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Journalism of Courage
Age matters
Actress Shefali Chhaya of Banegi Apni Baat fame is on a roll. Her stunning performance as Bhiku Mhatre’s wife in Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya seems to have done her a world of good. Recently, she was offered a mother’s role in a Kannada film. She accepted the role only because she was told that the film revolves around a mother-son relationship and that it was being made for the Panorama section of the IFFI. But now we hear that she has walked out of the film after she got to know that the hero who was to play her son is 45-years-old! “Hasratein, where I play a mother to a 16-year-old has caused enough damage to my career. And try imagining me as the mother of a man who’s one-and-a-half times my age,” she fumes.
Old wine
When it comes to re-telecasting Doordarshan rejects and have-beens, Zee TV is presently leading the pack. Already you have Shanti and Mahabharat being repeated on Zee. In keeping with this trend the channel has now decided to air film producer-cum-actor Jay Mehta’s Jung. Earlier, the serial had an unsuccessful run of 25 episodes on DD 1 because it couldn’t find any sponsors and then there was some problem between the producer and the marketing agency, Plus Channel. Now it resurfaces on Zee TV after a gap of one year under a new name, Vishwas. It is also learnt that Harish Shah’s Des Pardes which went off DD 2 after 10 episodes will now be aired on Zee TV.
New high
Actress Pallavi Joshi and her director-husband Vivek Agnihotri of Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum are in the news. After directing a few episodes of Saturday Suspense, Agnihotri now directs a story called Neha’ to be telecast in X-zone, the thriller series on Zee TV. What’s interesting is that Pallavi turns producer with this episode. The story revolves around a scientist who is posted to a remote military base to conduct soil tests and his daughter. Unlike his other stories, for a change, this one does not have Pallavi acting in it as well. Instead the lead roles are played by the Saanp Seedhi man, Mohan Kapur and Smita Bansal of Challenge fame. Another point worth mentioning is that the director hasn’t used any compiler graphics and the episode has some excellent camera work which took him 10 shifts instead of the regular four. “No producer would have been able to make it the way I’m doing it, especially because of budget constraints. So we decided to produce it ourselves and it’s been a fabulousexperience,” beams Agnihotri.
