Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Badly beaten
Ravi Jhankal, a regular actor in all Cinevista productions recently joined the cast of Hindustani. He plays a corrupt lawyer 8212; which has proved to be his undoing. Last week, the unit was shooting a court scene in which Jhankal gets beaten up by five Hindustanis in the best Hindi film traditions. The Hindustanis were so involved in the scene that they went on thrashing Jhankal, even after the director, Puneet Issar, yelled for a cut! Jhankal8217;s shirt was torn, buttons knocked out8230; he was almost beaten into pulp. To his amazement, the director asked for a retake! Jhankal, dazed by then, refused to budge and so a duplicate was beaten up instead!
Blue Funk
UTV hosted a party on Friday at a nightclub in Mumbai, to introduce new UTV programmes. And what a party it was! More television stars were packed into the place than sardines in a can. Kitu Gidwani, Pallavi Joshi, Milind Soman, Rohit Roy, Raveena Kohli, Vivek Agnihotri, Karuna Samtani8230; just to name a few biggies. Milind Soman revealed his taste for music with requests for Blues songs. But blue was the last emotion on his mind, as Soman twisted and gyrated, and the women swooned around him.
Phillips Top Ten is going in for a facelift. This time, the protagonists will be two buddies called Lallu and Panju, who will perform antics along the lines of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Lallu is from Punjab and Panju is from UP; they land up in Mumbai to eke out a living. They dabble in various professions with disastrous results each time. But will their disasters transform Philips Top Ten8217;s disastrous TRPs? Well, maybe since a Bollywood star makes his TV debut on the show. Lallu will be played by none other than Shakti Kapoor!
TV topper
The broadest smile in Tellywood must be on the face of Markand Adhikari. With their latest sitcom, Tere Ghar Ke Samne hitting the airwaves, Adhikari Brothers now churn out a phenomenal nine-and-a-half hours of software every week 8212; not counting repeats on various channel. Also, it is the only production house with six programmes on DD. Now, to broaden their reach, the Adhikaris have tied up with a channel in Colombo to produce seven hours of software every week 8212; in Sinhalese! They are also launching daily soaps in Bengali and a couple of southern languages. Says Markand, quot;By the turn of this year we will have at least 25 hours of programming in a week, which will make history in sofware production.quot;
New leaf
Yesteryears film actress Asha Parekh became the talk of Tellywood after turning producer with two serials 8212; Baaje Payal on DD 2 and Daal Mein Kaala on Star Plus. Now she has become a director with the new serial Kora Kagaz, starring Renuka Shahane and Salil Ankola!
Name game
Is name-dropping the best form of flattery? Ravi Rai does not think so. He was making a serial for DD called Parvaaz. But later, he discovered that the title had been registered elsewhere and so he had to put the serial on hold. Recently, Rai received a jolt when he found out that a producer had been approaching channels with a serial called Parvaaz 8212; which he touted was being directed by Rai! That was news to Rai himself. quot;I am not involved in that project. It is wrong to use my name to get an approval,quot; he says, adding that names don8217;t sell, stories do.
