Northeast sonata

It started as a commercial — and ended up as a message for unity. The video — Our Northeast, Our Star, to be released next week — was meant to have been a promotion for a cement company. “But no sooner did we start the process, the selfish motives disappeared,” says Calcutta-based Sanjay Agarwal, director of Star Cement. The video, directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury (in picture), is being seen as the northeast’s answer to the 1988 Doordarshan classic Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. A musical featuring singers Bhupen Hazarika from Assam, Mami Varte from Mizoram, Lou Majaw from Meghalaya and Sourabhee Debbarma from Tripura, it’s based on a song written by Swanand Kirkire and set to music by Shantanu Moitra. “It has helped highlight my effort to establish the versatile culture of the northeast states through music,” says Hazarika. And that’s music to our ears.

Passion play

A dash of steaming passion was all Milan Vohra needed to get a taste of fame. Vohra, a 40-something advertising professional, participated in the “Mills & Boon’s Passions” short story writing contest a couple of years ago and won it too. As the prize, she got a chance to write the first ever Mills & Boon book by an Indian. Now, Vohra’s desi M&B offering, The Love Asana, is ready for release. An avid reader of the romance paperbacks, where a girl — no matter how spirited — is always reduced to trembling jelly by a masterful man, Vohra says that she had no problems in turning out a story that fitted the Mills & Boon formula. Now, that’s called the power of passion.

Fair point

Pity poor Neil Nitin Mukesh. The actor, who is the grandson of legendary playback singer Mukesh, has had some critical successes of late — New York, Jail and Lafangey Parindey. But none of them catapulted the fair and handsome Neil to the A-list brigade. So he’s keeping his fingers crossed with Sudhir Mishra’s forthcoming Tera Kya Hoga Johnny, where he plays — well — the second lead. Still, a good performance in a Sudhir Mishra movie could put some pep into his flagging career. With the likes of Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan hotting up the competition among the younger generation of stars, is it time to ask tera kya hoga, Neil?

Designer wives

It’s always nice to see star wives bonding. Gauri Khan and Suzanne Roshan, wives of superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan, respectively, may soon share more than friendship. If the buzz in tinsel town is to be believed, the first ladies of Bollywood are planning to launch an interior decoration business together. Of course, Roshan is already a fairly well-established interior decorator and, in fact, did her bit to dress up the Khan residence, Mannat, some years ago. Gauri Khan is also known for her keen aesthetic sense. With two talented celeb wives putting their heads together, surely we can expect plenty of bijoux Bollywood homes in the near future?

Rap time

She bucked convention and decided to turn into a rap and hip hop singer. But now Hard Kaur, who was brought up in the UK but has rapped lustily for Bollywood, has done something a little more conventional. The first female rapper in Hindi films has launched her own website. And because this is Hard Kaur we are talking about, the first thing that strikes you about the website is the background music and the iPod icon that helps you shuffle her songs. Kaur, who has sung playback in several films like Singh is Kinng, Kismat Konnection and Bachna Ae Haseeno, is clearly keen to give her fans a platform where they can get up close and personal with her. Well, harking back to Baba Sehgal, a rapper from an earlier era, let’s just say — Nice, nice, baby!