Promotions of films a test of patience: Bachchan

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, who is currently busy promoting his film "Aladin", says that movie promotion is not only an art but also a test of one's patience.
"Promotions of films has now become an art, an exercise in management, a test of patience and an ability to be able to answer the same questions in and out with the same intensity and conviction that you may have expressed in the previous interview," Amitabh posted on his blog.
Amitabh also said that he admires journalists relentless pursuit for exclusives.
"They are all around you waiting in anticipation for their turn to arrive, to be able to turn on their microphones and cameras, to put on that TV anchor demeanour and strike out. I have admired their relentless pursuit for that exclusive, their determined effort to get something out of their subjects which has not been covered by the other rivals, present merely inches away," he wrote.
Further praising journalists, he wrote: "The speed with which they (journalists) all operate is incredible. How they devise the look of the interview, what would need to be shown as a clip to enhance the program, the reference material of the past, the music and the editing of the material they have, the headlines that need to be created and then finally the presentation on the broadcast.
"...But there is never ever a complaint, an objection to a delayed request and neither is there need to bring out competition at the street level. There is a deep understanding and respect for each other. A desire to share information and to see that it is disseminated in a manner that would be the requirement of their seniors."
Releasing Friday, "Aladin" is the modern version of the fantasy story and also stars Riteish Deshmukh and Sri Lankan actress Jacqueline Fernandes.

Now I'm just a credit title: Amitabh Bachchan

He sleeps for 'four to five hours' a day, burns the midnight oil to blog and has a packed shooting schedule.
But 67-year-old megastar Amitabh Bachchan insists he is neither the busiest person in the Hindi film industry nor an important part of any of his projects.
"I don't think that is entirely correct. I just do whatever is offered to me. I do films, I am now doing television ('Big Boss 3')," said Amitabh shrugging off the busy bee title.
"If you plan your day and time, you can find time to do all these things. If the body responds, it's fine. But sooner or later it's going to pack up, so might as well work while it's working," said Amitabh who squeezed in enough time to reply to 1207 SMSes that he received on his birthday last week.
Over four decades of excellent cinematic presence has made him a brand. Doesn't that overshadow others in a film?
"I don't think that is entirely correct. May be in the early years, they (audiences) came to watch my films because I was in it. But now I am just one of the credit titles. I am not that important," Bachchan said in an interview.
"I am a part of the crew and the cast. Even in my early years, I used to think that. I think the product itself is more important. It's the film that is going to make you or your name or give you visibility. If that goes wrong then everything goes wrong. So one must work as a team so that the product works," he explained.
The actor stays awake till the wee hours to write his blog.
"That is like a compulsion. I feel very vacant and I feel as though I haven't done justice to my day if I don't write the blog because there are now a few hundred people who are regular. They wait to know about me and they want to talk to me," Amitabh said.
"I feel somewhat guilty if I don't write the blog every day. So even if I am late, I make sure that I put something down," he added.
Doesn't his family object to his blogging addiction? "They are always saying, 'Please don't write your blog. Get off your blog'," he said.
"You have all kinds of funny things happening to your neck and shoulder because you're all the time bending down on your laptop. But that's okay," added the Big B, as he is fondly called.
Strenuous working hours and regular blogging hardly leaves any time to catch up on sleep but the actor is content with what he gets.
"I get about four to five hours' sleep and that's okay," said the veteran, who was seen this year only in a cameo in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's "Delhi-6".
Amitabh was here to promote his upcoming film "Aladin". Releasing Oct 30, it is a contemporary take on the classic fairy tale and he stars in it as the Genie.
Produced by Sunil Lulla and Sujoy Ghosh, the film has been directed by Ghosh. It also stars Riteish Deshmukh in the lead opposite debutante Jacqueline Fernandez. Sanjay Dutt appears in a negative role in the film.
Apart from casting magic in the film as the Genie, the sexagenarian has also performed action sequences in "Aladin". He says the only way to attempt stunts at his age is by keeping "fit".
"You have to keep fit. Some of the action scenes are really tough and they are physically very draining. But now they have wonderful gadgetry which can make you jump sky high and do all kinds of things. We use that, but even doing that is strenuous. If you are not prepared to do all that, then it doesn't work," he said.
Despite wife Jaya, son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya all being actors, the Hindi film industry still has not seen the entire family together in a film.
When asked about it, he said: "I don't know. Somebody will have to design a project like that. If they do, we'll be very happy to do it."
Apart from "Aladin", Amitabh's other projects include "Paa", "Teen Patti", "Rann" and "Johnny Mastana".

Amitabh, Amar Singh accused of Rs.500 crore scam

Bollywood mega star Amitabh Bachchan and Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh have been accused of involvement in a Rs.500 crore money laundering scam, according to a complaint lodged with Kanpur police.

Lodged by local businessman Shivkant Tripathi late Thursday, the first information report has charged the two well-known faces, who are close friends, of being involved in a major fraud through money laundering.

“The complainant has accused Amar Singh of floating half a dozen companies in which 43 companies were amalmagated allegedly with the intent of siphoning off tonnes of black money,” Uttar Pradesh’s additional director general of police Brij Lal told reporters here Friday.

“Amitabh Bachchan figures among the key stake holders in most of the companies, while Amar Singh’s wife Pankaja Singh is shown as a partner,” he said.

