NEW DELHI : A week after announcing the musical love saga titled ‘Satyanarayan Ki Katha’ starring Kartik Aaryan, the makers of the movie have decided to change the name of the film to avoid hurting any sentiments.

Taking cognisance of the concerns expressed by the audience against the title of the upcoming movie, director Sameer Vidwans issued a statement on his Twitter handle, saying that the makers have decided to change the name of the movie to avoid hurting any sentiments. “A title of the film is something that emerges organically through the creative process. We have taken a decision to change the title of our recently announced film ‘Satyanarayan ki Katha’ to avoid hurting sentiments even if that’s purely unintentional. Producers of the film and the creative team also are in complete support of this decision. We will be announcing a new title for our love story in the due course of our journey,” he tweeted.

The decision comes after the title of the movie received backlashes over social media.

Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala in collaboration with Namah Pictures, ‘Satyanarayan Ki Katha’ is all set to go on floors towards the end of this year. Nadiadwala also spoke about the upcoming project and said, “Satyanarayan Ki Katha has been a visionary project for me. We, at Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment are excited to collaborate with Namah Pictures, national award-winning Director Sameer Vidwans and very talented Kartik Aaryan for this one.”

“This will be our first time working with Kartik and he brings a new energy to the project, altogether. We are looking forward to bringing this ultimate love story to the audience,” Nadiadwala added.

Mumbai: Megastar Shah Rukh Khan, who took a break, is back from hiatus and shooting his next film Pathan. The actor last appeared in Aanand l Rai’s film Zero which didn’t perform well at the box office. The actor had recently also resumed shooting for the much-anticipated espionage drama Pathan. According to a tabloid, the actor is planning for another release in the year 2022 as Pathan will be his comeback film in the first half of 2022. while his film with Atlee or Rajkumar hirani is expected in the latter half and might release in Diwali or Christmas opening. however, with the current Covid scenario, things are still dicey and no one can plan things in advance. But if the situation becomes stable enough and things go smoothly according to plans, then surely we could expect the megastar to delight his fans twice in 2022. Recently, the actor has also begun the shoot for a sequence of Pathan in Yash Raj Studios Mumbai and will be heading to europe next if the situation gets under control. —

Haseen Dillruba, the latest offering from Netflix India, begins on a note of suspense. Just as the film’s female protagonist Rani (Taapsee Pannu) is about to enter her house, there is a huge explosion which kills her husband Rishu (Vikrant Massey). The misogynistic police officers don’t think twice before arresting Rani for plotting to kill her husband with the help of her lover Neel (Harshvardhan Rane). Since there is no murder weapon and the lover has escaped the scene, they grill Rani as hard as they can. They seem least interested in arresting the lover. After all, he is a man in a patriarchal society. But an example needs to be made out of the woman. So the case in charge, Inspector Rawat (Aditya Srivastava of CID fame), doesn’t leave any stone unturned. Writer Kanika Dhillon’s narrative follows a nonlinear structure with the events leading to the explosion unfolding in flashbacks as narrated by Rani to the inspector. When she refuses to plead guilty, the inspector even gets his female officers to brutally torture her. And when all his efforts fail he also forces her to take a polygraph test. But, all the while Rani proves to be the epitome of stoicism. Having passed the ultimately test of patriarchy, almost everyone around her gradually begins to see her with respect that was never accorded to her prior to the torture.

Haseen Dillruba is produced under the banner of Aanand L Rai’s Colour Yellow Productions and Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series with Rai, Kumar, Himanshu Sharma and Krishan Kumar serving as co-producers. The duo of Rai and Sharma is responsible for films such as Tanu Weds Manu, Raanjhanaa, and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Now, there’s a great passage early on during the flashbacks when Haseen Dillruba’s screenplay stations itself in the familiar Rai-Sharma territory. It suddenly becomes a film about marriage that an average Indian viewer craves for. After all, it’s a time tested formula in a diverse and colorful country loves to see. It is no secret that festivities are an innate part of our lives. And marriage functions are the grandest of them all. For us, marriage is just not a union of two individuals but it’s an alliance of two families. It’s an occasion that gets everyone excited—be it the children, the young, or the old—for it is perceived as the greatest celebration of life. In short, the marriages are a singularly viable business. For Indian filmmakers, it’s a bankable subject like no other and no one understands this better than the Rai-Sharma duo. So, it’s really no surprise that Haseen Dillruba works best when it operates in the familiar Rai-Sharma territory. But, the moment its screenplay drifts into the Hitchcockian domain of mystery and suspense, it begins to lose its edge. It would really be interesting to find out how much influence the Rai-Sharma duo exercised on the film.

