Bicycle romance

So what if Guzaarish proved to be a box office lemon? The Sanjay Bhansali directed film, where Hrithik Roshan acted in the role of a paraplegic flirting with the idea of euthanasia, had spurred rumours that Roshan Junior would never work with Bhansali again. But it turns out that they were just that — rumours. We hear that Bhansali has roped in the actor for his next film. It’s a romantic movie, which suits Roshan fine as he was apparently looking to take a break from action flicks after performing gruelling stunts in Krrish 2 and Agneepath. In Bhansali’s latest, all he’ll have to do is bicycle around Europe and fall in love with a girl. Um… that kind of gentle exertion would be up a lot of people’s street.

Wedding bells

It’s wedding bells for one of Bangalore’s most eligible bachelorettes. Jahnavi, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani’s daughter, is getting married next week. The Yale graduate is tying the knot with her college senior, Shray Chandra — a Jamshedpur boy whose father works for Tata Steel and mother is a schoolteacher. Jahnavi is worth millions, by the way, as she is one of the largest individual shareholders of Infosys, whose 0.29 per cent stake is worth over Rs 400 crore now. Though the Nilekanis are among the city’s rich and famous, the wedding will be a small affair and strictly for friends and family. Trust the low profile Nilekanis not to plan a lavish, over-the-top wedding for their daughter.

On song

Here’s a partnership that’s going from strength to strength. Singer, songwriter and composer Raghu Dixit (in pic) and sarangi player Suhail Khan had come together on Star World’s musical series The Dewarists. Now the duo is recording an album along with international artistes such as Scottish singer King Creosote. Incidentally, Dixit also fronts his band, the Raghu Dixit Project. Khan and Dixit are doing two new songs on the album. “I am singing one of Khan’s compositions,” says Dixit. Though the songs are a melange of Indian and Western music, Khan feels that the “compositions do have the distinct mark of Indianness”. Let the project prosper, we say.

Malik mayhem

Helen of Troy may have had a face that launched a thousand ships, but Veena Malik, the oomphy girl from Pakistan, seems to have it in her to stop a thousand vehicles. Malik was in Bangalore this week to film the Kannada version of her upcoming movie Dirty Picture: Silk Sakkath Maga. And while we knew she had fans, we just didn’t know how staggering their number was. When she started shooting at the Majestic area of the city, 20,000 fans flocked to see her, bringing traffic to a standstill. To make matters worse, the shoot was interrupted when her frenzied fans attempted to mob her and the film crew — all to get a glimpse of her hot bod. And, oh, no doubt of her face too.

Second coming

He wowed the critics with his debut film 1971 almost five years back. Now Amrit Sagar Chopra is back with a new movie — but in a totally different genre. While 1971 was a heart-wrenching story of prisoners of war, his latest film, Rabba Main Kya Karoon, is a laugh riot starring Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Riya Sen and others. “I wanted to direct a comedy and that’s what I am doing. If I feel like doing a film like 1971 again, I may do it in the future. So I am not stuck on any genre as such,” says Chopra. With the film centred on a big fat Indian wedding in all its wacky and idiosyncratic splendour, he seems set to deliver a rib-tickler. Well, from the brutality of war to the hilarity of a wedding — Chopra certainly seems to have travelled a long way.