Hot property

Actor Anil Kapoor doesn’t just know the movie business — he seems to have a nose for real estate as well. He was in Bangalore last week for the launch of a villa complex, where he had booked a Rs 4 crore property for his daughter Sonam. Kapoor says he visits Bangalore often to scout for property — he believes it’s a hot real estate destination. “Bangalore is the place to be for real estate investors,” he says. So if you want to see your money grow “one, two ka four”, you know where to head to.

Music man

Benny Dayal, the playback singer who sang the chartbuster Badtameez dil number in the Ranbir Kapoor starrer Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani is the new toast of B-town. But the young singer, who has steadily climbed the popularity charts with songs like Pappu can’t dance saala (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na) or Dum dum mast hai (Band Bajaa Baraat) or Lat lag gayi (Race 2), prefers to keep a low profile. “It was fun working on Badtameez dil. The song was so good, it didn’t leave my brain for a long time. I knew it would be a big hit,” says Dayal who moved from Chennai to make his mark in Mumbai. But clearly, success hasn’t gone to his head and he knows a “better, edgier voice” may come along to supplant him. “I follow what my mentor (A.R.) Rahman Sir says — it’s all about the music, the rest will follow,” he says philosophically. Indeed.

The rising

Books have been written on it. And films made on it too. But the 1930 Chittagong armoury raid, considered to be one of the most dramatic uprisings in British India, continues to interest writers and researchers. Chittagong: Summer of 1930, written by Manoshi Bhattacharya, seeks to throw new light on this eventful episode. Bhattacharya, who is a physician by profession, got the idea of writing it when she chanced upon a diary of a revolutionary involved in the raid. The book is based on various accounts drawn from the diaries of revolutionaries, letters of the presiding judge of the trial and others. A second part of the book is also on the anvil.

Role for Vidya?

A biopic on legendary ghazal and classical singer Begum Akhtar would be of keen interest to her thousands of fans. Unfortunately, the project can’t get off the ground owing to a lack of funds. One of Akhtar’s closest disciples, Rita Ganguly, is ready with the script, but no production company wants to give her the Rs 15 crore she needs to make the film. Apparently, UTV Motion Pictures had offered to produce it only if Vidya Balan, wife of UTV CEO Siddharth Roy Kapoor, played the role of Akhtar. But Ganguly has turned down the proposal as she is looking for a fresh face. “Balan cannot play the teenage Akhtar, though she would be able to portray her adulthood well,” she says. Er, there’s always the option of getting a younger girl to play the teenage years of Akhtar, isn’t there?

Cool jacket

You knew Hrithik Roshan was an A-list star. But did you know that people would spend lakhs just to possess a bit of his starry clothing? At a charity auction to help a school for children with special needs in Dubai recently, a leather jacket belonging to Hrithik Roshan went under the hammer along with outfits worn by stars such as Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor and Salman Khan. Roshan’s black jacket went for the highest amount — 11,000 dirhams (about Rs 1.65 lakh). Now this could set off a whole new me-too scramble in Bollywood — to see which movie star’s vestments go for the fattest price. After all, much of our filmdom sounds like “Anything you khan do, I khan do better”!