Govinda, 3 others in court over advertisement
MUMBAI: A criminal complaint has been filed against film actor Govinda and
three others for projecting the judiciary in an obscene manner in a
television advertisement of a soft drink company.
A local court adjourned to July 11 the complaint, filed Wednesday urging for
issue of proceedings against film actor Govinda Ahuja, model Meeta
Vashistha, Prahlad Khakhar, director of Spring of Advertisement Company and
Pepsico India Holding Company, manufacturers of soft drink "Mirinda".
The complaint, filed by social activist Mohammed Patel, alleges that the
respondents have committed offence under Section 292 of the IPC which deals
with obscenity. It describes the advertisement as vulgar for showing the
judiciary in bad light.
The advertisement shows actor Govinda in a court as an accused and the judge
(Meeta Vashistha) inquires from him about his defence. Govinda takes a
Mirinda and tells her "have a sip yar" and again "zor ka jhatka dheere se
lage". After taking the drink the judge dances with Govinda on a ship which
breaks open a wall of the court room, the complainant alleged.
Counsel for the complaint, Ramesh Pandey, urged for criminal action against
the respondents for allegedly depicting the judiciary in a vulgar manner.
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Hindi movies in 2001: In search of audience
Mumbai: If we disregard the two erotic thrillers "Kasoor" and "Pyar Tune Kya
Kiya," which have succeeded in cities, the first four months of 2001 have
given the Mumbai film industry enough reason to press the panic button.
Nothing seems to work at the box-office. Not the stars, not the songs. And
certainly not the hype.
Ajay Devgan's Raju Chacha and Rahul Rawail's Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi were
released as the immensely popular Kajol's first two post-marriage comeback
films. Both films revolved to a large extent round Kajol's characters. Both
were miserable box-office failures.
Raju Chacha, which Ajay Devgan's cousin directed, was reportedly made at a
cost of Rs 300 million. Its failure has put the Devgans so much in the red
that they backed out of their commitment to produce composer Vishal
Bhardwaj's directorial debut Burf - an India-Pakistan drama with Sushmita
Sen in the lead - at the last minute.
Stars paid as much as Rs 20 million-50 million don't ensure a box-office
draw any longer. Shah Rukh Khan, Govinda, Aishwarya Rai and Karisma Kapoor
are considered four of the hottest stars in Mumbai. But their participation
could not even ensure a decent opening for Shashilal Nair's cleverly crafted
cop thriller One Two Ka Four, Deepak Sareen's anemic love story Albela,
Shyam Benegal's musical Zubeida, Indra Kumar's potboiler Aashiq and David
Dhawan's crude and corny comedy Jodi No 1.
While Rakesh Roshan, the man who gave the film industry its biggest hit Kaho
Na...Pyar Hai and star Hrithik Roshan last year, is putting finishing
touches to his next ambitious venture, nobody in the film industry seems
certain any longer about what makes a project click - or crash.
If the big-budget marathons have fallen short of breath, intimate human
stories haven't fared any better. Prakash Jha's Rahul, about a boy's search
for his mother, went off in search of an audience. The film had sold itself
on the strength of its music and emotional content.
Vikram Bhatt's stylish thriller Kasoor and Rajat Mukherjee's unusual love
triangle Pyar Tune Kya Kiya have been declared successes only because of the
reasonable prices at which they've been sold to distributors.
Ram Gopal Varma, the producer of Pyar Tune Kya Kiya, says, "The film cost
around Rs 50 million to make. Even if it makes a profit of Rs 10 million I'd
say it's better off than most films nowadays."
All eyes are now glued to Suneel Darshan's Ek Rishta: The Bond Love, which
features the never before team of Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar and
opens on May 18, and Aamir Khan's first home production Lagaan, which is due
in mid-June. One or both of these big budget epics, the industry hopes, will
pull it out of the doldrums.
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Leading ladies steal thunder from Bollywood heroes
Mumbai: April and May seem to be the months set aside for the women in
Bollywood. Leading ladies like Urmila Matondkar, Raveena Tandon set the
flavour of these months with bold and brilliant portrayals of Indian women.
In last Friday's sole Hindi release, Pyar Tune Kya Kiya, Urmila Matondkar
wowed audiences and critics with her ruthlessly honest performance as a
psychotically obsessed woman who carries her fascination for a married man
to extreme lengths.
It isn't a conventional running-around-trees role. Critics in Mumbai are
going ga ga over Urmila's performance. Some are even calling her the "hero"
of the film.
Congratulatory calls have been pouring in from everyone, including Urmila's
leading man Fardeen Khan's father Feroz Khan and Fardeen's brother-in-law
Hrithik Roshan.
