It was a touching gift from one friend to another. Asha Bhosle and Sunjay Dutt bonded like friends during the recording of Asha And Friends. And Asha has been mighty impressed by his singing. To ward off any impending danger on him, like a true friend she gifted him a gold Ganapati studded with semi-precious stones. Sunjay’s sigh of relief at the verdict is surely the result of the prayers his friends offered.

Bips is now a site by herself

She says her best friend is her laptop. Now, since when did we know John Abs as that? Bips is hogging the limelight once again with films like Corporate, Omkara, Dhoom 2 one after the other and Rituparno Ghosh’s Draupadi also on the anvil she has a good mind to use her best friend (not John Abs) a little more. Bips is launching her website which she will maintain herself. Now that’s quite ambitious especially for an actress. How many of them are this Net-savvy? But Bips is, and in her website she’ll be providing daily updates of her life, thoughts, observations and actually share her life with her fans. And that’s not all. She will even auction her personal belongings every month, to help the Make A Wish Foundation with whom she has been associated for the past two years. Can we make a wish, too, Bips?

Celina Jaitly

Steps towards improvement

Celina Jaitly will do all it takes to enhance her ‘package’ as an actress. And she is doing that by taking jazz ballet lessons from Terence Lewis. For the past few months she has been a regular at his Bandra studio sweating it out to improve her skills as a dancer. Her trainer says that though she lacks in skill a little bit, she makes up for it with her enthu. It’s her enthu that has so far got her so many comedy films — so that we could laugh at her? — from No Entry to Jawani Diwani, from Tom Dick and Harry to her latest Apna Sapna Money Money..? Even her forthcoming Red, Shakalaka Boom Boom and Hello are of the fun genre. But putting on her dancing shoes indicates that she’s not finding her career position too funny.

SPOTLIGHT

Rupali Ganguly and (below) Kashmera Shah

Look, Maa! No teeth!

The popularity graph of the reality programme Bigg Boss shows Rupali Ganguly at its nadir. She is having a pretty tough time there. And, boy, is her mother Rajni Ganguly fuming!

Rupali has been having problems with spitfire Kashmera Shah. Kashmera had lashed out against her saying Rupali had lied about not knowing how to cook and then ended up cooking so well. That must be a stunt she had pulled to impress but it seems to have backfired. But her mother defends her baby saying, “She actually never knew how to cook, but two days before Bigg Boss, she underwent training in our kitchen to make different dishes and it’s obvious she learnt well.”

Mom dearie doesn’t stop at that. Hearing Rupali cry on television about the dirty politics, manipulations and groupism she has seen for the first time in her life, her mom gave an inkling to her daughter’s innocence. “She is very innocent and everyone is jealous and insecure because she is different and because she is really nice..Neki kar aur dariya mein daal (Do good and don’t think about it after that) that’s what we taught her from childhood. That’s the sanskaar (traditions) I have given her. She is not like Kashmera who said she took five years to learn how to make a chappati. Kashmera speaks pure nonsense. She plays cheap politics and sets up one against the other. She is also a liar. Rupali is a girl who feels that where there is a will, there is a way.” That’s one angry mother speaking!