Aamir Khan: Waiting to exhale

Rising to the occasion

Before Bollywood?s next big blockbuster comes to town, it?s time for The Rising: Legend of Mangal Pandey to make guest appearances on screen, via the promotional trailers. After having flashed on big screens before Yash Chopra?s Veer-Zaara, it?s finally on the small screen from this Sunday as the first promos of the Aamir Khan-starrer are unleashed on the airwaves.

In the making for quite some time now, the Ketan Mehta biggie is one of the most awaited movies of the year. The film which traces the revolt of 1857 through the might of a single sepoy, Mangal Pandey, features an international cast including Toby Stephens better known as the Bond baddie of Die Another Day.

While the over-three-hour epic is expected some time in August, you can now gorge on the 15-second teaser, which will appear from Sunday. The Rising also stars Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel as the leading ladies.

Ravi Behl and Naved Jaffery at a city hotel: Boogie nights. Picture by Aranya Sen

Dance dance

You have boogied with them for nine years and now it?s time to go Kaboom! Yes, that?s the name of the new dance show on STAR Plus produced by the Boogie Woogie dancing duo, Naved Jaffery and Ravi Behl. To be launched in August, the nationwide talent hunt will be in two categories Children Free Style (Below 14 years) and the Adult Free Style (15 to 30 year-olds) with a cool Rs 50 lakh for the two winners in the two groups.

?The USP this time is the money,? laughs Naved. ?We have never given such huge prize monies at a single dance contest.? The auditions are already on at four centres across the country ? Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad. In Calcutta, it is happening till Sunday at the Rabindra Sarovar Pavillion Hall, everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.

The big question: what?s new about Kaboom? ?There?s nothing new as such,? admits Ravi. ?If it ain?t broken, don?t fix it. So we have kept the basic structure same and just made some cosmetic changes if at all. One shouldn?t rock the boat too much.?

So get set for some more gruelling dance rounds to be judged by the best choreographers in the business. ?We will have both permanent and celebrity judges,? reveals Naved. ?We are recording all the auditions on video. Once we are back in Mumbai, we would pick the 60 or 70 best dancers and put them on the show. Then elimination rounds would skittle them down to 24 and finally to just eight. These eight would have to go through many hurdles before we crown the champion(s).?

Very much a part of those hurdles is the grooming session, where the eight finalists would be trained under in-house choreographers, stylists and fashion designers. ?We are looking for a star more than just a dancer,? said Ravi.