"Frankly, I was quite nervous about the way my role would be perceived by
audiences. My character, Riya Jaiswal, is a very disturbed and unusual
character. I enjoyed playing her. But I wondered how audiences would react
to a heroine who shows some of the ugliest emotions obtainable. Now I have
the answer," Urmila says, sounding cautiously jubilant.
Drawing from unfathomed reserves of emotions within her, Urmila has stripped
away her habitual glamour quotient to play straight from the heart in Pyar
Tune Kya Kiya. The fact that this heroine-oriented drama has been widely
appreciated in the cities where other recent heroine-centric mainstream
films like Shyam Benegal's Zubeida flopped speaks favorably for other
similar experiments with mainstream conventions, especially Kalpana Lajmi's
Daman, which opens coming Friday.
Like Rajat Mukherjee's Pyar Tune Kya Kiya, Lajmi's Daman revolves completely
round the female protagonist, played by National Award winner Raveena
Tandon. "Yes, you can say she's the hero of my film in the truest sense of
the term," Lajmi says.
Playing the difficult role of the abused wife Durga who finally stands up
against her husband's barbaric machismo, Raveena single-handedly holds up
the film. Interestingly, while the Hindi film industry is said to be
completely male dominated, both Urmila Matondkar in Pyar Tune Kya Kiya and
Raveena Tandon in Daman pre-sold their respective films to the audience.
The actresses seem determined to take on their male counterparts on common
turf. Both Raveena and Urmila went out of their way to ensure a safe passage
from production to the release of their respective films.
Raveena, who attended a grand party Monday evening in Mumbai, hosted jointly
by Sahara India's chief Subrato Roy and politician Amar Singh in honor of
her National Award, acted in Daman free of cost and even wore second-hand
clothes in the film. Urmila ruthlessly snipped off her tresses for the
short-haired fashion model's look, which has become a rage among audiences.
To preserve continuity, Urmila shot for no other film during Pyar Tune Kya
Kiya.
The actresses of mainstream Hindi cinema are determined to make a difference
at the box-office. In Suneel Darshan's lavishly mounted multi-starrer Ek
Rishta: The Bond Love, which opens on May 18 and stars Amitabh Bachchan and
Akshay Kumar in the central roles, the three principal actresses -- Raakhee,
Juhi Chawla and Karisma Kapoor -- feature in prominent plot-defining roles.
Says Darshan, "In our traditional joint family system the mother or the wife
are given the status of the head of the household. So why should it be
otherwise in our films?"
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Anupam Kher joins campaign against slaughter houses
Mumbai: Actor-filmmaker Anupam Kher is the latest celebrity to join the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign against the
cruelty practised in slaughter houses.
In a letter to Mumbai municipal commissioner, K Srivastav, Kher said,
"Undercover video documentation shot in December shows animals arriving in
dismal conditions, with their bones broken and bodies wounded. Such animals
suffer for hours until they are killed."
Referring to the sick and dying animals arriving at Deonar in north-east
Mumbai in overcrowded trucks, he urged Srivastava to take immediate
necessary action to put an end to cruelty against animals.
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Indian poster for Cannes
Bombay-based painter Subhash Awchat has sought to capture the emotional
range of Indian cinema in a poster for this year's international Cannes Film
Festival.
"I have drawn inspiration from our traditional culture and Sanskrit
calligraphy and mixed them with some ideas from earlier paintings," Awchat
told Reuters on Wednesday.
The work by Awchat, a film buff, will be displayed at the 52nd international
Cannes Film Festival which starts on May 9. He is the first Indian who has
been chosen to design a poster for the event.
The poster depicts a young monk in ochre robes holding a DVD who is seated
on a cow with a bouquet of flowers in her mouth. In the orange background
are religious scriptures written in black.
The "modern" monk represents enlightenment while the benign-looking cow,
regarded as sacred in India, symbolises humanity and emotions in films and
"welcomes the people at Cannes with her bouquet," he told Reuters.
He said he wanted to show how emotions had been vital to making films
successful during the 50 years of Indian movie making.
Right from the first silent movie "Raja Harishchandra" to the recent
blockbuster "Kaho Na Pyar Hai" "emotions play a driving force in our films,"
he said.
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Profile of Anuradha Paudwal
Anuradha Paudwal is one of the most talented playback singers in the history
of Hindi films and perhaps one of the most controversial artistes. Her
career
started with the film Abhimaan starring Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, the music
director was S. D. Burman, though Lata Mangeshkar claims that Anuradha was
given a break by her brother Hridhaynath Mangeshkar for a Marathi film. But
it
was Burmandada's film that got her the recognition of a singer.
