Second coming

Preity Zinta seems to have decided that her flagging career will be revived with a stint on the small screen. She is hosting a new show on Colors — Guinness World Records – Ab India Todega, which is scheduled to go on air this month. Zinta will be guiding Indians trying to break international records and compete with world record holders. Apparently, she is excited to be on screen once again, even though it is of the small variety. Well, after the unending controversies surrounding her IPL team Kings XI Punjab, and the all too clear signs that her career’s gone into a tailspin, let’s hope she makes news for the right reasons this time. Who knows? Television may well put the zing back into Zinta’s life.

Past blast

Some people like to pay their debts. Take playback singer Kalpana. She may be all the rage in Bollywood now, what with hits like Aila re (Khatta Meetha) and Tere ishq se mitha (Aakrosh), but she hasn’t forgotten the place where she first hit big time. Though she hails from Assam, she got her first break in the Bhojpuri entertainment industry way back in 2000. Now Kalpana is giving something back to Bhojpuri. With more than 150 Bhojpuri songs to her credit, she has come up with a new album based on the writings of Bihar’s renowned poet, Bhikhari Thakur — who is also popularly known as the “Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”. So why did she cut a new Bhojpuri album when she is the toast of Bollywood? “I owe my popularity to the Bhojpuri language, so I wanted to be back where I belonged,” she explains. Now that’s a noble thought.

Music ’’ maths

If a mathematician sings Tagore’s songs, can Albert Einstein be left out of the equation? Paying tribute to the relationship between Tagore and Einstein, Sudeshna Basu, who taught mathematics at US universities before dedicating herself wholly to music, has come up with an album of Tagore’s songs called Mahabishwe-Mahakashe. Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein met for the first time in 1926. They met again during the second half of 1930 — in fact, several times in Berlin and New York. To commemorate this exchange, Basu has chosen songs like Prathamo adi tabo shakti, Bipulo tarango re and Hey nikhilo for the album. A Big Bang album, shall we say?

Lucky mascot

Since cricket is the flavour of the season, our movie stars have also decided to strut their stuff in the middle. The Celebrity Cricket League’s inaugural match, held in Vishakhapatnam last weekend, witnessed a face off between the Mumbai Heroes and the Southern Superstars. While Salman Khan skippered the Mumbai team, the southern team was led by Kannada actor Sudeep. The match went smoothly enough, but there was trouble in the celebrity audience box. Genelia D’Souza (remember Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na?), a former denizen of the southern film industry, was cheering for the Mumbai Heroes initially. But the southies didn’t care for this shift in loyalties. So midway through the match, southern actor Manoj Manchu carried her off to the other side! And guess what? The Southern Superstars did end up winning the game. Genelia’s one lucky mascot, what?

Old gold

Badal Sircar, the doyen of Bengali theatre, may be in his eighties, but his admirers haven’t forgotten him. The ailing playwright was honoured with the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award (META) for lifetime achievement in Delhi recently. “Badal Babu’s contribution is not just to Bengali theatre but also to Indian theatre. He was the person who took theatre to the streets when others were whining about people not coming to see theatre,” says Sanjoy K. Roy, managing director of Teamwork Productions, the organiser of META. Sircar, 86, made politically influential plays like Pagla Ghoda and Ebang Indrajit. “They don’t make people like Badal Babu any longer. Wish we had more people like him who could do politically relevant plays,” says Roy. Take a bow, Badal Babu.