Irate Irrfan

Irrfan Khan will not mince his words. Especially not if it has anything to do with India’s official entry to the Oscars. On a countrywide tour to promote his forthcoming international release, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, the actor pours scorn on the Film Federation of India for choosing Barfi!, the Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer that allegedly contains scenes “inspired” by other films. “They are so stupid. They just pick a film currently running in the theatres and not give any serious thought to the matter,” exclaims an irate Khan. By the way, Barfi! was selected from a list of 17 films that included the critically acclaimed Paan Singh Tomar, where Khan played the title role. Well, nice to know that not everybody is boringly diplomatic all the time.

Father’s day

The late Kannada actor Rajkumar’s sons seem to have made a career out of paying tribute to their famous father. Not content with churning out biographies of their dad, sons Puneeth and Shivrajkumar also rolled out a T20 cricket tournament, called Dr Raj Cup, for the local film fraternity. The third edition of the cup is currently being played across the state, with the finals to be held in Malaysia next week. The teams battling for the cup have names like the Young Fighters and Great Villains. A state minister leads the MLA Eleven team. Now what if the Great Villains triumph and trounce the rest? That, needless to say, would be totally un-filmi and seriously deleterious to the memory of the heroic Rajkumar!

Harking back

Remember the famous music composer duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal? The two-man team that was a Bollywood staple and gave us some of the most memorable film music from the 1960s to the 1990s, fell silent after Laxmikant Kudalkar’s death in 1998. But now, after a hiatus of 14 years, Pyarelal Sharma (in pic) has taken up composing again. He has directed the music for Awaaz Dil Se, a film that stars Ameesha Patel. The lyrics have been penned by Sameer and the songs sung by debutant Pankaj Chaturvedi. But will Pyarelal singly make the magic that he did with Laxmikant? We certainly hope so.

On a roll

Prakash Jha’s Chakravyuh may not have earned her plaudits from critics or the audience, but Esha Gupta has become a fixture at the Bhatt camp, or more precisely, with Vishesh Films, headed by Mukesh and Mahesh Bhatt. In fact, the Bhatts never stop mentioning what a “lucky charm” the oomphy Gupta has been for them. The reason: the back-to-back successes of Jannat 2 and Raaz 3 this year. Incidentally, both had Emraan Hashmi as the hero. Gupta is currently busy doing a third film for the Bhatts as she is under a three-film contract with them. The actress, who was the second runner-up at Miss India 2007, is also busy shooting for her TV debut show called Supercars. To be sure, Esha is on a roll!

 

Romantic circuit

Seems Arshad Warsi — the goofy, lovable Circuit of the Munnabhai films — has stepped into a whole new circuit in his life. The Bollywood grapevine is buzzing with rumours of a romance brewing between Warsi and his co-star Minissha Lamba. Apparently, while shooting a steamy scene for the film, Zila Ghaziabad, the two were so comfortable with each other that people began to wonder. Although, it has to be said that Lamba was a bit reluctant to do the scene initially. Anyway, the rumour is that Warsi, who is married to former veejay Maria Goretti, doesn’t want the scene to be edited at all. Hmmm. Touching. Now if only we knew whether all this talk of romance is for real, or is just a publicity gimmick. Watch this space.