Woman woe

You don't expect to see Paayel Sarkar as a man hater, but that's the role the actor is pretty gung-ho about. After blockbusters Chatushkone, Ebar Shabor and Bachchan last year, Sarkar plays a feminist in a romcom called Jomer Raja Dilo Bor with Abir Chatterjee, slated to be released next month. "I play a very serious feminist who hates men. It's a fun film and I am sure the audience will be in splits over it," she says. But is she like that in real life? "Not at all," she exclaims. "I have a lot of good friends who are men," she winks. Now that's giving a new meaning to that tired old phrase - we are just friends.

Medicine man

We all know that Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was a great reformer. But how many of us know that he was a homeopathy practitioner as well? To know more, have a look at an exhibition put up by his family of homeopaths, on at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Calcutta till today. His grandnephew, Dr Prasanta Banerji, and his son, Pratip Banerji, have put together a collection that underlines Vidyasagar's belief in homeopathy. It includes, for instance, the first prescription written by him. The exhibition, at a time when there is a central ministry for alternative therapies, can only boost the potency of those sweet little pills, we guess.

Rump romp

Director Farah Khan and actor Shah Rukh Khan are great chums - despite a falling out some years ago. Farah, a busy "hands on" mama with three kids, tells us that she misses him when he is shooting for somebody else. "I feel envious of that director because he is going to be spending time with Shah Rukh," says Farah. She shouldn't - not if the directors treat the King of Khans the way she deals with actors on her sets. Ask Zayed Khan. "I used to keep kicking him in the butt on the sets of Main Hoon Na because he used to trouble me. So he finally resorted to sticking thermocol pads on his back pocket," says Farah mischievously. No, we can tell Zayed didn't like being the butt of all jokes.

Horror haul

Brr, it's raining horror in the South. The success of the recent horror comedy Aranmanai, co-written and directed by actress-turned-politician Khushbu's husband Sundar C., has triggered a spate of spooky films. Top South actress Trisha recently tweeted photographs from her forthcoming horror film Nayaki, saying that she was "super excited" about it. It seems that Trisha, who recently broke off her engagement to a film producer, is hoping for a major career boost to divert attention from her tumultuous personal life, as the media continue to link her with her ex-beau, the actor Rana Daggubati. And while the latter's career is on the upswing with the stupendous success of Baahubali, let's hope Trisha finds love in the time of horror.

Comic chill

When south Indian director J.S. Nandhini's second feature film stalled for various reasons in 2014, she decided to create a digital graphic novel. A die-hard comic book fan all her life, she figured that if Hollywood could make successful movies out of comic book heroes, or create comics out of successful movies, why couldn't it be tried out in India? So she produced a digital graphic novel, the Girl with the Red Nose Ring, a horror-cum-thriller about a newlywed girl who gets possessed by a supernatural being after she stumbles upon a red nose ring. "I initially wrote it as a film screenplay but decided to do a graphic e-book instead," Nandhini says. "I want to bridge the gap between comics and cinema," adds the intrepid director who financed this costly venture herself. Check it out - it may well turn into another page-turner like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.