According to Lal, “The companies, mostly registered in Kolkata, were identified as Eastern India Chemicals Pvt Ltd, Sarvottam Pvt Ltd, Pankaja Art and Credit Pvt Ltd, EDCL Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, EDCL Powers Ltd and Energy Development Company.”

Cases were registered under the Money Laundering Act as well as Prevention of Corruption Act.

“The provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act could be invoked in view of Amar Singh’s then appointment as chairman of the UP Development Council,” the official said.

While complainant Tripathi could not be contacted, cops were not sure how they would proceed with the case.

“A case of fraud has been registered with the Babupurwa police station and only after preliminary investigations are done will we be in a position to affirmatively comment on the actual extent of the alleged fraud,” he pointed out.

My excitement about birthdays is long gone, says Big B

Gifts had started pouring in at his landmark residence 'Jalsa' weeks earlier and he has been busy cutting cakes at public ceremonies, but Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan who turns 67 on October 11, says that his enthusiasm about birthdays has long died.

The thespian who will soon complete his 40th year in the film industry, said that he "goes along blowing candles", because he does not want to hurt the sentiments of his well-wishers and fans.

"It is the time of the year for cakes and their excesses and I shall be blowing candles a plenty. But stopping them would be a sacrilege and so one goes along.... That is the norm and one goes along with it, though the excitement of birthdays and gifts has long since gone by," wrote Big B on his blog.

His on-screen 'angry young man' alter-ego may scoff, but the real life Bachchan, who has got upto 4000 birthday wishes from fans across the world, whom he calls his extended family, said that he is immensely touched by the gestures, though giving interviews to the media for the occasion irks him. "There is a line up of media interviews starting off from tomorrow morning. You do one you do a hundred," wrote the star.

While most of his contemporaries have long retired, the Big B is enjoying a peak in his career with the best of roles coming his way and he has also consolidated his position as the most bankable star on TV with his role as pop philosopher on the reality TV show 'Big Boss'. The TV crew had arranged for a small celebration and Bachchan will again be cutting a cake today at the launch of his much awaited film 'Rann'.

"A cake was in store for me by the end of the evening by the unit and the multitude of people that have been working so hard on this show... Tomorrow the team of Rann wish to bring in the first look launch for the film at a theatre near by and again cut a cake for my birth," wrote Bachchan.

The actor has successfully avoided getting stereotyped in the industry as his upcoming films see him in a myriad of avatars, from a modern genie in 'Aladin' to a media tycoon in 'Rann'. But Bachchan who has won three National and 12 Filmfare awards among countless others, is best remembered as the 'angry young man' of filmlore. The actor who started his Bollywood journey with 'Saat Hindustani', interestingly got his dream break after 13 straight flops with 'Zanjeer', which was turned down by then superstars Dev Anand and Rajkumar.

The journey that began has not ended till date, though there were plenty of road blocks on the way, including bankruptcy and a near death experience. While filming Coolie in 1982, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. He remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death.

The public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. More than two decades later, the actor fondly called the 'Shehenshah of Bollywood' is still thriving with no plans of fading away.

Busy Big B still going strong

Amitabh Bachchan has never been busier. The Bollywood megastar, who turns 67 on Monday, has three films lined up for release, is hosting a popular television reality show, is to walk the ramp for a top fashion event — and has no plans to retire in the near future.

He says he’ll be happy to follow in the footsteps of legendary actor Ashok Kumar, who played strong roles even at the age of 80.

“I would disagree that actors of my age don’t get important roles to play in movies. Look at Dada Muni (Ashok Kumar)...he was an example. He kept doing important roles even till he was 80 years old,” Amitabh said.

“I can’t be playing the lover boy anymore. So I do all those roles that suit a 67-year-old,” said the film icon who has completed four decades in the Indian film industry.

At his age, Amitabh is one of the busiest actors in tinsel town. The megastar says he had finished shooting for his forthcoming films Aladin, Teen Patti and Paa before heading to Singapore for three months.

He is now preparing to sign more projects.

“I was away with a friend of mine (Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh) who had a medical condition and I was out of the country for three months. Since I knew I wanted to be with him and that it would take some period of time for him to heal, I deliberately finished all my pending work by June,” Amitabh said.

In all his forthcoming projects, Amitabh will be seen in different avatars.

In Aladin, he will sport overgrown locks for the role of a contemporary genie, Paa will see him playing a child suffering from progeria, which causes premature ageing, and Teen Patti features him as a mathematics genius.

Amitabh is also making his presence felt on the small screen after three years as the host of Colors’ reality show Bigg Boss, which has celebrities staying inside a specially designed house under constant camera surveillance and no contact with the outside world.

“Bigg Boss was the first thing I took up (after returning from Singapore). There are many people who want to make a film with me fortunately, so I will now talk to them,” he said.

The actor is also fairing well in the ad world as he emerged among the top five Indian celebrity brand endorsers in a recently conducted survey.

And he is also set to scorch the fashion runway at the HDIL India Couture Week on his birthday. He will display a creation by his favourite designer duo Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla.

The phoenix of Bollywood

People love watching Amitabh Bachchan dance. Which isdoes not suggest that the most durable star in the history of Hindi cinema is celebrated for his fancy footwork. In fact, apart from his undoubted acting skills and the sheer magnitude of his masculine charisma, he is most admired for his verbal gifts: the deep sonorous baritone and the flair for mimicry which he exploits as one to adopt authentic Bombay street slang in his gangster roles. He is also one among the few Bollywood stars who has recorded his own playback tracks. But when he dances, Amitabh Bachchan is a great actor. Decked out in what looks like a gaucho outfit in Don (78), prancing and preening next to the staggering Zeenat Aman, he looks a lot like a man enjoying himself, and enjoying life.

