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They were two damsels in income tax (IT) distress and both hid behind their respective spokespersons for a while. But when it came to stepping out into the media glare, they were starkly different. While Katrina Kaif at a book release had Pritish Nandy (of all the people) throwing a protective arm around her and guarding her like a Rottweiler from any question other than those related to the occasion, Priyanka Chopra was far more courageous and confident. In fact, she was thrown to the wolves all by herself since the seven husbands she murdered in Saat Khoon Maaf were kept away and PC was presented to the media as Susanna the bride-in-white who morphs into Susanna the widow-in-black.
Katrina Kaif had writer Chetan Bhagat (who sucked up to her by fawning over her Sheila ki jawani from the dais), Gulzar, Anupam Kher and Pritish posted as her watchmen to keep at bay any inconvenient questions. I say, Pritish of all the people, because he is the former journalist who had ferreted out the identity of the father of unwed mother Neena Gupta’s little baby and had published it in his weekly, much to the actress’s dismay. That was of course two decades ago when Neena was flaunting her belly quite unabashedly. The baby has now grown up into Masaba, a dress designer with a store of her own in Juhu and the whole world knows that she is the daughter of Vivian Richards. But when Masaba was born out of wedlock in the 1980s, it was controversial and pitifully hush hush. At that time Pritish was like any normal journalist with a nose for a good story and a controversial headline. Today his puritanical behaviour is like the old sau chuhe khake billi chali haj ko. Anyway, one is told that Kat had threatened to drop out of the book release at the last minute if Pritish didn’t give her an assurance that no awkward questions would be asked by the media. Unfortunately, Katrina has a PR team and a business manager who are more loyal than the king and who advise her and set the straitjacketed rules when she steps out. Ugh, stifling.
This was quite unlike Priyanka Chopra who also has her team of advisers but had the guts to face the media full on. She may have rehearsed likely questions and the correct answers with her team before entering the Taj Land’s End for the Saat Khoon Maaf function but Priyanka came prepared to take any question. There were no attempts by the PR person handling the event or by producer-director Vishal Bhardwaj to muzzle the media or put a ban on the kind of questions they could ask her.
It was even more inconvenient a spot to be in for Priyanka because with Neil Nitin Mukesh in New Zealand for Abbas-Mustan’s Players (Hindi version of The Italian Job) and Irrfan Khan shooting in Delhi, Vishal Bhardwaj decided that if he couldn’t get all seven husbands on stage together, it was better not to have any of them at the function. Therefore, the spotlight was on PC alone. Besides, Priyanka was the one who had behind her reports of Shahid Kapur (dressed in his shorts) opening the door to the IT guys and she knew that there would be inevitable questions on all of it. Still, she faced it solo, came prepared with answers like, “Shahid lives three minutes away, so I called him,” and faced the ordeal like a true trooper. Kat and her zealous advisers came off as effete in the bargain. And to think that Katrina didn’t even have to face anything like Ranbir opening her door in his shorts!
One hears that in all this, Shahid is not amused for two reasons. Nope, says he to friends, he wasn’t wearing shorts, he had his pyjamas on. The IT guys had no business getting his sartorial details so wrong. And two, he doesn’t open Priyanka’s door, her staff does!
Well, whatever happened, at least Priyanka has completely got over Akshay Kumar, her first love in Hindi films. And Akshay is totally wrapped up in his first love which is making money. An insider squeals that today the richest actor in town is easily Akshay Kumar. In this quest for money, he has made major gaffes but is said to be finally correcting his costly career choices. For starters, while everybody is talking to Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi about the sequel to Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, Akshay and Ekta Kapoor have quietly teamed up for Part 2 of this successful film. An inside story is that Part 2 will have Akshay Kumar playing Dawood Ibrahim (Ajay had played Haji Mastan in the earlier one) right up to the time he moves to Dubai and from there to Pakistan. The film will end there, thereby leaving enough room for a Part 3!
