“As always, SRK, Anushka and Katrina were super encouraging to the contestants. I think it’s safe to say they were quite blown away by the talent of the top five,” said Vishal Dadlani, singer-songwriter and composer, who, along with Neha Kakkar and Javed Ali, is a judge this season, on the long-running TV show Indian Idol, that will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. SRK had dropped in on the sets of the finale pre-shoot with Katrina and Anushka as part of the promotion of his film ‘Zero’, in which he plays a vertically-challenged person, which releases to much expectation today. “Shah Rukh even asked for a live reboot of his favourite performance of the season,” says an exultant Dadlani, about the finalists of this season like Ankush Bhardwaj and Salman Ali, who have already become household names, even before the results of the competition being declared.
“He asked Salman to sing Sajda from My Name Is Khan and Ankush managed to get Katrina and Anushka to get into a prop car with him and perform the song ‘Mere Naam Tu’ with him, while he sang it to them live!”
Winners of the contest are assured of instant stardom. For instance, Abhijeet Sawant, the first winner had gone onto not only release his first album, but also represented India in the Asian Idol, where he won the third place. No surprises then that Dadlani describes the pre-finale shoot of Indian Idol with the stars of ‘Zero’ as “super fun” and the finale as “epic”. As for the film whose fate will be decided today, he is naturally gung-ho: “Our whole team wishes that the film is a blockbuster,” he signs off.

But Where Were The Women?

Dia Mirza (HT PHOTO)

“I was going through my Twitter feed last night,” said Dia Mirza, about her ‘Emperor has no clothes’ moment, when she had been the first to bring to light the shocking absence of women in the recently-concluded meeting between PM Modi and a representation of the film industry. Mirza had responded to actor Akshay Kumar’s tweet expressing heartfelt thanks to the PM for taking the time to discuss important issues pertaining to the film industry. Mirza’s response had been polite, but incisive: “This is wonderful. Is there a reason why there were no women in the room?”
“The funny thing is that when a few senior female actors called to express their solidarity with me, they said they were ashamed because they had not even noticed the absence of women in the meeting until I had pointed it out. That’s how conditioned they were!” Mirza said, when we spoke yesterday. “Let us assume that the absence of women was an oversight and had not been deliberately done, doesn’t it still beg the question that we have accepted this as a new normal? And in 2018, how can any constructive dialogue be conducted without the contribution of women?”
Who would Mirza have liked to see representing women in the industry?
“That is not the point,” she replied. “The point is that such things reveal the gender imbalance that exists.”
Had her tweet received much support from her industry colleagues on the micro blogging site? “No big names yet,” she said. “Actor Pooja Hegde tweeted in support and of course, there were others who trolled me, but I think my query has got people thinking on the right lines.”
Indeed.

Tweet Talk
“Lok Sabha passes The Consumer Protection Bill. Now manufacturers and celebrities can be penalised for making false claims. Political parties, of course, can continue claiming what they want.”
-Tweeted by Ramesh Srivats

Stork Visit

Sunjay Kapur with his baby boy. (HT Photo)

The Stork visited the home of Delhi-based industrialist and polo-enthusiast Sunjay Kapur and wife Priya Sachdev, who were blessed with the birth of a baby boy this week. As is known, the couple were married in a high-profile wedding last year after Kapur’s acrimonious divorce from actress Karisma Kapoor, which saw the couple exchanging words in print. This is the third-time married Kapur’s (he was earlier married to designer Nandita Mahtani) third child: he and Karisma have a son and a daughter, while Priya, who had been briefly married to New York-based hotelier Vikram Chatwal, has a daughter from that marriage too. But according to insiders, these complications do not interfere with familial ties and bonding and all the adults concerned have conducted themselves with immense empathy, putting their children first. Speaking to the press not too long ago, Priya had said, “Sunjay is an amazing human being and a very good father to his children. He loves them dearly. Both of us have never tried to instil any negativity in our children towards our ex-spouses.”
And that’s exactly the way modern families ought to conduct themselves.

First Published: Dec 20, 2018 22:52 IST