Training women

Akshay Kumar, who is a six-degree black belt, took lessons in knife fighting recently

Akshay Kumar

Akshay Kumar, who is a six-degree black belt, took lessons in knife fighting recently. He participated in the classes held for the women staff of the Mumbai Police who had brought in Russian trainers to train their lady-staffers in knife fighting. This form of martial arts, called tolpar, relies more on the reflexes and intelligence of the person, as against his/her physical strength.
Akshay said, “What I love the most about tolpar is that while normally a man possesses more physical strength than a woman, knife fighting requires intelligence and thus, with a little bit of quickness, women can actually have an edge over men and can save themselves and others with this skill.” He added that it’s his goal to make martial arts compulsory for girls in school. “In China, you have to do two years of martial arts training, without which you cannot get a graduation degree. I believe that countries with martial arts will be more peaceful, and not as physically violent as others who don’t have it.”

Hands-on Supermom

Sushmita Sen is quite the hands-on mother who strikes a perfect balance between indulgence and being strict. To cite an example, Sen tore herself away from her second tot Alisah, who was suffering from an asthma attack in order to keep her commitment to a power lunch organised for generating awareness about NGO Prerna (they work for child education). She stayed for a good part of the afternoon, greeted each guest and then excused herself before personally bidding them goodbye with a hug. But when friend and co-host artist Rouble Nagi asked her to convey to the little one that aunty was worried about her, Sen immediately dissuaded her from doing so as she thought it would encourage the moppet to use minor ailments to seek sympathy of others. With a mom like that, we’d say that little Alisah is certainly going to turn out to be a very fine lady.

Lending support

It was heartening to see Imran Khan at the launch of the United Nations music video called The Welcome as part of the UN Human Right’s public education campaign for LGBT equality in India. In fact, Khan went on to say that India was dragging its feet on the issue and he wanted to make sure that ‘we don’t look foolish’. The actor who was nattily dressed in a suit and tie also made it clear that as an LGBT supporter he was not representing Bollywood, but it was an issue he personally felt very strongly about. “If I am here today it’s my personal decision, and others may not agree with it,” he said. In fact, after the event, the actor even went up to the Chief of Global issues, UN Human Rights, Charles Radcliffe and promised that he was only a call away if required again. Attaboy!

Compiled by Namita Nivas with inputs from Geety Sahgal, Priya Adivarekar and agencies

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