The deadpan Devgan can hold on to that expression even when he’s face to face with the ‘wild beasts’. It’s not the ‘alligator’ but the ‘escalator’ that takes away the colour from his face. Recently, he stumbled on one and had a great fall. Now he is seen climbing up the staircases, discretion being the better part of valour.

Ramu’s next item: Riya

Riya Sen

Item songs seem to be Ram Gopal Varma’s big turn-on. He got both Sameera and Ishaa to do one each in Darna Manaa Hai and Company?and their lives were never the same again. Now it’s the dimunitive and peppery Riya Sen who’s caught the star-discoverer’s attention. Moon Moon Sen’s daughter, being talked-about in the film industry for all the wrong reasons, is about to get the Varma makeover treatment. Riya is going to perform an item song in Varma’s James which will launch Mohit Alawat as the “new flavour at Varma’s Factory”. Confirming this, Varma said, “I saw Riya in a music video with Jackie Shroff. She immediately caught my attention. There’s something very appealing about her onscreen. I was on the look-out for the right girl to do an item song for the credit titles in James. She fitted the bill.” Will this be the beginning of new things for Riya in Varma’s production house? “I haven’t really offered her anything else. The deal right now is just for one song. That’s it,” says Ramu. Considering the impact of Ramu’s other item girls ? Ishaa in Company, Sameera in Darna Manaa Hai, Koena in Road and Rukhsar in ‘D’, Riya can comfortably hope for a new beginning to her stagnant career.

Mylene

Milind’s muse: Mylene

She is all of 24. She is half-French, half-Chinese. She’s an accomplished actress and now she has an Indian connection. Mylene Jampanoi, the female lead in Nalin Pan’s film, Valley of Flowers, shares screen space with none other than Naseeruddin Shah and Milind Soman. She plays this mystifying, beautiful Ushna who has Milind (playing Jalan, a gang leader residing on the passes of the Himalayan mountains) falling passionately in love with her. Well, there is some truth in this story. Milind and Mylene are passionately in love with each other and Milind doesn’t deny it, not any more. Admittedly, he has been seeing this enigmatic beauty for a year now, and love happened when he was in Ladakh shooting for the film last year. Both love travelling and are nature’s babies. So their love liaison is carried on beyond the scope of prying eyes back home. Milind maintains they are still ‘getting to know each other better’. But it looks like ‘real love’ has arrived, finally, and he’s been seeking approval from Madhu Sapre, his one-time ‘real love’ as well! And as Madhu too thinks she’s beautiful, leaves him smiling.

SPOTLIGHT

Sushmita Sen

Sssush! Hush?

The juiciest story doing the rounds is from the sets of Kalpana Lajmi’s Chingaari. Sushmita Sen and Mithun Chakraborty were very uncomfortable working together. The story goes that Sush found Mithun getting too up-close for comfort and she left the sets fuming the very first day. According to sources, Sush was shooting for a rape scene when she felt the veteran touching her inappropriately. But later, Sush did a hush job on the incident, declaring that what she felt was entirely her business and that she stands her ground. And she denies there was any discomfort and she would have created hell if it were true. She also added that she respects the man in question, a very senior man in the film industry.

Everyone is in a denial mode so Kalpana too denied knowledge. She shrugged it off as a professional hazard, but added that Mithun did look disturbed during the shoots and believes that Mithun cannot take the fact that he has aged and his comeback films haven’t clicked. What’s that supposed to mean?

Coming back to Sush, it is reported that she, determined to hog all the limelight, has not only sat herself down with Kalpana on the editing table but even during the takes, had been changing the lines given to her. But, again, Kalpana denies this. Even the big showdown she had with Sush... True, Kalpana is not one to brook any nonsense, but when it’s another tough cookie in the picture, the sparks can fly, no?