Bachchan who tried to trade up to acting in the late Sixties from his job as a shipping company executive was at first dismissed by producers as "too thin and too tall." His roles in early films often shows him slumped over tables or sitting behind desks, playing brooding young poets and doctors, roles which echoed his own patrician upbringing as the son of the famous Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Though at 6'3", Bachchan is not really all that tall by International standards and doesn't tower over his co-stars. But with his short-waisted, long-legged physique he looked downright gangly, and becomes an honorary giant when strategically photographed.

Bachchan has such a classic standing-tall entrance in Yash Chopra's Trishul (78), using his cigarette to light a fuse and then walking calmly away as a mountainside erupts behind him. The script for Trishul was one of several, beginning with Zanjeer(73) which the writing team of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar formulated the Angry Young Man persona. Trishul's Vijay isn't a natural rebel but a man with a mission, setting out systematically to destroy his own father (Sanjeev Kumar), a megalomaniac industrialist who committed an even greater violation of abandonind, an unwed and pregnant mother of Vijay. This betrayal lays the groundwork for the financial empire his son attempts to destroy.

Even when Bachchan was playing proletarian characters he always walked "with the gaite of an aristocrat." What is often most thrilling about his confrontations with authority is his easy assumption of equality and this guy never feels outclassed. "You see a certain grace about that character," suggests Akhtar. "So many other actors have tried to ape Amitabh, but they've failed. Because they don't have the sophistication and the culture that he grew up with. As an actor, Amitabh's anger was never ugly. Other actors mix anger with arrogance. Amitabh's anger was mixed with hurt and tears . . . But I'm afraid that in later pictures even Amitabh developed that arrogance."

By the mid-Eighties this screen image had dissolved into that of a superhero myth in pictures like Coolie (83) and Mard (85), garish big-budget cartoons aimed squarely at the masses. The Bachchan heroes in these films are proletarian demi-gods, the sweat-stained masters of all they survey. We can tell that Allah directly looks upon Bachchan's Iqbal in Coolie because this Muslim railway porter is assisted in his journey for justice by a magical falcon that dive-bombs the labor leader's sneering enemies. And in Mard Bachchan's mother-fixated tongawalla leads the oppressed masses to victory with the help of both a faithfull dog and a superintelligent horse.

These films though are best viewed today as comedies, Bachchan's performances in them have an unmistakable glint of irony, and, like director Manmohan Desai, he seems to have thrown himself into them mostly as a lark, much similar to his earlier comedies like Amar Akbar Anthony (77). On the other hand, it's possible that an element of cynical calculation came into play in terms of their impact on the mass audience. This was also the period, after all, in which Bachchan was elected to India's Parliament as a Congress Party candidate from his hometown of Allahabad, and the films do somewhat resemble the flat-out mythologicals that helped confer an aura of godlike infallibility upon the South Indian actor-politicians M.G. Ramachandran and N.T. Rama Rao.

Within even the worst of his movies Bachchan remains an honorable performer, and in his best roles he leaves his superstardom at the door. In Ramesh Sippy's Shakti (82), which was made only a year before the rabble-rousing Coolie, Bachchan worked earnestly to serve a project in which he was bound to be overshadowed by his legendary co-star, Dilip Kumar, a revered veteran of the Golden Age and one of Bollywood's all-time greatest actors. In Salim-Javed's script, Bachchan's Vijay is the son of a rigidly dutiful police inspector, an unbending Father India figure who refused to negotiate with the ganglord (the late Amrish Puri) who kidnapped Vijay when he was a child. The boy managed to escape on his own only because another member of the gang (Dalip Talil) took pity on him and looked the other way. As an adult, Vijay goes to work for this man, who is now a notorious smuggler - "The man who saved me," he tells his outraged father, "when you were willing to let me die for the sake of the law."

Shakti is the most nuanced and lacerating of the Angry Young Man films, because the pivotal conflict is located not outside the hero, in the realm of plot mechanics, but within: "The only person I am afraid of is myself." Bachchan seems to deliberately damp down his trademark fiery acting style in order to harmonize with Kumar's understated naturalism, and he has some lovely courtly romantic interludes with New Cinema icon Smita Patil. But while the film won several Filmfare awards, including Best Screenplay, it was not a commercial success - in part, it seems, because it did not give Indian moviegoers the sort of iconic Bachchan they had come to expect. "In spite of being a megastar," Akhtar says, "Amitabh did not let his stardom come in the way of playing the son. And he played the son and looked submissive, or passive, or frightened, or intimidated as a son should look in front of a powerful father. He showed that he's an actor first, then a star."

But if Amitabh Bachchan the man could at times have made better use of his fame, a couple of other things need to be said: Bachchan has never gone in for the jingoistic Hindu nationalism favored by action stars such as Manoj Kumar in the Seventies and Sunny Deol since the Nineties. He has played Muslim and Christian characters in several films, and at the peak of his almost unimaginable popularity he was not all that protective of his glowering heroic image, alternating action roles with high-stepping comedies like Namak Halaal (82) or moody middlebrow romances such as Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie (76) and Silsila (81). He may not have been pro-active in the modern manner in terms of developing projects for himself, but he does seem to have been open to almost any kind of good role that came his way.

