All toned up

Madonna may not have come visiting, but someone close to her was in the country recently. Michael King, emperor of pilates, was in India to train body trainers. Pilates, as those with toned muscles will know, is the new fitness rage among health freaks in India. And the master, whose former students include Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and David Beckham, is said to be right there on top. King’s workshops, organised by Delhi-based health trainer Namita Aggarawal, were meant to give India’s own fitness masters a few guidelines on the exercise regimen. And tell them how to, truly, bend it like Beckham.

Bangla bang

Borders are merging — at least in Bollywood. After Bangladesh singer James lent his voice to Gangster and Life in a Metro, Anusheh Anadil, the vastly talented lead singer of the Bangladeshi band Bangla is singing a song for a new Hindi film, Bhoomi. Directed by Avik Mukhopadhyay, the film has music set by the Indian band Indian Ocean. And Anusheh, clearly, is as enthusiastic about Indian Ocean as the band is about her. “I listen to all Indian bands, but my special favourite is Indian Ocean,” says Anusheh, now in Calcutta for a Saarc music festival. Anusheh is pretty upbeat about the festival as well. “We have high hopes and it will be a great opportunity to meet musicians from different countries,” she says.

Sufi soul

Remember guitar-toting Rabbi Shergill, who made 18th century sufi poet Bulle Shah a household name with his hit Bulla Ki Jana Main Kaun? Now, after a gap of a few years, Sufi poetry is being resurrected by a young music director called Sameer. His album, Halka, was released last week, and Sameer hopes that its music will appeal to the young. “I was in Rajasthan and came across the songs of these Sufi poets and I thought I could adapt some of the melodies and lyrics and set them to modern music,” he says, adding that he had earlier been influenced by genres such as hip-hop and rock. Sameer, who uses both modern electronic music and traditional instruments such as the sarangi and the flute, says his treatment is going to be modern. Nothing quite like old times meeting new age.

Going bananas

What do you do when security officials ask you to eat a banana? You peel. Actress Bhairavi Goswami, who starred in the recent comedy hit Bheja Fry, will endorse that. Bhairavi was at an airport recently, carrying a bunch of bananas with her. Since these were of a special kind known as Golden Bananas, our conscientious security men were in a fix, for they weren’t quite convinced that the bananas were not arms in disguise. They went by the rule book. When passengers carry a cell phone or a camera, they have to switch it on. So clearly somebody with a banana has to eat it to prove its identity. Poor Bhairavi did so, and later explained why she was behaving like a chimp. Apparently, the secret to her staying pretty and fit are these Golden Bananas which give her energy. That, we suppose, explains how she is simultaneously shooting three films.

Dunces and dances

Madhuri Dixit knows how to roll her hips, but her co-stars in Aaja Nachle faced serious problems shaking a leg while shooting for the Dixit comeback film. The actress, back in business after a break, found the going easy — being a natural dancer — but actors Ranvir Shorey, Kunal Kapoor and Jugal Hansraj needed special classes. And not just in any old form of dance, but in the energetic — and sometimes dangerous — Kerala martial art form called kalaripayattu. But everything went well and the 22-minute dance sequence — the climax of the film — was shot without any major mishap. A step in time, it seems, saved nine — if not more.