Now, a major trouble with the film is that Vinil Mathew’s direction fails to match the fast tonal shifts as well as the temporal and spatial fluctuations of Dhillon’s ambitious screenplay. It feels as if there is a huge gap between the screenplay and the director’s interpretation of the text. Speaking of the screenplay, Kanika Dhillon is known to borrow ideas from literary classics. While a 17th century French folklore called “Bluebeard” served as base for her screenplay of Judgementall Hai Kya, for Haseen Dillruba she looks towards Roald Dahl’s short story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter” for inspiration. Also, there are striking similarities to Michael Cristofer’s 2001 film Original Sin starring Angelina Jolie and Antonia Banderas. Some may also find a few similarities to Bryan Singer’s 1995 film The Usual Suspects. And the character of Rani is a huge fan of a local writer of pulp thrillers named Dinesh Pandit. So there’s actually a lot going on. The end result is a half-baked mishmash of ideas and genres

The film’s strongest point is the performances of the three lead actors. While the interesting pairing of Taapsee Pannu and Harshvardhan Rane holds a lot of promise, the screenplay somewhere lets them down. But, the duo certainly deserves another movie together given the promise they show here. It is Vikrant Massey who surprisingly owns Haseen Dillruba. From starting his career in television to playing hero’s sidekicks (Lootera and Half Girlfriend) to stints at character driven roles (Death in a Gunj, Lipstick Under My Burkha, and Chhapaak) to playing a boy next door character in Ginny Weds Sunny to portraying a well fleshed out protagonist with anti-heroic shades in Haseen Dillruba, Massey has indeed come a long way. During his performance, he goes through an entire gamut of emotions that reminds one of a young Shah Rukh Khan at the beginning of his career. Massey can simply use Haseen Dillruba as a vehicle to catapult himself to newer heights of stardom. But he must continue to show the same consistency with his selection of roles.

WASHINGTON: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced the list of 395 artists and executives that have been invited to join this year. Bollywood actor Vidya Balan and producers Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor are among the new list of invitees of the Academy’s ‘Class Of 2021’.

Other newcomers include Oscar winners Yuh-Jung Youn, Emerald Fennell and Florian Zeller. Celebrities like Andra Day, Henry Golding, Vanessa Kirby, Robert Pattinson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II have also been invited to join this year. The Academy announced the names of the 395 invitees on their website. Their tweet read, “It’s time to announce our new members! Meet the Class of 2021. #WeAreTheAcademy.”

The Academy recognised Vidya for some of her iconic films such as the 2012 mystery thriller ‘Kahaani’ and the 2017 family drama ‘Tumhari Sulu’.

Vidya’s acting credits also include movies like ‘Paa’, ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’, ‘Parineeta’, ‘Bobby Jasoos’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘Shakuntala Devi’, among several others.

Meanwhile, producers Ekta and her mother Shobha, who own the production house Balaji Telefilms, have been recognised by the Academy for bankrolling films such as ‘Dream Girl’, ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbai’, ‘Udta Punjab’ and Vidya’s ‘The Dirty Picture’.

Eight people have been invited to join multiple branches of the Academy. These include Leslie Odom Jr, Florian Zeller, Shaka King, Alexander Nanau, Emerald Fennell, Lee Isaac Chung, Craig Brewer, and Kaouther Ben Hania.

This year, the Academy has invited 395 people, about half the number of last year’s class, when it invited 819 members, reported Variety. The Academy said in a statement, “To enable steady future growth and to ensure the necessary infrastructure, staff resources and environment to support all Academy members, the number invited to membership was limited to roughly half that of recent years.”

NEW DELHI: Tisca Chopra went out to the suburban Mumbai theatres this morning and distributed 1500 kgs of rice packets to theater workers.

Talking of this drive, Tisca Chopra says, “We all know how theatres have been shut. It’s been almost a year and a half. The single-screen theatres have faced the major brunt of the same. In normal times these theatres are the hubs of the social life in that area – perhaps the only sources of entertainment for people living around there. The workers end up becoming friends with the customers coming in every weekend for a movie. And these theater workers have been out of work for this whole time. I felt we must reach out in whatever way we can and thus we decided to take this up as a part of our initiative. If each one of us comes out and help, we may be able to curb the suffering around us a little, at least in terms of food and basics. Whether it is a small or a big help, it doesn’t matter.”