The mid-Eighties marked the pinnacle of Bachchan's superhuman stardom: news of his near-fatal accident in 1982 on the set of Coolie brought the country to a standstill. But his Olympian eminence proved short-lived: he was implicated falsely in the Bofors bribery scandal that crippled the post-Emergency government of his childhood friend Rajiv Gandhi, and the yellow press turned against him. The situation looked even more dire when a high-profile multimedia production company launched in the mid-Nineties, Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd. (ABCL), collapsed following by a series of commercial miscalculations. Most of his Nineties films were not successful, which seemed to confirm the widespread suspicion that Bachchan was a spent force. He was not easy to replace: in the mid-Nineties it took all three of The Three Khans (Aamir, Shah Rukh, and Salman) to fill the vacuum created when The Big B dropped off the A List.

Bachchan was able to work his way back into the limelight toward the end of the decade with a run that, when first announced, sounded like a comedown prompted by financial desperation: appearing as the host on Kaun Banega Karorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And then, in the steamroller hits of the first phase of his comeback, such as Aditya Chopra's Mohabbatein 2000) and Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Bachchan reinvented himself as an imposing patriarchal figurehead of Hindu Family Values.

A pretty useless shot early in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham drew affectionate chuckles from the mostly-NRI crowd: Bachchan's real-life wife Jaya standing on a chair to adjust her husband's necktie. The effect depends on a number of factors in addition to the star's famous height. It plays upon the Indian public's sense of the Bachchans as one of Bollywood's most durable couples, and upon the affection due to Jaya herself as a performer, a diminutive firecracker whose headstrong teenage characters in the Hrishikesh Muhkerjee films Guddi (71) and Mili (75) brought a recognizable type of modern, urban woman to the Hindi screen for the first time. Jaya and Amitabh met when he played a strong second-fiddle role in Mili, at which point she was much the bigger draw. But by 1999, one year after their 25th anniversary, Amitabh had been certified as the most popular movie star of all time in an online poll conducted by the BBC - a feat that was trumped when he became the first and only Indian actor memorialized in wax at Madame Tussaud's in London.

Cynics might suggest that Bachchan looked like a wax dummy in some of his post-comeback films. In more than a few of them he seems to have been cast mostly for his nostalgia value, stuffed and mounted on a pedestal. But in the best of them, as the rigid headmaster of an exclusive men's college in Mohabbatein, he looks more like something carved from granite. Bachchan clearly works hard to serve writer-director Aditya Chopra's conception of his character, Narayan Shankar, as a man so stiffened by disappointment that he's virtually immobile. In dramatic terms, after all, that's exactly what Shankar is: an immovable object for obstreperous co-star Shah Rukh Khan to hurl himself against. It actually works for the movie that Bachchan looks like a strange visitor from another era, the stern father figures his Vijay characters rebelled against in the Seventies.

Over the past few years, and against all odds, Bachchan has managed to build upon his initial comeback status as a serviceable senior character actor. He is once again, in his sixties, a major leading man, a feat that is certainly rare enough in the annals of world cinema to be noteworthy. Many of these roles look like middle-aged "veteran" versions of character types he has been embodying all his life: conflicted criminals in Kaante (03) and Boom (04), flawed honest cops seeking redemption in Khakee (03) and Dev (04), and patriotic military icons in Lakshya (04) and Deewaar (04). But these days he plays even these hyper-masculine roles as men close to his own age, happily long-married patriarchs with grown children. Perhaps this is the upside of living in a traditional society - that people who would long since have been put out to pasture in the West can still be seen as the "author backed" subject of the narrative.

His charisma is sorely needed, as no one in the current crop of younger actors has anything like Amitabh Bachchan's moral authority, which is the grown-up distillation of his youthful anger. When the New Cinema stalwart Govind Nihalani (Ardh Satya, 83) made Dev, his Bollywood expossure of political complicity in communal violence, there was really only one viable choice for the voice-of-reason title role, an honest policeman fending off both Muslim and Hindu demagogues. Meanwhile, the Three Khans seem to have skipped over the seething Bachchan persona altogether in their search for role models, harking all the way back to the Shammi Kapoor hip-swivelers of the Fifties and Sixties who cajoled and schemed and danced their way to comfortable happy endings. And in a period in which the typical Bollywood blockbuster is designed to reassure the rising Indian middle class, the younger males (Vivek Oberoi, John Abraham, Arjun Rampal) are well-groomed good sons in expensive sweaters. In his best latter-day vehicles Bachchan relishes dispensing fatherly advice to these whelps, and to our delight, he is dancing again. In Yash Chopra's Veer-Zaara (04) he is an irrepressibly affirmative role model. He almost single-handedly redeems Sameer Karnik's formulaic Kyun! Ho Gaya Na... (04) with a high-stepping comic turn as a compulsive practical joker.

In Mohabbatein, Shah Rukh Khan, as a warmhearted music teacher, predictably wins his running battle with Bachchan's harsh task-master, who has turned his back on the possibility of love and happiness. But in the film's final sequence Khan still feels compelled to bend over and touch the feet of this literally monumental figure. Although Amitabh Bachchan's prodigious stature is now partly an optical illusion, it can't be denied that in his sunset years he looks mightier than ever.

