Whitewash of the Week

It was shravan food fest at Goa Portuguesa and Ishaa Koppikar turned up in all-white. It was a sight no doubt. She wore a strappy white top with white capris which was okay. But imagine strappy white shoes, milky white bracelet, white colour watch.... But then she was spotted awkwardly clutching her specs and mobile. Didn’t she have a milky white bag to match?

Vidya Balan

Vidya is willin’

Is Vidya Balan game for even nudity in films now!? Our Parineeta is prepared to replace Madhuri Dixit in Shaji N. Karun’s Suryamukhi. Vidya was Shaji’s second choice to play the role of the mistress-muse of painter Raja Ravi Varma. The Dixie babe was unwilling to give dates till April 2007 and she was also apprehensive about some nudity mentioned in the script (‘relevant’ no doubt). Another problem with Dixie was her propped up fees. But with Vidya it was just the opposite. She had no date problem and her fees were also reasonable. And as for nudity, Vidya was okay with Shaji’s suggestion to express nudity either through shadows or by directly showing the nude paintings. The arthouse director is a happy man and believes Vidya’s output will be just as good as Madhuri. Maybe better, we think.

Salman Khan

Stop Sallu, someone!

What’s common between Sunjay Dutt and Salman Khan? Well, both are very very generous men. Just like Sanju, Sallu has the habit of giving away expensive gifts to whoever catches his fancy. Recently he gifted Zayed Khan two Rolex watches, each costing something between Rs 8 lakh to Rs 15 lakh! In fact, so far Salman has gifted watches that cost a total of Rs 3 crore. Shah Rukh Khan got one when he bonded with him during their Karan Arjun days. Abhishek got his reward after Dhoom-2 and Farah Khan before Main Hoon Na. Then there were technicians of Tumko Na Bhool Payenge, Willard Carroll his Marigold actor, and also Will Smith. Recently, he bought a whole apartment in Mumbai. Now his family have taken extreme measures to control Salman’s gifting spree. They have instructed the people who work with him to stop Sallu from gifting away things. They are allowed to try arguing, stopping him, snatching away the gift or any means possible, but if they fail they will lose their job! So they have a choice: either lose their job or their lives.

SPOTLIGHT

Saumya Tandon

Saumya’s ‘crash’ on Gaurav

Call it the negligence of the production staff, lack of security measures or simply bad luck, accidents have become a regular feature in our day-to-day telly life. And at the receiving end of it are our very own television stars. And the latest to join the bandwagon of accident- prone stars is our very own Rusty of Aisa Des Hai Mera, Saumya Tandon. It so happened that while shooting a particular scene, Saumya lost her balance and came tumbling down the stairs.

Shooting at Kamalistan Studios, a scene required her to run down a flight of stairs. Instead, she slipped and came crashing down the whole way! Thankfully, she didn’t suffer any major injury; however she landed up with an injured back, several bruises and a nagging pain. But the good news was that despite the pain, Saumya continued shooting and was back on the sets next day again for a dance sequence. Saumya says with a smile, “I did an X-Ray and luckily there were no injuries, but I was in a lot of discomfort, could hardly walk. But I wanted to continue my shoot; I know how valuable time is.”

The unit was shooting late in the night four days ago when the accident happened. Says Saumya, “This scene had me coming face-to-face with Samay (Gaurav Chopra) and it was raining heavily; I was struggling with my dupatta and umbrella at the same time. In the scene, my dupatta was to fly off, and Gaurav had to come to my rescue and return my dupatta, after which I had to run away from him down the stairs. Then all I know is that I had crashed to the bottom of the stairs.” Interestingly, Gaurav’s recent entry as Samay in this Sony drama was supposed to have a big impact, but it seems like his love interest Saumya already bore the impact of their first scene together! — Sampurn