Anuradha Paudwal was a student of Xavier's college who participated in the
college's cultural programmes, but she did not have a background of film
music, she married Arun Paudwal who was the music arranger of S. D. Burman.
In 1976 Anuradha got her big break for the film Kailcharan starring
Shatrugan
Sinha and Reena Roy. This Subhash Ghai film had music by Rajesh Roshan. Her
first solo number was for the film Aap Beeti starring Hema Malini and Shashi
Kapoor and music by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Anuradha Paudwal got some good
numbers
from the duo who were churning out hits one after the other. She also sang
intermittently for other music directors such as Rajesh Roshan (Des Pardes),
Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji-Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhataa) and
Usha
Khanna (Souten, Sajan Bina Suhagan). Meanwhile her husband Arun Paudwal in
the
pair of Anil-Arun gave many hit numbers in Marathi films for which Anuradha
sang some resplendent numbers in Marathi like Disatein Mazlaa
(Ashtavinayak),
Raja Lalkaari, Kaalya Maatita Maatitaa, etc.
Anuradha Paudwal became a singer to reckon with when she rendered some
exceptional numbers for the film Hero, music by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Her song
for Mere Mann Bajaa Mirang Utsav won her the first Filmfare award in 1985.
She also came into focus when she challenged Lata Mangeshkar's claim to
having
recorded the maximum number of songs in a single day. She also accused the
Mangeshkar sisters for indulging in monopoly.
This outspoken nature at times landed her in trouble as the music directors
of
the industry feared to face the wrath of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle
and
they avoided Anuradha Paudwal often. Many a times Anuradha's songs were
dubbed
by Lata such as Main Teri Dushman (Nagina) and many such songs.
Disillusioned, since her career was not making any headway, she joined hands
with Gulshan Kumar who was about to bring a revolution in the music
industry.
Her success streak began from the film Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka, Tezaab,
Ashiqui,
Meera Ka Mohan, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, Ram Lakhan, etc. Her success in a
way
set a trend for the singers, such as Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik and
Sadhana Sargam. Who started getting better songs to sing and through
T-series
Anuradha Paudwal brought the playback singers into focus. Her new found
status
also got her involved in some controversies like dubbing songs of her
contemporaries (the infamous dubbing of Alka Yagnik's songs of the films Dil
and more recently Itihaas), also her much rumoured affair with Gulshan
Kumar.
Her dominance in the T-series had fueled the rumours.
Despite the controversies, Paudwal continued to conquer new horizons and
winning accolades (Anuradha has won three Filmfare awards in a row for
Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin and Beta in a row). She was on the verge
of being the next Lata Mangeshkar. Even the legendary composer O. P. Nayyar
commented, "Lata is finished, Anuradha has replaced her."
During this period, everything seemed to be working for the singer who
left her contemporaries far behind. Kavita Krishnamurthy has always
stated that, "Among my counterparts (Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy,
Sadhana Sargam, etc.) Anuradha is the best singer."
In her peak time Anuradha Paudwal announced that she would exclusively sing
for T-series only. This stand benefited Alka Yagnik who just zoomed to the
top
with newfound association with Nadeem-Shravan and Anu Malik, who had
stopped
composing for Gulshan Kumar due to some differences. As she stopped singing
songs for films and concentrated more on devotional and cover-version
albums,
she harmed her immensely successful career. For almost five years, Anuradha
Paudwal did not sing for many films and for any other music company.
It was only recently that she started rendering songs for companies outside
T-series. After the brutal murder of Gulshan Kumar, her hold over T-series
diminished. Anuradha Paudwal has started singing outside T-series and met
with
lukewarm response. So far she has given a few hits like Kismat Se Tum
(Pukar)
Akeli Hai Yeh Miss Khiladi (Mr & Mrs Khiladi), Zara Aankhon Se Kajal (Hum
Aapke Dil Mein Rehtein Hai), Chaha Hai Tujhko (Mann) and Jogiya (Deewane).
But only time will tell if this talented crooner can regain her past glory.
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Vinod Kambli agree to play in movie Anarth
Mumbai : Former Indian cricketer Vinod Kambli is set to make their
Bollywood debut soon. Actor Sunil Shetty said there was a good role
for Vinod Kambli in a movie 'Anarth', to be directed by Ravi Dewan.
He said : "As I am acting in the film, I asked Kambli if he was
interested
in the role and he agreed." Shetty said Kambli was a very talented guy
and
a very good singer too.
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