It was the secret that almost everyone knew. And now Karan Johar has come out and said it. Well, maybe not explicitly but with so many allusions that he left no one in any doubt. Karan has finally come out of the closet to openly reveal that he is gay, even if he says that he will not utter the three words that make it a formal declaration.
In his just published autobiography, An Unsuitable Boy, Karan has written that even though everyone knows his sexual orientation he still won’t voice it because of laws that could be used to jail homosexuals.
For some time now, Karan has been using his movies to portray gay characters. Dostana, the hit movie he produced, had John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan, acting as a gay couple even though they are straight. Student of the Year had Rishi Kapoor essaying a gay character.
In the book he talks about some traumatic times. Like when some years back there were rumours that Karan and Shah Rukh Khan were in a relationship. It had been deeply painful to hear such things because Shah Rukh was like an elder brother. Karan had even discussed these rumours with him but Shah Rukh had told him to ignore them.
An Unsuitable Boy also has a part where he talks about how his friendship with Kajol ended. She had been his lucky mascot, a constant feature in all his movies. And yet, now they are not on talking terms anymore. Karan says that the final nail in the coffin was a tweet of her with one word when Ajay Devgn, her husband, had accused Karan on trying to sabotage his movie that was releasing simultaneously.
Kajol had retweeted Ajay’s tweet and added ‘Shocked’ to it. Karan says that her believing such an absurd charge made him realise that their friendship was beyond salvaging. In the book he says that he felt betrayed by her stand and that while he understood that she was standing by her husband, he was clear that she had no place in his life anymore.
Meanwhile, Kajol and Ajay Devgn have not reacted publicly against these parts from Karan’s book but in a media report a source close to Ajay said that Karan was doing this to sell his book. The source added that the falling out had in fact happened two years ago when Karan bad-mouthed Kajol behind her back and someone told this to Ajay who phoned and shouted at Karan.

Relook relaunch
Remember the overweight actress who gave such a stellar performance in Dum Laga Ke Haisha? The movie told the story of a man married to someone he is embarrassed about and became a huge hit.
The actress was Bhumi Pednekar who, since the movie released two years ago, has not been seen in any other project. That will change towards the middle of this year because she will appear opposite Akshay Kumar in Toilet – Ek Prem Katha.   That is not surprising because after Dum Laga Ke Haisha it was expected that she would be getting some good offers but what will shock people will be the Bhumi they see in the movie. Because from her overweight avatar she has now become radically svelte.
Bhumi actually had put on a lot of weight for Dum Laga Ke Haisha and so perhaps, after shedding all of it and then some, this is what her regular look will be in a long time to come in Hindi movies.
She herself believes that her second movie will be like a relaunch for her because of the change in appearance. But in the end all that will matter is how she acts and she has shown in her debut film that she is a natural. There is of course the problem of being opposite a superstar who will take most of the screen space but then that is just part of the travails of working in Bollywood.

After death
Om Puri’s death on January 6 came as a shock to everyone in the industry because he was just 66 years old and not known to be in ill health. But there were rumors that he had been having a drinking problem over the last year or two.
This was because of the failure of his second marriage and the nasty public squabble over it. And now it seems that there is going to be an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death to confirm that it was indeed due to natural causes.
Forensic tests are being done and one news report also said that the police couldn’t get possession of Puri’s phone to find out what happened during his last moments.
He had been said to be keen on meeting his son the day before but was it by his estranged wife. Puri’s driver who found his body and was the last to talk to him, has also asked for an investigation.

Big and bigger
SS Rajamouli, the south Indian director, found his 2015 movie Bahubali becoming a super hit among the Hindi film audience, despite it being a dubbed version and its stars having little following in north India. But the grand visual effects spectacle that the movie was found it getting takers beyond the usual southern markets.
The second part of the movie will release this year and all those who saw the prequel will flock to this too. The question for Rajmouli is what can he possibly do to match up to the scale of Bahubali, an enormously expensive movie that made phenomenal profits.
He however has the answer to that. He plans to make a movie on the most popular book ever in Indian history, The Mahabharata. It will be a trilogy of three movies and possibly more grand than anything Indian cinema has ever seen.
What is even more interesting, if reports are to be believed, then there are murmurs that Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are curious about the project. While that casting coup might never materialise given the complications of getting them together, it is still amusing to think what would happen should it come to pass. The most spectacular movie ever with the biggest superstars of India – just the idea of it is mind boggling.      

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