Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Open House With Boman

As always, Navroze this Saturday was brought in with the same amount of joy and celebration that the city has been witness to for years. The Parsis appear to be almost universally cherished, not only for their practice of “Good thoughts, good words and good deeds”, but also for their cuisine, customs, sense of humour and occasional eccentricities. And so, from policemen offering roses to delighted members of the community outside Agiaris, to restaurants announcing Parsi festivals, there was much mirth and celebration this weekend. And among the heartwarming Navroze traditions was the one when boys of Shelter Don Bosco, the NGO that works towards empowering marginalised street children, dropped in to actor Boman Irani’s house to wish him and share the festive joy. “I’ve been associated with Shelter Don Bosco for almost 15 years now,” said Irani, believed to be one of the most gentlemanly stars in the industry, when we spoke yesterday. “Initially, I started dropping in to the NGO with doctor friends of mine who’d volunteered to take care of the boys and from there my relationship just grew. I began going for visits and then more regularly to chat with the boys and mentor them,” said the actor. Irani spoke with deep respect for the NGO and its work. “What is most heartening is that over the past 10 years, I have witnessed a sea change in the attitude and discipline of the boys. Earlier, they were children off the street, used to gambling and they all had their big bosses, who would take away all their money. Now, they all go to school, are fed and neatly attired and many of them have found gainful employment. Some of them have found work in the film industry, one of them, Manish, has even worked on a couple of foreign film projects, shot in India. It is wonderful to see the work the Jesuit priests are doing,” he said. And so, this year too, the boys dropped in to the welcoming Irani household, where over some laughs, good food and refreshments, they too partook in the Parsi New Year. See what we mean about good thoughts, good words and good deeds.

Learning Her Lines With Aplomb

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi and Shekhar Suman.

“My Hindi is poor, and my knowledge of Urdu is non-existent, so when I first got the script I loved it, but was so daunted by the language. I told my director Randhir Roy that there was no way I could pull off speaking such Urdu. But he was confident and I decided to take up the challenge. Learning the lines reminded me of the times I used to try and mug up theorems,” says actress, musician Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, about her role of a Kashmiri journalist in Ek Haan, the play based on the life and times of the brilliant writer Saadat Hasan Manto, in which she stars along with Shekhar Suman. Undaunted, Krishnamoorthi says she leaned her lines blindly, sometimes without even understanding the words, and the efforts paid off. “In our opening shows, people have been complimenting me on my faultless Urdu! I give a lot of credit to Shekhar Suman on that. He patiently helped me with not only understanding the lines, but with getting the diction right.” But the journey was not without its lighter moments. “In our first few rehearsals, he would burst out laughing at my pronunciation,” says the vivacious actress. And what would she say were her most daunting Urdu lines we ask. Promptly, Krishnamoorthi rattles off a mouthful, “Woh sahibe ilmo hikmat ho/Ya paikare aklo daanayi/ Ek mere nadaan Dil ke siwa /sab teri kasam bik jaate hai/ Anmol sahi nayaab sahi be daam o diram bik jaate hai.”
We don’t need any more convincing after that.

True Lies
They were among the first to have kicked off the big fat Bollywood wedding season last year with their no-holds-barred, Punjabi extravaganza. And now, industry insiders swear that they might just be the first to usher in the baby season. Yes, recently this lissom actress, daughter of a famous film clan and her non-film husband were spotted visiting a well-known city gynaecologist, making many jump to the obvious conclusion that the stork is on its way. While no official announcements have been made by this very-much-in-love, social media-much-savvy duo, all eyes are on the other newlyweds of their vintage: the cricketer and his actress wife; the husband and wife team that’s right at the top of their game currently and the Bollywood export to Hollywood and her beau.
Who will be the first to announce their good news? It’s only a matter of time.

Game Of Spas?

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys.

Word comes in that guests visiting the Ananda Spa in the Himalayas on a spiritual retreat were in for a surprise recently when they spotted not one or two, but three famous Hollywood celebrities at the resort on a hush-hush anonymous break. “We are huge Game of Thrones fans and while at lunch, to our surprise, we spotted actors Rose Leslie who played Ygritte and Emilia Clarke who played Daenerys Targaryen on the popular American series,” said a source. “They seemed to want to be anonymous and we didn’t want to disturb them since we checked their social media handles and they didn’t say they were in India!” But for the luxury resort in the Himalayas, a drive away from Dehradun, this is not atypical and we are informed that Hollywood star Willem Dafoe from movies such as Spiderman and The Florida Project was also at the resort earlier this month. (Oh and when we‘d visited a few years ago, supermodel and erstwhile Stones’ wife Jerry Hall had also been there.)

First Published: Aug 19, 2019 00:43 IST