people”.

Over pre-lunch drinks with Preity Zinta on the beach in Cannes, the director admits: “Some stars do ring up before the show and say, ‘Please don’t ask me about this.’ I have probably pushed the questioning as far as I can go. I am quite close to many of the people I interview.”

He laughs when I suggest he is best when he is bad and serves poison with a sweet smile. Surely, he knows of the skeletons rattling in the cupboards of his guests.

“Although 60-70 per cent of guests on the new series will continue to be film stars, by and large, I will also have industrialists and politicians,” he reveals.

Such as?

“Well, I’d love to have Lakshmi Mittal.”

So, I guess, would Arcelor.

Who else?

“The Ambani brothers.”

“Together?????”

An engaging Karan laugh: “No.”

PEN DRIVE: Sudha Bhuchar

Bukhara boy

What we need in Cannes are the combined skills of chefs like Udit Sarkhel and his old batch mate from Dadar Catering College, Jai Prakash Singh. While the former is one of the best Indian chefs in London, the latter is in charge, “hands on”, at the Bukhara at the Maurya Sheraton in New Delhi.

The management of Aspinall’s Club, the gambling establishment in London, having tasted his cooking in India, invited him to the UK.

“For three days, the usual menu was stopped and instead I did the cooking ? things like spicy leg of lamb, Murg Malai Kebab, Murg Makhni, Tandoori Aloo and a Tandoor hot plate,” says JP.

Although many have tried to copy the Bukhara, favourite of the Clintons, none has succeeded. We should, at least, have a branch in London, so that food can be sent to Cannes for the Indian parties during the film festival.

This year, we are missing Ismail Merchant, always a graceful presence at Cannes. A few years ago, for his after premiere party for The Golden Bowl, he had the food and chefs imported from Chor Bizarre in London.

The party was a great success except for one thing. Ismail catered for 250 but over 500 turned up, descended like locusts on the Indian delicacies and devoured all the food in 20 minutes.

There was a lesson to be learnt ? when Indian food is being served at Cannes, don’t be polite to the foreigners, especially the French, and allow them to go first.

Scripting tales

At Cannes, not only are there hundreds of films being shown but there are also screenplay writers here looking for the right match with producers and financiers, who are similarly searching for perfect scripts that can be turned into money-making movies.

This is why someone like Sudha Bhuchar should have been here, with her script of The Child of the Divide. This play has just been put on by the Tamasha Theatre Company at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon, south London.

Tamasha has long been keen to turn its plays into films. This happened with East is East, but unfortunately, the hit film was made by someone else, not Tamasha, of which Sudha is artistic co-director.

The Child of the Divide is a retelling of a story by Bhisham Sahani about a little boy, Pali, who is left behind when his Hindu parents flee across the border to India during the time of Partition. Many years later, his father learns his son is alive and returns to claim him back.

The only problem is that he was found by a childless Muslim couple, who have brought him up, with much love and affection, as their own son, “Altaf”, naturally after he had been blessed by a Kazi and circumcised.

In 1997, to mark 50 years since Partition, Tamasha put on Pali’s story in a play called A Tainted Dawn, where a young actress played the role of the small boy. She was seen by Gurinder Chadha who cast her as the lead in Bend It Like Beckham. The film was seen by the producers of the American soap, ER, who threw millions at the actress. That is how Parminder Nagra came to be included in the cast of ER.

I won’t give the end away in The Child of the Divide but so many of the films that come to Cannes deal with the phenomenon of migration, forced or otherwise, and the question of identity, who we are and to whom do we belong.

In a disputed case, such as that of Pali, does a child belong to its biological parents or those who have brought up the child as their own? And what is in the child’s best interests?

PICTURE PERFECT: Mona Lisa’s Indian look (top); more paintings of Mona Lisa on display in Cannes (above)

Mona Ben

In deference to the makers of The Da Vinci Code, paintings of the Mona Lisa have been hung inside the Palais Des Festival in Cannes.

The paintings, which depict Mona Lisa with a range of unusual aspects, are good, but perhaps not as subtle as those currently being done by the distinguished Mumbai artist Suruchi Chand (who studied art in both Britain and France).

She is currently doing a series on the Mona Lisa, in which the most famous resident of the Louvre has been Indianised, complete with sari, bindi and desi jewellery. In one painting, the little book she is holding turns out, on closer inspection, to be the Bhagavad Gita.

I am unsure how the French will respond to the transformation of Mona Lisa to Mona Ben, a resident of Gujarat, but even as I speak, Suruchi is on her way to France, where she lived for many years learning to paint.

PR game

PR is the name of the game in Cannes and Premier PR, one of the big names in the business with a prestige rented address on the Croisette, is starting to do bits and pieces on behalf of Indian filmmakers and films.

This year, its clients include UTV and Jagmohun Mundhra’s Provoked, a poster of which hangs in the Premier offices.

I am not saying Indian PR is bad but a company like Premier is better able to get across the ballad of Bollywood to the western media.

Tittle tattle

After Amitabh Bachchan expre-ssed disapproval of a biography written by the English writer Jessica Hines, Bloomsbury quietly shelved the project.

Bachchan will be much happier with a less than searching 30-minute documentary, in which three writers, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor and Suketu Mehta, give their views on the Bollywood icon whom they have used in their novels.

The documentary, which is being flogged in Cannes by Handmade Films of Mumbai, is called Everlasting Light.

The point made is that in India, Bachchan is not simply worshipped like a God, but that to some people he is God.