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Bollywood has seldom been kind to serious actors and so you find talented performers like Arif Zakaria (with Shobana in picture below right) being wasted in multi-starrers like Deewaar. For an actor who stunned everyone with his sensitive performance in Kalpana Lajmi?s Darmiyaan to stand and watch from the sidelines is not easy. ?It is difficult to adjust to mainstream Bollywood. It?s a constant struggle to get good roles, which appeal to you and are memorable,? admits Arif.
One such exception was playing the lead in Pamela Rooks? Dance Like A Man. ?It was a good experience working with Pamela Rooks. She is very thorough in her paperwork, so there is less of stress on the sets. Our wavelengths matched and that was important, especially since my character grows from old to young.?
For his role of a Bharatanatyam dancer, Arif went through a six-month training workshop. ?It was very tough, the reason being that Bharatanatyam is a very tough discipline which needs symmetry of mind and body. Each adavu (piece) has to be done with amazing energy, ?lan and grace. So, I went through the basics for about three months and then I just did the exact choreographed steps, which were to be shot.?
Arif feels that it was his co-stars who made Dance Like A Man special. ?Shobana being a veteran of so many films and stage shows has a very spontaneous style of performing, while Anoushka (yes, Shankar) has planned and studied, which has come out very effectively. But I will forever be grateful to Shobana for my dance in the film.?
After this, Arif will be seen in two English films ? Refuge directed by Narain Jashanmal from New York and Searching for Sara, to be shot in November in Rajasthan.
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| Sayali Bhagat: Crown chase |
Stepping into tinsel town could be the most obvious career course for beauty queens, but few can debut with a project as interesting as the one bagged by reigning Miss India World Sayali Bhagat. While the svelte beauty is busy preparing for the forthcoming Miss World pageant, she is all excited about her debut music album that hits the small screen in October.
The album by Egyptian singer Hisham Abbas, of Nari Nari fame, was shot in Egypt, in front of the Pyramids. What?s most intriguing about the album is that while the artiste is Egyptian and the model Indian, it has been canned by an Italian director called Eldorado and the make-up has been done by a French artiste called Ricci from Paris.
Called Maknool, meaning crazy, the song is a mix of Arabic and Hindi. ?Hisham is totally fascinated by India. That?s why his first album called Nari Nari was shot in Chennai. Maknool is his second album and here he is an Egyptian guy who falls in love with an Indian girl, played by me,? says Sayali.
Maknool is one project Sayali has thoroughly enjoyed doing. ?I went to Egypt as a state guest and received a very warm welcome. I am really looking forward to the release of the album,? she adds.
While waiting for the release of Maknool, her sights are at present set on the Miss World crown. She will leave for Sanya in south China, where the pageant will be held this year, in end-October, and stay there for 36 days till the finals on December 4. ?I have begun with my fitness programme, skin, hair care and speech and diction training,? says Sayali.
Whatever the outcome of the pageant, chances are you will see her in Bollywood next year. ?I am talking to quite a few directors and I am sure I will be seriously into films by 2005,? she strides off.
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| Vanessa-Mae: Attaching Indian strings |
If Bombay Dreams introduced A.R. Rahman to an international audience, this will add another melodious feather to his increasingly crowded cap. The Bombay Dreams man has scored one of the dance-inspired tracks for violin phenomenon Vanessa-Mae?s new album Choreography.
Backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the breakthrough artist, pronounced a ?true child prodigy, like Mozart and Mendelssohn? by the director of the Royal College of Music and compared with Menuhin, Heifetz and Kreisler, holds over 40 international platinum awards and has notched up worldwide sales surpassing eight million.
Rahman shares the track-listing credits with Oscar-winner Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, 1492), Irish composer-producer Bill Whelan (Riverdance), Walter Taieb (The Alchemist?s Symphony) and Tolga Kashif (The Queen Symphony). Rahman?s score is called Raga?s Dance.
The recording was inspired by the rhythms and pulses of dance cultures, ranging from Argentinean tango and the seduction of the bolero to the tribal dances of Africa, the complex and mystical beauty of Indian music and the allure of the belly dance. Speaking of her collaboration with Rahman, Vanessa told her publicists: ?We would meet up, he would show me a patchwork of a few bars that we would then add on to the previous few bars and the track would grow. There are some violin flourishes that AR had written literally seconds before I entered the recording booth and this made the song all the more enjoyable to record as the whole experience just flowed.?
Choreography will be released internationally on the Sony Classical label later in September.
What happens when a young man falls for a woman much older than him? A complex tale of love and longing involving four schoolteachers is set to unfold in a picturesque hill station with Debasree Roy at the pivot. Revolving around her are colleagues Badshah Moitra, Pijush Ganguly and Chandrayee Ghosh.
?Teesta doesn?t have a tight plot? It?s more about the complexities that arise out of situations. Badshah falls in love with Debasree, a much older woman, while Pijush, who is married, develops a weakness for Chandrayee,? says Bratya Basu, who gets behind the camera for his second big screen venture after calling the shots for Sateroi July, a scathing portrayal of the Godhra riots, from backstage.
His directorial debut on the big screen Raasta, last year, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Raghuvir Yadav, Dolon Roy, Amitava and Rimjhim had explored the city?s underworld.
Teesta is slated to hit the floors on October 2. After canning some shots in Calcutta, the director will camp on the foothills of Kalimpong with cast and crew.
