Let’s begin the year with a few home truths: A couple of years ago, when Adnan Sami was still married to Sabah Galadari of the UAE and was even planning to start a film production company with her to launch himself as an actor, I’d gone into the forbidden territory of his work permit and citizenship during an interview with him. The question had been barely asked when his over-enthusiastic PR girl who’d so far largely kept out of the conversation jumped into the fray and simply wouldn’t allow me to proceed with it. Perhaps she’d been parked there just to fend off inconvenient questions because Adnan is so well-spoken and witty, he doesn’t need prompting or support from anybody while meeting the media.

But even when he’d first landed in Mumbai a decade ago and Lift kara de was being shot, Adnan had clearly told me that he had a Canadian passport. He had made no mention at all of his Pakistani origins. So today when the singer-musician is in trouble with the Enforcement Directorate over the property he owns in Mumbai without requisite Reserve Bank of India clearance, and builder Vicky Oberoi says that Adnan claimed to be a Canadian without disclosing his true origins, it is entirely believable. Right from the beginning, all those who have been in Adnan’s employ have at various times helped him pull wool over everybody’s eyes to hide his real status in this country.

Even last year when he went back to Pakistan with his father’s body (after he succumbed to cancer here) and got him a hero’s funeral there (with a gun salute), few probed Adnan’s credentials, though everybody knew that his dad had been with the Air Force across the border.

But when you’re on thin ice with ex-staffers and ex-wives looking on, the bubble can be pricked any moment and that’s precisely what’s happening to Adnan today.

If only Adnan’s advisors had helped him keep his nose clean right from the time he began working in this country, perhaps the musician wouldn’t have been roofless in Mumbai today.

On to another ‘A’. Akshay Kumar is feeling injured again and sycophants are busy putting out tut tut stories of how rivals in the industry (whoever they are) were sending out gleeful SMSes against Tees Maar Khan even before the audience could pass its verdict.

This is an age-old lament of the actor who just cannot seem to accept that it is he who is making all the wrong choices out there in the studios. There is such an utter lack of variety in his performances that a distinct ennui has set in with the audience — Akshay’s swagger in Tees Maar Khan could well have been part of his act in Kambakht Ishq. But catch him accepting the fact that he’s boring the hell out of his viewers, he’d rather play the injured good guy who’s being targeted and pulled down by his rivals.

Unfortunately, there are any number of willing scribes ready to faithfully report it, film after film... sorry, make that flop after flop.

So the failure of Akshay’s TMK and the expected whining over his gloating rivals is not really surprising; it is Farah Khan’s name in the credits that is disappointing. How could a woman we admired as the female avatar of Manmohan Desai put aside her own fine brains and talent and just play loyal wife to Shirish Kunder by picking up his script of TMK?

In the New Year, I for one await the return of Farah Khan to the studios while Mrs Shirish Kunder will hopefully stay at home and remain there.

Shirish Kunder will be officially directing Joker, the next family production with Akshay Kumar once again leading the cast. Will Akshay tire us out again or will he make a timely switch to bring variety to his repertoire? Your guess is as good as mine except that Joker will also be Sonakshi Sinha’s real test, the crucial point where one will know if she has staying power or if Dabangg was a fluke. It would make most other newcomers nervous but Sonakshi has her father’s confidence and determination.

2011 should be her year and she’s certainly beginning it with a splash — by airing her first commercial, an ad for a bathing soap.

Oh, oh, and Sonakshi has found a new gym friend. Writer Chetan Bhagat works out in the same place as Sona and they’ve struck up a sparkling friendship.

Chetan and his wife are now the new faces on Shatrughan Sinha’s guest list.

With the banker-turned-author also eyeing a future in politics, it should be an interesting friendship to watch. Stay tuned.