The hottest Love scene on TV

Till a decade ago, it was films that attracted more attention than television. Today, daily soaps rule in almost every household and television is in no way lagging behind cinema. And following the trend on the big screen, the stories and scenes on the small screen have also become bold.

Love-making scenes are no more a taboo in serials. Meri Doli Tere Angana on Zee is the latest to create a flutter with a love-making scene between Simran and Ruhaan, which a source says is different from all other consummating scenes shown in TV serials to date.

For Priyamvada, who plays Simran in the serial, the scene was a challenge in itself. "I was nervous, very nervous, as it was the first time I was doing a love-making scene. Though it's a normal love scene but performing in front of so many people made me nervous," she admitted.

Thankfully, Priyamvada found a cooperative costar in Gaurav Khanna, who plays Ruhaan. "He kept telling me that it is a part and parcel of the job. That made me much more confident," the actress smiled.

Gaurav feels that such bold scenes on the small screen are inevitable given the changes the medium has undergone over the decade.

"I wasn't nervous as such, It wasn't the first time I was doing a love scene, but I have to admit that this is much bolder than the previous ones I have done," Gaurav said, adding he took it as part of his job as an actor and advised Priyamvada to do the same.

It took three re-takes for the scene to be okayed. A source said: "The actress was wearing a tube top and had a blanket draped on her shoulders. So there wasn't much difficulty as such, but the scene appears very hot."

Amitabh calls me 'Maalkin'...

Not too many people know this. But Mr Bachchan addresses Shefali Shah as 'maalkin'.

"I know!" she laughs. "It's very embarrassing when he called me that all during my husband's film Waqt and now during The Last Lear. Maybe because I was the producer's wife? To my horror he called me that during Last Lear too.

On the first day of the shoot he warned everybody, 'Don't go by her face, Because by and by she'll start changing everything on the sets…Hey,I don't do that! Of course I was critical on Vipul's set. That was my home production. But on another set I wouldn't cross the line. "

After Gandhi My Father Shefali Shah plays her producer Anil Kapoor's wife in the Subhash Ghai production Black & White.

Is she worried about the leap in intention?

"Not really," says Shefali. "Black & White is not a running-around-trees film. It's again a socially relevant film. Anilji is the hero and I'm the conventional leading lady. But I don't wear makeup, good clothes and sing songs."

Shefali informs that it was Anil who recommended Shefali. "But had it not been a good role I wouldn't have done Black & White. But it's not Gandhi My Father. Not at all. …nor is it The Last Lear, the English-language film that I've completed with Rituparno Ghosh."

The vastly talented and grossly under-used Shefali Shah is on the threshold of a new beginning in her career.

Her role as Kasturba in Feroz Abbas Khan's Gandhi My Father is already garnering rave reviews. In fact Akshaye Khanna has gone on-record to say it's the best performance in India by a female actor.

"I know Akshaye said that. And I'm deeply grateful. We've just returned from the film's world premiere and the response was overwhelming. Unfortunately Nelson Mandela couldn't come due to ill health. That was really sad, though he did send a message.

But the South African president and the whole cabinet was there. After the screening there was a stunned silence. They all told me they couldn't believe I look so different in person. A local lady who could barely speak English told me I made her cry.

I feel this film goes beyond boundaries. It's really moving. The premiere was unbelievable. Gandhi My Father is about selfless creation. Every actor and technician believed in what they were doing.

They thought of the film, not of their own interests. We all got an insight into lives that went way beyond art and acting. "

Shefali has been losing weight. "And so has my husband Vipul. I finally look the way I want to."

God forbid, Shefali gets typecast as an old woman after Gandhi My Father, a la Rohini Hattangadi after Attenborough's Gandhi.

"No way!" avers Shefali. "Because I'm the young Kasturba in most of the film. And the cinematographer has made me look look better than ever before….I don't think after this role the industry will typecast me. And even if they do, it's up to me to take or leave their offers. I've always been choosy anyway. Even if I do one film every two years it has to be something special."

Gandhi, she considers, her most important film so far. "Though I feel I could still have done better. I've never been more focused. Obviously I want to be appreciated. And I want the appreciation to be translated into a lot more. I'm at a stage where I think good things will happen to me. People are now willing to cast me in main leads.Somewhere I think I lacked the focus earlier."

Last Lear is another very special for Shefali. "I'm one of the central characters in both Gandhi My Father and The Last Lear. In Ritu's film I play my age and someone who looks after Amitji's character. I must tell you, after Vipul's unit, Ritu's was the most warm and organized unit I've worked with…very caring.

Bade pyar se thande dimaag se kaam hua. I've worked with productions where scenes are written on the sets. Sometimes I've played a character who has nothing to do with the scene given to me."

And yet she did a bit role in Yashraj Films' Mohabbatein.

"I don't regret doing that. It was a small role. But there was one good scene. After Gandhi and The Last Lear I may not do it. I took a break from acting to look after my babies, got back into shape. And now this is like my comeback. I've never felt better."

'I'm cutting down Ash's beauty!!!'

