Filmy games

Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), the film industry’s answer to the Indian Premier League, is hotting up. The Chennai Rhinos, the yellow jersey-clad Tamil team, has modelled itself on IPL’s Chennai Super Kings, but it’s proving to be a tough task to live up to Dhoni’s champion outfit. Of course, young Tamil actors like Abbas, Vishal and Arya, along with captain Surya (of Raktha Charitra fame), are ready to lead the charge. “It is serious competition — we are not doing this just for fun,” says Vishnu Induri, co-owner of the CCL. At present there are no favourites among the Mumbai, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu film industry teams as this is the first season of the league. But the easy-going Mumbai players Suneil Shetty and Salman Khan had better watch out. The Chennai Rhinos have their horns out and on June 12, that’s today, they are all set to gore the competition in Hyderabad!

Hot date

If you thought calendar girls were, well, wallflowers, think again. A little bird told us that Angela Jonsson, a hot number on the 2011 Kingfisher calendar, is all set to make her mark in Bollywood. Apparently, she is auditioning for a role opposite Aamir Khan in Yash Raj Films’ Dhoom 3. But that’s not all Jonsson is grabbing the headlines for. The calendar gal has also set tongues wagging for her “dates” with serial lady killer Ranbir Kapoor. Meanwhile, Yash Raj Films is keeping mum on whether or not she has actually clinched the role in Dhoom 3. Maybe the Kapoor connection could come handy here?

Market mantra

At a time when debut books are a dime a dozen, here’s one that promises to take a path less trodden. Arjun Shekhar’s novel A Flawed God, published by Hachette India, is a spoof thriller in which a corporate executive turns assassin to save his firm from ruin. “The book is an inside view of an outsider,” says the debutant author who runs a consulting firm as well as a non governmental organisation. “It’s written in a way that will appeal to corporate honchos, housewives and even college students,” says the 45-year-old writer from Delhi. It could be your summer read if you want to know more about how the share market influences the corporate world and what happens to ordinary people when it goes into a tailspin.

So sweet

Talk about sweet temptation. It’s not just that Mallika Sherawat, the star with the mile high oomph quotient, sizzles in the dance number Jalebi Bai in Indra Kumar’s upcoming film Double Dhamaal. We hear that she sizzles with an extra dose of sweetness as she goes about it. Why? Simply because the director ordered 25 kilos of jalebis every day for the entire cast while the number was being shot. “The mood was so festive and celebratory that we decided to have sweets every day in honour of the song,” reveals Kumar. Now if you are wondering whether Sherawat too pigged out on masses of jalebis, and has ended up with too much sweetness under her belt, worry not. Those in the know tell us that the sultry star is looking her smouldering best in the song. Sweet!

Risque business

Pondicherry born actress Kalki Koechlin is no stranger to off-beat roles. She played a prostitute in her debut film Dev D and an action queen in Emotional Atayachar. In her latest film Shaitan, which hit the theatres this week, Koechlin goes risque with a capital R. She does a lip lock with another actress. So was it a cakewalk? Not at all, says Koechlin, who got married to director Anurag Kashyap recently. “It was tough to do without making it stereotypically crazy,” she says somewhat enigmatically. She is currently shooting for Dibaker Banerjee’s film Shanghai, another violent political thriller. With so many dark films on her résumé, guess what Koechlin is thirsting for now? A role in a “quirky rom com”. Clearly, marriage seems to have tamed the shaitan in her!