On a heroine high

Madhuri Dikshit is on a roll nowadays. When she moved back to Mumbai along with family in 2011 and tried to return to Bollywood, it was not exactly with open arms that the industry welcomed her. She got some brand endorsements with television but no meaty role came her way. She hung around and got a gig as a judge in a reality dance show. But over the last year or so, things have dramatically swung her way.
Her movie Gulaab Gang is based on the true story of a group of women who radically changed the rural area they lived in by using strongarm methods to combat injustice. It is a totally heroine-centric role, something you would struggle to find in Bollywood and to that extent Madhuri’s patience seems to have paid off.
And then you also saw Madhuri recently doing a dance act recently at the IIFA film awards in Macau. That too is not something ageing heroines do. Besides Madhuri, there was also Sridevi at the event. She too had made a successful comeback with English Vinglish.
So, the natural question is whether something has changed in the way Bollywood looks at ageing heroines. Not quite perhaps. Sure, Madhuri also has another movie in Dedh Ishqiya where she will play a key role but there are also all the younger women who are vying for these roles. And all said and done, no producer is going to put in really big budgets for such movies.

Second time proven


Vikramaditya Motwane is an interesting sort of man. His first directorial venture, Udaan, was a small budget movie on the offbeat theme of a son and an abusive father. No one expected it to amount to anything and yet when people saw it, they immediately recognised a fine work.
It might not have made a lot of money but critically everyone was raving. And now his second movie Lootera has released with a star cast which includes Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh. It has once again been applauded by all and sundry. While it is only now that Motwane has earned his directing stripes, he has been around in Bollywood for over 15 years. He dropped out of college to assist Sanjay Leela Bhansali and has been evolving on the job.
He seems like an honest man for a hypocritical industry. He is often asked why he went the regular route of casting big stars. His response is that that is just the way of the industry. If someone is pumping in millions of dollars, then he will want a few things. The thing is not who is cast but the movie that is made.
In fact, Ranveer Singh has been quoted as saying that he just didn’t get the film initially and had refused to do it. It was only after Motwane sat down with him and read out the script that he understood what a great movie it could turn out to be. And from what critics are saying, it’s a faith that seems to have paid off.

The Khanna aftermath

Looks like the mess that the departed Rajesh Khanna left behind in terms of his family and property is not going to get any resolution soon. Khanna, do remember, had developed a serious alcohol problem in his last days.
He had been separated from Dimple Kapadia for decades but they had not legally divorced. Dimple brought up their two daughters while he lived alone in his palatial bungalow Aashirwad, which was probably the most valuable asset that he owned.
And yet, towards the end of his life, when he was bedridden and facing death, Dimple and her daughters had returned to the bungalow ostensibly to take care of him. He passed away and they staked claim over the property.
Except that they didn’t reckon with a woman called Anita Advani, who said that she had been Khanna’s long standing partner and had a claim to his estate. The family’s reaction was predictable.
They did not allow her in and even refused to let her participate in the last rites. Anita, however, went to court using a new law passed recently which gave legal rights to live-in partners. In January this year, she also filed a criminal case accusing Dimple and her son-in-law Akshay Kumar of forgery and trespass. Now, there are reports that Anita has tried to seek an out of court settlement.
She wants compensation in return for not pursuing the cases. But Dimple has apparently turned down the offer and wants to slog it out in court. Given that the control of the property is with her and she can afford better lawyers, it is not a surprising thing to do. It’s very hard to sift who is in the right in such a situation but a dragged out case is probably in no one’s interest.

Family dispute

It’s been actually some time since Yukta Mookhey was a household name in India. Certainly, Bollywood has already forgotten about her. But there was a time when it was possible that she could make a mark. In 1999, she became Miss World and that was in fact a time when being crowned at an international beauty pageant automatically meant a career in Bollywood.
She would have been part of a long line of actresses in that era. Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai had started the trend and both of them were in huge demand at the box office. There was also Lara Dutta and Priyanka Chopra. All the beauty queens had some success going for them in the silver screen even if many didn’t sustain it.
In 2002, Yukta’s first movie, Pyaasa, released. It sank without a trace and her career never got out of that shock. Plus there was the fact that she was a bad actress. It took four more years for another movie which also flopped.
She was well and truly written off. Now Yukta is back in the news again but for some non-filmy reasons. It was reported that she has filed a case of dowry harassment against her husband, one Prince Tuli, who is a businessman. She had also complained of sexual abuse but what is a little puzzling is that she has not been living with him for a year. This could well be part of a protracted legal separation.

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