Name game

Did you know that Salman Khan and Chunky Pandey were buddies? Well, sort of, anyway. The two happened to go to the same school — though Pandey was a few years senior to Khan — and both grew up in Mumbai’s Bandra area. But a funny problem has cropped up between the two friends. In Khan’s latest home production Dabangg, the lead, played by the macho hero himself, is called Chulbul Pandey. Ever since Pandey found this out, he has been demanding royalty for the use of his initials CP and also his surname Pandey! Both the friends have been sparring with each other — all in good humour, of course. Last heard, Khan tweeted a picture of him and Pandey with the caption “Chunky and Chulbul Pandey” where the real and reel life Pandeys glare at each other. All we can say is ki farak Pandey hai !

Cap caper

Seems it’s not just Himesh Reshammiya (he of the nasal voice fame) who has a fetish for caps. Reshammiya has company in the cap department in none other than Sajjid Khan — not to be confused with funnyman and director Sajid Khan. And apparently, this Sajjid, who happens to be one half of the music composing duo Sajjid-Wajid and who have scored the music for such films as Tere Naam, Partner, Wanted and Dabangg, is very possessive about his headgears. Sajjid has been heard joking, “A lot of people in the music industry have started wearing a cap, emulating my style.” Does he mean that he set the trend of wearing caps and that Reshammiya is merely an imitator? Guess we won’t put a cap on that debate in a hurry.

Common man

Tollywood actor Subrat Dutta, known for his performances in films like Swapner Pheriwala, Bibar and the recent Achin Pakhi, will now be seen in an off-beat Bollywood film called Madholal Keep Walking, which will be releasing across India on August 27. Directed by documentary filmmaker Jai Tank, the film won him the Best Actor award at the Cairo Film Festival in 2009. Dutta, who has acted in relatively little known films such as 88 Antop Hill, plays a common man in Mumbai who faces extraordinary circumstances in his utterly ordinary life. Incidentally, the role was initially offered to the versatile Irrfan Khan. Dutta’s next big release will be Ram Gopal Verma’s Rakta Charitra.

Fall girl

Talk about the perils of perfection. Divya Dutta, best known for her roles in Delhi 6 and Veer Zara, got a resounding applause on the sets of the Anup Das movie Life Express. The actress, who plays the deglamourised role of a village belle in the movie, was delivering a shot where she accidentally falls down the staircase. Now Dutta came tumbling down with such verisimilitude and made the whole sequence look so real that a technician rushed to help her. Result: the scene had to be shot again even though the poor girl had given a perfect shot. But being a natural, no doubt she came off with flying colours yet again.

Cinema calls

Ustad Zakir Hussain, the renowned classical musician and tabla player, is once again turning his formidable talents to scoring music for movies. Hussain, who has earlier composed the music for such films as Aparna Sen’s Mr & Mrs Iyer, has done the music for Sona Jain’s film, For Real. The film, which is set to be released on August 20, seems to have touched a chord in Hussain. “In a way I can relate to the film. In the movie the mother is a traveller and the kids feel neglected. In my case, my father used to travel a lot and I can relate to the mindset of the small girl Zoya in the film. The music gels with the theme of the film completely.” Here’s to more such jugalbandis between Hussain and the celluloid.