When Hema Malini togged up as Radha in a south Indian pavada (a long skirt worn with a dupatta like a half saree) and opened designer Neeta Lulla’s show at the Lakme Fashion Week by pirouetting on the ramp to a classical number with a much younger Krishna, it was really an extension of Hindi cinema’s soft corner for the Radha-Krishna theme. With Janmashtami on Friday, TV channels too warmed up to the celebration and bytes were sought on its depiction in Hindi films.

After K. Asif’s lyrical sequence in Mughal-e-Azam where Akbar’s wife (played by Durga Khote) celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna by maternally swinging a baby Krishna in a cradle before Madhubala breaks into Naushad’s Mohe panghat pe nand lal, Hindi cinema dumped the religious and went boisterous. And it started from the time Shammi Kapoor broke the trend-setting dahi handi in Bluffmaster to Mohammed Rafi’s robust Govinda a la re. To this day, the Shammi-Rafi number is repeated ad nauseam every Janmashtami. And the hero climbing atop a human pyramid (preferably in a bicep-showing singlet) to break the dahi handi has become the ultimate symbol of macho heroism. From an Amitabh Bachchan in Khuddaar (Mach gaya shor saari nagari re) to Hrithik Roshan in this year’s Agneepath, Hindi cinema’s celebration of Janmashtami is restricted to the human pyramid and the breaking of a pot of curds by the hero.

With Sonakshi Sinha in distressed jeans bringing some commercial relief to the Paresh Rawal starrer Oh My God, she sets two cinematic trends. She is the first major actress to go completely tomboy and climb a human pyramid while Shatru and Sonakshi are perhaps the only father-daughter duo to have individually done this sequence on film. Shatrughan Sinha featured in the immensely popular Shor mach gaya shor dekho aaya maakhan chor in the immensely forgettable film Badla. Thirty-eight years later, his daughter has replicated the act in her guest dance Go go Govinda, a definite first in the history of Indian cinema.

What the noisy cinematic representation of Janmashtami has done is that it has given all the mandals in Maharashtra a host of film songs to accompany their dahi handi pyramids. Since we seem to be bereft of any other kind of music, it will be religious fervour to the tune of film songs once again in a few weeks when Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated.

One of the best kept secrets in political circles and in the film industry was the critical condition of Vilasrao Deshmukh. Now there are film people going tut-tut that they realised something was amiss when son Riteish Deshmukh seemed drawn and forced while promoting the adult comedy Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum. But that, of course, is merely the wisdom of hindsight.

With reference to well-kept secrets, when Kareena recently asked a daily, “What if Saif and I are already married and have been for quite a few years?” she gave credence to a story that had done its rounds more than two years ago. The rumour then was that they had secretly wed after Tashan with only Saif’s partner Dinesh Vijan recording it on his mobile. In this very column there had been a mention of it two years ago, especially after Saif and Kareena had filmed lovemaking sequences in Qurbaan that carried the ardour of a honeymooning couple. When I’d pointblank asked Kareena about it, she’d laughed it off saying she would never ever have a secret marriage. She’d added that Saif had done it once before (when he had married Amrita Singh and had hidden it even from his parents for a few days) and wasn’t likely to repeat it. In such cases, does an official marital status really matter? It does for a heroine, Kareena had argued. A live-in relationship which is as good as a marriage is acceptable as long as Bebo does not turn into Begum. That’s been Bebo’s belief all along.

Since we’re on rumours, there was a feeling going around a few weeks ago that Moushumi Chatterjee’s husband Babu (officially called Jayant Mukherjee) had joined Mamata Banerjee’s TMC. While talking about Mamata’s stand on the presidential election, a TV channel had shown Babu standing prominently next to the chief minister. “Good god, no,” retorted Babu. He explained that Mamata had come to his father, Hemanta Kumar’s 92nd birth anniversary at Writers’ Buildings. A visual of the two of them together for a completely political story was misleading and Babu was aghast that anybody could even imagine him going into politics. “I’ve been living with the biggest politician on earth for the last 40 years,” he joked about wife Moushumi. “There’s no way I’d ever join politics.”

Bharathi S. Pradhan is editor, The Film Street Journal