I'll do important roles till 80 like Ashok Kumar: Amitabh

Amitabh Bachchan has never been busier. The Bollywood megastar, who turns 67 Monday, has three films lined up for release, is hosting a popular television reality show, is to walk the ramp for a top fashion event - and has no plans to retire in the near future.
He says he'll be happy to follow in the footsteps of legendary actor Ashok Kumar, who played strong roles even at the age of 80.
'I would disagree that actors of my age don't get important roles to play in movies. Look at Dada Muni (Ashok Kumar)...he was an example. He kept doing important roles even till he was 80 years old,' Amitabh said.
'I can't be playing the lover boy anymore. So I do all those roles that suit a 67-year-old,' said the film icon who has completed four decades in the Indian film industry.
At his age, Amitabh is one of the busiest actors in tinsel town. The megastar says he had finished shooting for his forthcoming films 'Aladin', 'Teen Patti' and 'Paa' before heading to Singapore for three months.
He is now preparing to sign more projects.
'I was away with a friend of mine (Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh) who had a medical condition and I was out of the country for three months. Since I knew I wanted to be with him and that it would take some period of time for him to heal, I deliberately finished all my pending work by June,' Amitabh said.
In all his forthcoming projects, Amitabh will be seen in different avatars.
In 'Aladin', he will sport overgrown locks for the role of a contemporary genie, 'Paa' will see him playing a child suffering from progeria, which causes premature ageing, and 'Teen Patti' features him as a mathematics genius.
While 'Aladin' will hit screens Oct 30, 'Paa' will release Dec 4 and 'Teen Patti', which also stars Hollywood legend Ben Kingsley, will open to audiences Feb 12 next year.
Till then, Amitabh is making his presence felt on the small screen after three years as the host of Colors' reality show 'Bigg Boss', which has celebrities staying inside a specially designed house under constant camera surveillance and no contact with the outside world.

Bollywood glamour will add to India Couture Week

It will be a six-day star-studded extravaganza. The second edition of the HDIL India Couture Week will see top notch Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan walk the ramp for the fashion pageant that kicks off here Sunday.
The Oct 11-16 event will see superstar Amitabh Bachchan walking the ramp for designer duo Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla's inaugural show. Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Govinda, Ajay Devgan and Katrina Kaif are expected to walk the ramp for Salman Khan's Being Human show Oct 13.
Then, filmmaker Karan Johar is making his fashion debut at the event. The maker of super hits like 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham' has teamed up with designer Varun Bahl to showcase men's couture range on the last day.
Since Karan Johar's muse is Shah Rukh Khan, the Bollywood superstar will sashay down the ramp along with his wife Gauri Khan.
Bollywood's young brigade Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan are also expected to walk the ramp.
The couture week is an initiative of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), which annually stages two editions of the hugely successful Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW) in New Delhi.
Other designers participating in this event are Monisha Jaising, Pallavi Jaikishan, Varun Bahl, Manish Malhotra, Manav Gangavani and Suneet Varma.
Unlike WIFW, the couture week is not a business-driven event but more a celebration of the Indian cultural heritage in a grand manner. Hence emphasis is given more to ramp decoration and creating a grand ambience to give an extravagant touch to the event.
'This is not a buyer-oriented event. Here the emphasis will be more on individual clients rather than on large buyers. We expect individual clients to conduct one-on-ones with designers to place their orders,' FDCI president Sunil Sethi said.
'Couture is all about extravagance and this gives an opportunity to the designers to add to their creativity by lending more drama and grandeur to the ramp,' he added.
Talking about the celebrity quotient, Sethi said: 'This year, the glamour quotient is at the peak in the couture week. These couture czars will surprise you with their collections while Bollywood celebrities will mesmerise you on the ramp.
'Full entertainment is guaranteed here.'
Apart from the glam and glitz, the event will also be a testing time for Monisha Jaising to prove her skills as a couture designer as she is mainly known for her pret line.
However, Sethi is confident about her skill-set. He said: 'She is one of the finest designers of the country and I am sure she will present a scintillating collection.'

Tabu-Amitabh to walk the ramp

Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla have asked Amitabh Bachchan to be the showstopper for their fashion show on 11th October, which also happens to be Amitabh’s birthday. He will be accompanied by his Cheeni Kum co-star Tabu.

They settled on Amitabh and Tabu as the two actors have been wearing their clothes for a long time and they needed someone who knew their clothes well. They especially wanted them together after Cheeni Kum. Luckily for Abu-Sandeep, the two agreed immediately.

Fantasy brings Big B and Juhi together again

Amitabh Bachchan and Juhi Chawla is going to be back again in the up coming flick, Alladin. Last time the duo was seen together in Bhoothnath which could be termed as a fantasy cum horror comedy film.

Their jodi rocked in the initially films though there was not much interaction of theirs. Big B played the role of bhooth where as Juhi played the role of a mother of the small and naughty boy Banku.

For Alladin too Mr. Bachchan is essaying the role of a genie but this time Juhi will be portrayed as Jasmin, the vivacious and a beautiful princess. So this time too she is all set to grab the attentions of all age group from kids to adults. Also there will be more interaction between Big B and Juhi this time in the flick.

The film also star cast Ritesh Deshmukh and marks the debut of Miss Srilanka, Jacqueline Fernandes. So are you ready for the fantasy ride with these fantastic 4…

‘Bigg Boss’ launch was hit by heavy rains, says Big B

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, who is set to host the third season of “Bigg Boss” that goes on air Sunday, says that the launch of the reality show was washed away by rain twice within a day.
“It just got over and it almost did not! The launch of ‘Bigg Boss’ got washed away twice in one day by the heavy and incessant rain over the hills here (at Amby Valley). Thunder, lightning…so close, it was blinding,” Amitabh posted on his blog www.bigb.bigadda.com early Sunday morning.

