In the early 90s, Sangeeta Bijlani had a brief career in Bollywood. After a successful stint as a model, she did some A-grade movies and then disappeared. She became more famous for being Salman Khan’s ex girlfriend than an actress. It was a relationship never destined for permanency given Salman’s temperament. Sangeeta then got involved with the cricketer Azharuddin and married him. And then she was more or less out of the public eye.
Some years back she separated from him after, it was said, he got involved elsewhere. Recently, Sangeeta has inexplicably returned to the headlines. First there were reports that she was making a comeback to movies. She has bagged a role in a project by the director Onir, who makes Indie films. It is not a main lead given that Sangeeta is well past the prime age-wise.
It is also said that after her separation from Azharuddin she had become a recluse and it was the support from Salman and his family that made her socialise again. Then came a flurry of gossip items that Salman and Sangeeta were spending a lot of time with each other. It was even said that after Salman’s return from the UK where he was shooting for Kick he was going to his farm in the outskirts of Mumbai along with Sangeeta.
There might possibly be nothing but friendship there since Salman has always maintained a cordial relationship with all his exes. Sangeeta too does that, if you go by the fact that she was recently seen campaigning for Azharuddin who is standing for elections.
No acting beauty
Sonam Kapoor, who always shoots her mouth off in the Koffee With Karan chat show and lands in trouble, has done it again. This time she bad mouthed other actresses of her generation and predictably it has not gone down well with any of them. The comment which really set an angry war of words was her statement that those who are bad looking get slotted as good actors.
The person who thought that she was the object of this snide was Kangana Ranaut. And she didn’t pull any punches in replying to Sonam. Kangana said that since she had been getting compliments for her acting in Queen, she was therefore ugly as per Sonam’s yardsticks.
Kangana added that acting had nothing to do with an actor’s physical attributes. And that the bad cinema coming out of Bollywood is the responsibility of people like Sonam who, with their overemphasis on glamour and beauty, churn out movies disconnected from reality. If you go by Kangana’s box office fortune versus Sonam’s then this an argument the former seems to be winning. While Kangana is the toast of the town today, Sonam’s career is moving at a snail’s pace. Her only movie this year Bewakoofiyan was a resounding flop.
Flop comeback
It is completely fine to make a movie with a new cast even if it is a commercial risk to do so. It is also good to make a woman-centric film even though that is also a gamble at the box office. To make a woman-centric movie with a new cast is naturally a really big risk. Any filmmaker who does that had better be realistic. It would take something sensational to make such a movie a hit. And Subhash Ghai has alas faltered totally with Kaanchi.
It released to abysmal crowds but Ghai professed to be unperturbed giving the reasoning that if there were no stars, a movie would pick up after a few days on the basis of its content. It is a sound logic. Unfortunately there was nothing in Kaanchi to make anyone who stayed away change their mind and collections continued to drop until it is now clear that Ghai’s comeback film is a big flop. Critics too have panned the movie. The reason for having no stars is to keep the budget low.
The model of cheap movies is a good one but the filmmaker needs to understand the pulse of the multiplex audience for any hope of success. Directors like Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee have managed to do it. But someone like Ghai, who has been brought up on the masala movie culture, is really at sea in that cutting-edge domain. It would have been best if he had persisted with the big-star-lavish-sets style.
False strip
The past, it is said, is never dead and constantly catching up with you. In Sunny Leone’s case that certainly seems to be true. Ever since she stepped into Bollywood, her innings as a porn star is something Sunny has been actively not publicising. Even when she was in the reality show Big Boss, where she got her first movie offer from Mahesh Bhatt, she didn’t reveal about her profession.
Recently, however something strange happened when photographs of Sunny doing a strip show at what was said to be a private party became viral online. A newspaper reported that she had performed for a group of businessmen and even gave the exact date when this was supposed to have happened. The only problem is it was not true. A furious Sunny tweeted that people should verify facts before stating them.
And that on the date mentioned she was shooting for a movie in the morning and was at a store launch in the night. Plus there was the fact that even though the men in the photos looked Indian, the currency in their hands were American. So, this was probably something that occurred in the US many years ago.
Later it became known that it was performance at a nightclub in that country. Sunny’s career meanwhile is going strong, ironically because she capitalises on the oomph factor. Ragini MMS 2 was mostly about her and it did well. And now she has just landed another movie Mastizaade, which is said to be a sex comedy. All in all, not bad going for someone who really has no illusions about her acting prowess.
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