Ram Gopal Varma is currently in Hyderabad shooting for the sequel to Sarkar. The two Bachchand Amitabh and Abhishek are with him. Aishawarya is expected to join them later during the month.

"Aishwarya plays a very strong part with shades of negative in it. I'm completely changing her image. I'm cutting her beauty down. I've gathered a large supporting cast of ugly people and put her in the middle, so she'd come out looking stunning in her naturalness."

Apparently the two Bachchan men are so taken up with Aishwarya's part that they keep joking they could play her role.

Ramu is relieved to be away from Mumbai. "Hyderabad is like coming home for me. I belong to Hyderabad though I am a total Mumbaiyite now. Some of my early films were made in Hyderabad. So life has come a full circle," he says from Ramajirao studiow where a set depicting the home of the Bachchans has been built.

"Sarkar 2 is far more original than Sarkar. It will have far less of Godfather 2 than Sarkar had of Godfather 1. Sarkar 2 isn't about the mafia. It's a family drama."

And then a whammer of a confession. "I haven't made a single original film till Sholay. Every scene shot and frame of my earlier films have been copied from some source or the other. It could be a novel, a Hollywood or an old Hindi film. If I haven't been caught out it's because people haven't been able to locate my sources. Sholay is my first original film."

Sholay, says the incorrigible Ramu, isn't an underworld film. "It's almost a throwback to the kitschy films of the 1970s, like Nasir Husain's Yaadon Ki Baraat or Chori Mera Kaam. It isn't a gangster film nor a dacoit drama. The original Sholay created an excitement by giving the audience one slammer of a scene after another. I hope to do the same."

Ramu feels Nishabd to be the senior AB's most accomplished performance to date. "I personally think Sarkar was a cakewalk in comparison. To carry off a subject matter like that isn't very easy. However making Nishabd was a mistake. When Cheeni Kum did a old man-young woman love story there was a tongue-in-cheek element to it. Nishabd was too dark. There was resistance against seeing the film."

He ponders, " Mr Bachchan in Nishabd was over-cast. It should've been done with sn actor with a much less strong image. When Victor Bannerjee fell in love with a much younger woman in Joggers Park it didn't matter whereas there was outrage about THE AMITABH BACHCHAN falling in love with his daughter's friend in Nishabd.

To me Nishabd was Mr Bachchan's most accomplished performance. But I'd rather use him in a film like Sarkar where one closeup had more impact than the whole of Nishabd."

In Sarkar 2 Ramu is showcasing the senior and junior Bachchan keeping their image in mind. "Only Aishwarya gets the privilege of revamping her image," Ramu shoots off.

Bips torn between Saif and John!

John Abraham is trying hard to woo Bipasha Basu again and the two can be seen bonding over frequent lunches. Close friends of the couple also indicate that John is making attempts to renew his ties with his girlfriend, and he is making sure that he spends quality time with Bips every day.

And his efforts are showing some fruit as well. Perhaps that's why Bipasha shot for her item number in John starrer 'No Smoking' despite her sprained ankle.

Because the pain was intense the movie’s producer Kumar Mangat asked her to rest for few hours. But after two hours the sexy lady was ready to shoot again.

Despite John asking her to go home, Bipasha took the painkillers and shot for the remaining day. The actress knew very well that if she had gone home it would have caused financial loss to the producer.

But single-and-ready-to-mingle Saif Ali Khan is still not out of the picture completely. Rumour has it that he visited dusky beauty when she was shooting for the shampoo commercial that both she and John have endorsed together as a couple in the past.

However this time Bips was shooting the commercial without John and instead with model Hemant Shivdasani.

A source claims “Saif dropped in for a while and hung around with Bips while she was shooting. It was quite surprising to see Saif on the sets. After hanging around for a while Saif left the sets, but again later he joined Bipasha and her friends at a nightspot after the shoot was completed”.

The model who worked with Bips on the shampoo commercial was extremely excited and said “Working with Bipasha was a great experience.” However the model refused to comment on whether Saif had dropped by on the sets.

Shilpa Shetty, the new Bond Girl?

Post ‘Big Brother’, there has been really no looking back for Shilpa Shetty. The latest is that the flavour of this season is now leading opinion polls as the first choice for the Bond girl’s role opposite Daniel Craig in a Bond series movie.

It all started after ‘The People’ website in the UK raised the question about whether Shilpa would agree to play the Bond girl’s role, right after she won ‘Big Brother’. Since then there have been opinion polls across the internet and vast discussions on whether Shlpa qualifies for the ultimate glam role or not.

Interestingly thousands of people have actually voted for the dusky beauty and she has topped almost seven of these polls.

Surprisingly Halle Berry who was Bond girl in 2003’s ‘Die another day’ and who replayed the famous ‘Ursula Andress bikini shot from Dr. No’ has come second to the Indian diva.

However there is a downside as well. There are also sections of people taking part in these discussions who have been saying that things aren’t all that rosy and this could also end up as yet another big Bollywood rumour.