“The sets, the electronics and all the preparations got drenched and short circuited and the sound of the rain was so loud that even within the closed environment it was impossible to work,” he added.

The shoot, however, went on thanks to a production team of “close to 700″ people.

The third season of “Bigg Boss” has celebrities like Poonam Dhillon, Claudia Ciesla, Kamaal R. Khan, Sherlyn Chopra, Vindu Dara Singh, Shamita Shetty et al competing with one another. The show has the celebrities staying inside a specially designed house under constant camera surveillance and no contact with the outside world.

The 66-year-old commends the inmates who will spend weeks together inside the Bigg Boss house.

“I think it is most brave of all of them to have decided to get away from life for 84 days, leaving home and hearth in the care of others. I wish them all well and will be meeting up with them every Friday and Saturday,” he wrote.

The contestants will be locked up in an actual house in Lonavala and Bachchan wrote about the preparations and the set-up.

“The set is massive… Intricate control rooms, electronics, cameras, microphones… it is quite something,” he posted.

“And they (the Channel producers) have built an entire chalet for me when I come in to work over the weekends - bedrooms, makeup rooms, hall, dining area, kitchen, verandahs, huge courtyard… a Spanish villa in design with the personal touches of family photographs all over the house. I could move in here! This is some operation,” he added.

Big B welcomes Rakhi Sawant’s mom on ‘Bigg Boss’

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan launched the third season of the reality TV show “Bigg Boss” here Sunday night and welcomed 13 participants - including item girl Rakhi Sawant’s mother Jaya.
Jaya, who used to work as nurse to bring up her kids, was quite an unexpected participant on the show considering her strained ties with daughter Rakhi, who was a part of the show in the first season in 2006.

While Rakhi didn’t care to invite her mother to the finale of her recent “Swayamvar” show, the latter was upset that she (Rakhi) was taking the decision about her life partner without her family’s consent.

“…I thank the general public for understanding me. I am confident that I will be able to handle everyone on the show,” Jaya told Bachchan before entering the “Bigg Boss” house.

She recalled how Amitabh had given her a Rs.200,000 cheque for her mother’s well-being in the 1990s. She said: “For the world you may be a superstar, but for me you are god. You had helped my mother when she was ill and she gave you a lot of blessings.”

Dressed in a flashy, red, green and gold sari, she seemed ready to give her famous daughter a run for her money with her melodrama.

The third season of “Bigg Boss” is quite high on glamour with celebrities like Poonam Dhillon, Shamita Shetty, Aditi Govitrikar, Sherlyn Chopra, Tanaaz Currim Irani and Claudia Ciesla featuring in it.

However, with other contestants like music composer Ismail Darbar, actor-director Kamaal R. Khan, actors Vindu Dara Singh, Bakhtiyaar Irani, fashion desinger Rohit Varma and stand-up comedian Raju Srivastava, the list of men on the show failed to impress.

The first episode of the show saw Bachchan ushering in the 13 celebrities into the specially designed house in this hill station.

While all the participants will be closeted in the house for three months under 24-hour surveillance with no access to telephones or television, Bachchan will host the show on the Colors channel.

The show will air in a prime-time slot Monday-Friday but Big B will appear only in the elimination episodes every Saturday and Sunday, communicating with the contestants through a TV screen. Each week, one contestant will be voted out.

The winner will walk away with the grand prize of Rs.1 crore.

I get angry, but don't show it: Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan has learnt to live with controversies. But India's biggest star admits they sometimes get under his skin -- and when that happens he says he takes care not to show his irritation, particularly before the media.

"For celebrities, when you create a controversy, it happens and even when you don't create one, it still happens. Like if I sneeze, it can cause a controversy; if I don't, then also it causes one," said Bachchan.

"We (celebrities) have to live with that (controversies). I have accepted that controversies are bound to happen with me. I do get angry about it at times but we don't let it show - not in front of the media at least," added the 66-year-old thespian who will soon be seen as host of the third season of the reality show "Bigg Boss" that features a bunch of celebrities locked into a house.

The subject of many controversies, big and small, Bachchan seems to often vent his ire in his blog, which he labels a "revelation".

The blog - www.bigb.bigadda.com - has become almost an obsession, says the star candidly.

"It (my blog) has been a great revelation. It's a medium where I can talk to myself. It has now become almost like an obsession and it's not so much because I want to express myself but the fact that I better express myself now there are hundreds of people who wait to read what I'm going to do, what I am thinking and then they comment on it," he said.

He added that he would be going back to update his blog as soon as the interviews with the media were over.

Bachchan, whose forthcoming projects include Sujoy Ghosh's "Aladin", R. Balakrishna's eagerly-awaited role-reversal drama "Paa" and Leena Yadav's "Teen Patti", was in the capital for the launch of "Bigg Boss" that goes on the air Sunday.

"I had been getting offers from various channels. We had many advance talks with some of them but, for some reason, either I didn't like it or they couldn't conceptualise something for me. Then 'Bigg Boss' came along, so I said 'yes'," said TV's newest "pop philosopher".