Tisca Chopra plans to reach out to theatre workers all over who’ve been out of work throughout the pandemic via her initiative Tisca’s Table. “We have got tons of rice to share with people in need. It is a staple in this area. It is shared with us very kindly by the India Gate Basmati team. At this time we felt that Tisca’s Table needed to put food on tables of actual people where they might not be able to afford them right now,” adds Tisca.

Q. You are a glorious global sensation earning the unique tag of a spiritual urban yogi devotional singer, share with us your fairytale storybook?

That’s very kind! Who comes up with all these tags? That’s all they are, tags, and as a soul, my story continues to unfold in unexpected ways. Some fantastical and some thought-provoking. Being spiritual is a constant quest, and whilst I am very grateful to be able to have learnt Vedanta and studied Philosophy so I can offer some insight, we are all students in life and those who preach probably need to learn the most. My life is anything but a fairytale — as a teenager, I had this fixed notion of how I expected my life to turn out and certain milestones I would effortlessly reach. My life hasn’t panned out like that, to some people I have achieved a lot but I feel behind in so many ways. My fairytale is to live in grace and accept this moment for what it is. Each turn in our life represents an opportunity for us to evolve. The good and bad experiences are chapters, and the fairytale resides in our ability to find our contentment in the chaos.

Q. You emphasise Spirituality 2.0, a guide for modern-day practices for millennials like yourself. Tell us more about it?

Spirituality 2.0 is about simplifying spiritual practices and creating achievable targets in your daily life. Controlling your social media usage, spending five minutes calling an elderly family member and showing you care, writing in a gratitude book, taking time out for meditation and most importantly being careful whom you associate with. Now, through social media, you can become ‘friends’ with almost anyone but make sure you have positive influences in your life and focus inward. Remember in Shakespeare’s play, Iago brought the downfall of a great leader like Othello. In the ‘Mahabharat’, Karna’s association with Duryodhana cost him his life. Keep your circle small, we do not need to be popular, we need to earn respect. There is a lot of distraction outside of us, quickly weed out anything that doesn’t serve a higher purpose.

Q. You’re a stunning spiritual yogi who has managed to shine and be supremely impactful in a male-dominated world. What are your views on this?

I have nothing to do with being stunning. I come from very attractive parents, 100% of people who know me would argue my mother is far more beautiful and my dad is a blue-eyed Indian so that says it all. I am mediocre in comparison. You have to shine from within, and if you are a woman, you make sure you fight the good fight for your place on the world stage. Why are spiritual/religious preachers predominantly male? I don’t get it, and when I don’t get something, I go after it and change it. 

Q. You follow and look up to all the classic admired masters and gurus, Morani Bapu, Sister Shivani of Brahma Kumaris, Swami Ji Chidanand Saraswati of Parmath Niketan Ashram. How have their teachings benefited you in your varied career choices, as we add in a motivational speaker and a talented writer?

It’s really simple, Morari Bapu teaches you ‘satya, prem and karuna’, truth, love and compassion. I try to imprint those three words in my mind and live by them. He is a fantastic orator and uses humour and storytelling to engage his audience. Sister Shivani teaches you the power of positive thoughts and taking ownership of your own feelings and emotions. Her style of teaching is very logical which is what I love. Swami Ji of Parmarth Niketan teaches you to talk less and do more, just look at his clean up Ganga initiative. Preaching, motivating, writing, is not enough — you need to back them up in action. With all these spiritual/religious influences, I gravitated to devotional music and the rest was a natural transition.

Q. What advice can you give future thought leaders and visionary’s with dreams and stars in their eyes yet battling with the Covid world we reside in?

Covid-19 pandemic won’t be forever, use this time to work on yourself. I spent seven months living alone and I created a tightly disciplined day for myself that enriched my body, mind and intellect. Don’t wallow in self-pity because it’ll waste your time, which is so very precious. Every time you feel you ‘cant’ do something, think what you ‘can’ do and run with it, you never know what will manifest. I would also add you can’t plan to be a thought leader. Just be authentic, fearless and true to yourself and others. That authenticity makes you extremely unique and attractive to the world, this will open doors without you having to even push. Also, give up caring what people think — if you live your life by the standards of others, you will never reshape the world. Be bold enough to trust yourself. Lastly, continuously educate yourself. That doesn’t mean just reading about successful leaders but observing everyday life. I love watching my peonies bloom, I smile as they slowly unfurl a little more every day, no rush, no fuss but perfectly timed with their internal rhythm. There is perspective in everything.