The underworld targeting Bollywood goes back a long way. First gangsters cosied up to filmmakers by providing finance and then it became a free for all with them extorting from the industry and even producing movies in which they forced actors to sign up for. Since the last decade or so, the police have managed to get this threat under control but now it is suddenly back with a bang. The man who is said to have been a target is none other than Shah Rukh Khan himself and the gangster doing the threatening is one Ravi Pujari.
Actually, the facts are a little muddy because Pujari’s original object of extortion had been Karim Morani, a close associate of Shah Rukh who is also a partner in some projects. According to one version, Pujari wanted Shah Rukh to do a show free for him and another version says he wanted the overseas rights of Shah Rukh’s upcoming movie Happy New Year that is being directed by Farah Khan. Morani said that he had no connection to it and that he wouldn’t be able to oblige Pujari.
Soon, three people came near his residence and fired bullets around as a warning to him. Pujari also apparently rang up Shah Rukh’s office but did not get through to the superstar. An SMS is also said to have been sent by him asking Shah Rukh to keep away from other gangsters!
In effect, in a few days, he had successfully managed to resurrect the bogey of the underworld all over again in Bollywood. Shah Rukh, meanwhile, seems to have had an interesting response to the threat.
The reason people like Pujari get to operate at will is because they are no longer located in India and carry out their rackets from foreign shores. The Indian police can’t touch them, but global cops are a different matter.
Soon after the threat, one heard that Shah Rukh had become the brand ambassador for a campaign against crime conducted by Interpol, the international policing agency. The timing of this is, in all probability, not a coincidence and it might have been Shah Rukh’s subtle message to Pujari that he is not going to cow down to threats.
Best unfriends
Once upon a time Karan Johar, Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan were the thickest of friends. But now time seems have taken its toll on them. Shah Rukh’s on and off relationship with past friends is quite well known, but Karan Johar, who started his directorial career with Kajol in his movie and whom he absolutely swore by, does not even seem to be on talking terms to her. At a recent function, they were sitting near each other but calculatedly looked in different directions without even exchanging a word. The blame has to go to Karan’s famed talkativeness and gossiping nature.
Some months ago, he is said to have been talking about Ajay Devgn in not so nice terms. What exactly it was, no one is clear about but what is known is that Devgn heard about it and had a rather unpleasant showdown with Karan. And Kajol decided that she also didn’t want anything to do with Karan.
In between there were reports that they had made peace but as the last encounter shows, Kajol has not forgiven and Karan has given up trying to make amends.
The recurring case
Kick is the most successful movie that Salman Khan has ever acted in but it was a movie made with much difficulty. Part of it was going to be shot in the United Kingdom but Salman was denied a visa because he had been convicted in a poaching case. It is a conviction that a higher court had kept on hold till his appeal was disposed off. But the Rajasthan government, where the case was registered over a decade and a half ago, has appealed against the order and said that the conviction should not be stayed.
At the Supreme Court, Salman’s legal team made arguments about why the stay should remain and these included: Salman is one of the highest taxpayers, he does charity, he brings in foreign exchange, he promotes Bollywood abroad and that it was his fundamental right to practice his profession.
All fair points but the fact is good deeds don’t wash away past actions. In fact, recently, the other serious case he is charged with, of running over pavement dwellers 12 years ago with his car while allegedly driving it drunk is also at the trial stage. And documents went mysteriously missing from the police station. Instantly a conspiracy was suspected but the papers soon turned up elsewhere in the same police station.
Overturning the joke
It started when Alia Bhatt came to Koffee With Karan, the chat show of Karan Johar and in one of those good-fun rapid-fire question answer session, she was asked who was the President of India. The correct answer was Pranab Mukherjee; instead she answered Prithiviraj Chauhan, who alas happened to be the chief minister of the very state that she lived in. Ever since then Alia had set off an entire subculture of jokes on her on social networking sites until she became identified with being a dumb beauty.
She has been living with that tag for some time but recently she erased it off in one fell stroke by an ingenious strategy and is now being talked of as the smartest girl in the industry. What Alia did was essentially join the ranks of people laughing at her. She acted in a 10-minute short film that spoofed her own dumbness. It shows her going to a gym that increases her brain and she then coming back to Karan Johar’s show to answer all the tough GQ questions he throws at her.
The video went viral almost as soon as it was uploaded and everyone is talking about Alia as the only person in Bollywood with the ability to laugh at herself. Interestingly, all her family members, her star friends like Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor and even Karan Johar are there in the short film. Her career is also going great guns and now that she has just garnered some well-deserved respect, Alia looks like she is an happy space.
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