Ask him how this whole concept of being a "pop philosopher" emerged, the actor said: "This word has been created by the channel and I am partially to blame for it. When we were in talks for the show, I kept asking Colors officials about what it is that may be different from what you have been doing.

"It intrigued me for very long as to why a human being behaves as he does, what's it that instigates him to behave in a certain manner? I thought it would be interesting to know all that and it may interest the people who will watch the show."

Though Bachchan will be seen twice a week as the show host, he is not open to the idea of being locked in the "Bigg Boss" house.

"I would hate to be in the 'Bigg Boss' house. How can you be cut off for three months without any newspapers and mobiles? With no knowledge of what time it is since there are no clocks?" he said in awe.

Apart from Big B hosting the show, the channel has also made changes in the selection format. This time, viewers were given a chance to vote for those whom they want to see in the "Bigg Boss" house.

Asked who he would personally like to see on the show and pat he responded: "Nobody. I don't want anybody to go in there."

Big B gives hard time to director Sujoy Ghosh

They say it needs a lot of conviction to impress and then convince Amitabh Bachchan. Lately, the person who has agreed with them is none other than the mega star himself.

Big B goes down the memory lane and shares his experience with the director of “Aladin’ Sujoy Ghosh to prove his point. He exclaims, “Aladin was not the first script- Sujoy had discussed with me. Sujoy, with his super enthusiasm would visit me everyday and narrate a script which he always wanted to work with me in. However, I was never convinced with him; in-fact I could never decipher what he would explain to me.”

Bachchan goes on to add, “And one fine day, I heard an altogether different script from him, which was of “Aladin’ and it took me just few seconds to give it a nod. Sujoy was thrilled to hear that and claimed to definitely convince me over the previous script he was working on as well. I assured him- as soon as I am convinced with the script it would not take me even a second to say yes to that as well.”

Well, all we can say to all the filmmakers who desire to work with Big B is- three things you got to be strong in “script’, “script’ and “script’ and the Bachchan is yours.

Bigg Boss 3 pays Big Bucks to Big B!

The most expensive actor of the industry, Amitabh Bachchan is getting pricy with an astronomical rise in the amount that he will be getting for Big Boss 3. He is the highest paid actor on small screen now, beating the Khans and Kumars of Bollywood.
“Initially it was decided that Bigg B will be receiving the amount of Rupees 1.5 crore per episode, but at the eleventh hour his price was hiked to Rupees 2.5 crore,” chirps the source.
Elaborating more on the information, our source adds, “There will be 84 episodes of Bigg Boss 3 and according to that ratio, Mr. Bachchan has become the highest paid host on television. Akshay Kumar and SRK were paid 1 crore per episode for their shows Khatron Ke Khiladi and Paanchvi Pass respectively.”
Salman’s price was hiked up for the second season of Dus Ka Dum. “For the first season of DKD, he received an amount of Rs. 80, 00,000 while in the second season his price was raised to 1 crore,” quips our khabroo.
Money talks need we say more on who still rules Bollywood and Television TRPs!

Are the Bachchans taking sweet revenge on Shilpa?

For years together, Amitabh Bachchan has been the biggest force in Bollywood and Aishwarya Rai (now his bahu), the face of Bollywood, to the Westerners. But when Shilpa Shetty went on to win the reality show Big Brother in UK all that quickly changed.
When Shilpa’s publicist Dale Bhagwagar publicly admitted for the first time that what his client was facing behind the four walls of the Big Brother house was indeed racism, he fired up a gigantic hype for her in UK media. Taking advantage of the sympathy-factor in the controversy, he hammered every move of hers in the media. This further generated a storm of public emotions, which was felt in India only after the whole hoopla was created abroad.
Resultantly, by the time Shilpa emerged a winner on the show, she was an icon, “the diva from India’ who had suddenly “replaced’ the Bachchans as the “face of Bollywood’.
Next year, the actress popularly went on to anchor Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother. Apparently, the bitterness of the Bachchans was clearly visible at the next IIFA Awards (with the Big B also being its ambassador) which co-incidentally took place in UK that year. It is said that the deafening chants for Shilpa Shetty, made the Bachchans insecure and embarrassed them, as they felt terribly ignored. To add to the awkwardness, a fan of Shilpa flew a mini airplane above the IIFA awards venue, tagged with a huge flying banner greeting her. No wonder, in spite of the Bachchan’s past affinity towards Shilpa, they kept distance from her during most of the event.
Two years have passed since then, but the Bachchans don’t seem to have forgotten the embarrassment. And now, in the strangest development of sorts, Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest star India has ever produced, is gearing up to step into Shilpa’s shoes. After successfully anchoring the king of all shows; Kaun Banega Crorepati, Bachchan is said to be preparing to anchor Bigg Boss, clearly considered to be Shilpa Shetty’s domain till now.
Now why would a megastar like Amitabh Bachchan want to take over anchoring a show, which Shilpa was so popular with? One can’t help but wonder if this is sweet revenge!

Amitabh Bachchan is the most stylish man: Sophie

MTV VJ and singer Sophie Chowdhury feels Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is the most stylish man.
“Mr. Bachhan will never go out of style and he is just one man who looks good in anything,” Sophie told reporters here after walking the ramp for Mandira Wirk’s collection at the ongoing Kolkata Fashion Week-II Saturday night.

Mandira, a product of the London School of Fashion, used fabrics like brocade, cotton, linen, silk and net for her collection in colours that ranged from ivory and beige to softer baby pinks and lilacs, before climaxing in corals.

