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Get ready for another star kid. Vinod Khanna’s 20-year-old, six-footer son, Sakshi Khanna, is tanned, lean and getting trained for the job. He went to New York to study filmmaking and returned after a semester because all he wanted to do was act.
“I’ve always wanted to act, ever since I was a kid,” said Sakshi at the lunch table in the Malabar Hill apartment he shares with his parents. Lunchtime at the Khanna residence is purely vegetarian. Actually, their kitchen has gradually grown into a veggie delight since Vinod’s wife, Kavita, can’t stand the sight of meat. The rest of the Khannas get their fill of non-veg once they step out of the house.
You can tell that Sakshi is a well-brought-up today’s kid even as he plays with the cat or pets the family Labrador. Personally, it spoke well for all of them that everybody at the table left behind a clean plate — the Khannas don’t tolerate wastage. In fact, Sakshi turned over his empty bowl with a big smile to show me that he too had finished everything on his plate.
Sakshi is raring to go before the camera and he looks qualified for it. Vinod Khanna’s own meteoric rise to the top completely on his own steam (he comes from a business family that had no connection with films) is familiar to most. Sakshi is fortunate because Kavita Khanna also has illustrious genes — she belongs to the Premier Automobiles family from her mother’s side. Her mother, Saryu Daftary (nee Doshi) is well-known as a patron of the fine arts while Kavita too has a keen ear for classical music. So Sakshi gets his creative inclinations from all sides.
Vinod is like any protective dad and has been getting Sakshi trained at Stella Adler’s acting school, followed by a stint with old acting guru Roshan Taneja. He’s also exploring the idea of letting the young man get a first-hand taste of Hindi filmmaking by putting in some time as assistant to an established director. That should be easy to set up since Vinod has worked as an actor with the best of them including Yash Chopra (Chandni) and has, in recent times, played father to Salman Khan in two of his recent hits, Wanted and Dabangg. But even before the star father lets his third kid (after Rahul and Akshaye Khanna) turn an actor, he is being tapped by many in the film industry, all of them keen to launch this new star son. So Sakshi Khanna will be a name you’ll be hearing sooner than later.
Meanwhile, it’s the routine Khan, Katrina, Kapoor names that frequent the headlines. After lying low for a while (there wasn’t much heard from her post-Tees Maar Khan), Katrina Kaif stepped out to promote Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (the third biggest commercial success of the year, after Ready and Singham) and is back to spouting wisdom with Mere Brother Ki Dulhan around the corner. This is one actress who believes, like her heroes, in aggressively promoting a film. “When you work so hard on a film, if you work at the promotion too, it will get its opening weekend collections,” she says wisely.
Katrina is following closely on Kareena’s heels. Kareena is the only actor today who has all the five Khans in her pocket — Bodyguard with Salman Khan, Ra.One with Shah Rukh, Reema Kagti’s film with Aamir, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu with Imran Khan (earlier titled Short Term Shaadi) and Agent Vinod with Saif Ali Khan.
Katrina is halfway there with Mere Brother Ki Dulhan opposite Imran, Ek Tha Tiger co-starring Salman and the new Yash Chopra-directed romance with Shah Rukh. Aamir is still on her wish list Dhoom 3 will perhaps grant it to her) and she has no film with Saif at the moment, although she did go Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me all over him in the commercially vibrant Race.
Another thing that the two big “K”s share is that neither has a film with Ranbir Kapoor. Kareena for obvious reasons, since Ranbir is her brother and she can’t possibly be cast romantically with him. And Katrina because of the distance she reportedly wants to keep from him after getting badly singed when they grew close (Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, Raajneeti) and then parted. So far, Katrina has officially stepped out of two Ranbir starrers, Barfee and Ayaan Mukherji’s next.
While his ex-flames either claw him on talk shows and interviews or avoid working with him, Ranbir has his own way of getting back at them. In a recent ad for a mobile service provider where he does a series of stand-up comedy acts, Ranbir did a hilarious one in a thin female voice. In it he likens a service provider to a girlfriend, both of whom seek a lifetime’s commitment from you!