Sophie also said: “I love fashion. The sari is the ultimate feminine outfit. Our Indian designers have made saris a style statement. Preity Zinta is the most feminine and carries everything with lot of grace and elegance.”

Mandira feels sequins are internationally in vogue and has designed her wardrobe keeping in mind the festive season round the corner.

Talking about the market, Mandira said: “I am really hoping to get some business from Kolkata, the market is picking up now after the slowdown. With festivity round the corner, business should be good.”

Wizcraft launches youth icon awards

After organising successful shows like the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards and Amitabh Bachchan’s Unforgettable Tour, Wizcraft Entertainment is set to host India Youth Icon awards.

Conceptualised by Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. in association with media partner Sahara India Media, the awards will be a platform to honour young individuals for their extraordinary contribution to society. It will be sponsored by Videocon.

“We believe that the youth will take us forward into the next century. It is essential that their icons be those with determination, courage and aspiration. Instituting these awards is a step in that direction. It’s an endeavour to identify and honour such commendable individuals,” said Sabbas Joseph, director, Wizcraft International.

The nominees for the awards will be decided by a panel of experts from different walks of life. These include IPS officer Kiran Bedi, journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, tennis ace Leander Paes, renowned cardiologist Naresh Trehan, actor and social activist Shabana Azmi, singer Usha Uthup and Venugopal Dhoot, chairman of Videocon Industries Limited.

After the nominations are announced, winners will be chosen through online voting. In case of a tie, the nominee with more votes from the advisory board will be given preference.

The first India Youth Icon awards will be presented Sep 25.

Amitabh Bachchan To Be Pop Philosopher On Bigg Boss 3

Indian television can’t get any bigger than this. As the channel Colors’ CEO Rajesh Kamat puts it, “It’s Bollywood Ka Boss meets Bigg Boss.”

Amitabh Bachchan has agreed to play a very special role in the third season of Bigg Boss, which begins in October.

This is the Big B’s second television appearance after the spectacular Kaun Banega Crorepati. And hence crucial. Negotiations between Big B and Colors were frantically on, until late this week.

Finally on Friday the Colors team headed for Singapore to announce Big B’s presence on the show.

Says Kamat, “Why Mr. Bachchan? You may well ask. After the success of Season 2 we needed to take Bigg Boss to another level. We went to the drawing board and concluded that the only way we could take the show higher was by introducing the concept of the Pop Philosopher. Earlier, we had the anchors commenting on the goings on in the Bigg Boss. Now the discussion would move to a dinner-table introspective level. Why were the contestants doing what they were doing…what were their motivations? Etc. We needed a prophetic voice that would be heard and taken seriously. Quite frankly if Mr. Bachchan hadn’t agreed, we’d have scrapped the concept of the pop-philosopher on the show.”

Filmmakers and scriptwriters are making a beeline for Singapore. But does Big B’s second major foray after KBC after years of being offered fiction and non-fiction mean he’s now in the mood to lean towards the home medium for a while?

“Not at all,” says the Big B. “I finished my pending film assignments and then came here. My trip to Singapore was planned well in advance. The next lot of films is crystallizing. In the meanwhile, I took on Bigg Boss because they thought I could be a convincing voice of reason on the show. I’m not the host or the anchor. I’ve a totally different function as a commentator who could connect with audiences without talking down to them.”

The icon surprises you by saying he’s nervous. “You’d think KBC was harder because that was my first time on television. But no. Every time I do anything new and that means starting a new film project too, I get butterflies in my stomach. I’m happy about this show because like KBC it has been conceptualized and created by the best minds, and some of the finest psychologists. So I’m in safe hands.”

‘Bigg Boss 3′ will surpass last year’s popularity: Colors CEO

Though “Bigg Boss” is among the most watched reality shows on Indian television, the latest version featuring Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan will see the show surpassing last year’s popularity, says Colors TV channel CEO Rajesh Kamat.

“After the tremendous success of ‘Bigg Boss’ last year, we want to take it to even higher levels this year - in ratings, in novelty and in appeal. With Mr. Bachchan on board, we strongly believe that ‘Bigg Boss’ this year has all the ingredients to surpass its last year’s popularity,” Kamat said in a press release.

Amitabh, 66, who created waves in the TV industry as host of superhit game show “Kaun Banega Crorepati”, is making a comeback to the small screen after a gap of four years.

His role in “Bigg Boss” has been defined as that of a ‘Pop Philosopher’, which is a unique concept that will be one of the differentiators of this season.

In this role, Amitabh will bridge the gap between “Bigg Boss” participants and viewers through contextualising events, simplifying emotions as well as analysing developments that happen within the “Bigg Boss” house.

Talking of his association with the show, Amitabh said: “This is one show that has intrigued me immensely as a viewer - its format, its contestants and the psychological battle within the house. That intrigue, coupled with the unique concept that Colors shared with me for this season, excited me to be a part of ‘Bigg Boss’ this year.”

“Bigg Boss” is the Indian version of popular British reality show “Big Brother”.

It has celebrity contestants locked into a house under the surveillance of multiple cameras for a period of three months without any contact with the outside world.

In the third season of the show this year, viewers will get to decide who they want to see in the “Bigg Boss” house. Amitabh will be urging viewers through ads to send in their entries, on the basis of which a few celebrities will be approached.

The show will begin in October.