After the Aishwarya Rai and Gulshan Grover rumours, now it’s turn for rumours about the latest international celeb from India.

Some wrote that she doesn’t quite ‘have the Bond girl look' especially after the standard of the series went up after ‘Casino Royale’ and another even went to the extent of writing, “She is very pretty, but there is something really strange about her. Perhaps it’s the fake nose. It almost works but...”

Shilpa’s publicist and spokesperson Dale Bhagwagar chooses to analyse, “Every celeb has a fan base. Being loved by some and hated by others is a part and parcel of every actor’s life. Everyone is entitled to his/her individual opinion.”

There is yet another hitch which could be 'the Bollywood connection'. The fact remains that there has not been any actor from India who has made it as big as a Mexican Salma Hayek, a Spanish Penelope Cruz or an Italian Monica Belluci.

The general perception by now is that in Hollywood the whites and the blacks have their space, but things are not very favourable when it comes to brown skin and these actors always end up getting stereotyped.

There were high hopes about the ethereally beautiful Aishwarya Rai being the true blue cross over star but that too hasn’t exactly happened till now.

“I only have one thing to say about this. When Shilpa went for ‘Big Brother’, nobody expected her to win. But she managed to prove everyone wrong. If that,which seemed impossible has happened, why can’t this rule be broken as well?

As of now, Shilpa has many offers from the UK as well as the US. She hasn’t consented to any except for the role of Sita in Uru Patels’s ‘Hanuman’ which has two Hollywood stars playing the roles of Ram and Hanuman,” says Bhagwagar.

So if luck continues to favour the dusky beauty so, a day might come when there is actually an Indian Bond girl creating history of the unique kind.

Trishala Dutt is totally shattered!

Sanjay Dutt's controversial past caught up with him on Tuesday when a special court sentenced him to six years' rigorous imprisonment for being in possession of "dangerous weapons" in the 1993 Mumbai bombings case - bringing the curtain down on one of the world's longest-running terror trials.

Those who witnessed Dutt's sentencing in court say that an emotional Sanjay tried pleading for time - a chance to talk to his family - but to no avail.

"Though the crime was not brutal, cruel, ghastly, inhuman, not anti-social, and not immoral and did not result in any harm to anyone, it was still a serious offence as the accused had encouraged others to break the law," Kode told the courtroom.

The actor, who turned 48 on Sunday, made a last-ditch attempt to plead with Judge P.D. Kode to give him a couple of days to surrender before he starts serving his six-year long prison term for possessing "dangerous weapons".

"I have several family responsibilities to take care of and one of my sisters is pregnant. I have some family obligations to take care of," Dutt pleaded with Kode adding, "You too are a family man and you know me better than anyone else seeing me for the last fourteen years."

"I am helpless. Please understand me. I have no power now after pronouncing the sentence. I have been very considerate with you and allowed you to be on bail since you were convicted on Nov 28 last year." Kode said.

The actor, the most high profile among the 100 convicts who were sentenced, then pleaded that he should be allowed to take one phone call from his teenaged daughter.

"Will it be a collect call or will it be a billed call," Kode asked attorney Satish Manesinde in a lighter vein, granting permission before the actor was taken into custody."

Kode however, warned that the actor was not permitted to speak to the media or give any interview while he was waiting for his daughter's call.

" I have given permission for one overseas call, but ensure that you don't give any interview to the media or interact with them on phone," Kode warned before Sanjay was escorted out of the court room.

In no time, he was ordered to be lodged at the Arthur Road jail a stone's throw away from the TADA court.

Trishala Dutt, Sanjay’s 18-year-old daughter, told the Indian media she can’t believe ‘an honest man’ like her father has been given such a harsh sentence.

Currently in New York, she expressed deep distress over her father’s fate minutes after the verdict was announced.

"I am shattered and speechless. I’ve been in constant touch with dad since early morning. In fact, we almost broke down last night on the phone. He even spoke to me before he entered the court," says Trishala.

She adds, "He was stressed out but made a point of not showing it to me. I can’t imagine what he must be going through at this moment. I am scared and worried for him."

A shaken Priya Dutt was also seen following her brother after the sentencing, and her face said it all - the grief and crippling disappointment.

No fan, no bed sheet, common toilets for Sanjay Dutt

Actor Sanjay Dutt will receive no comfort or special treatment in Arthur Road prison in Mumbai.

To begin with, he will have no access to a fan, he will have to wear jail uniform and will not get a bed sheet or pillow.

The only comfort he can avail will be a blanket, which is standard for every prisoner. He will have to do without a mosquito repellent tonight. Unlike actor Salman Khan [Images], who sought a mosquito repellent when he was in prison, Dutt has not asked for it.

Also, Dutt will have to share his toilet and bathroom with eight other prisoners who are lodged next to barrack number 10, where he is lodged. His meals will be the same as what other prisoners get� there will be no home food for him.

However, TADA special court judge Pramod Dattaram Kode has given the actor some respite. Besides providing him access to medicines if required, the judge permitted Dutt's request to speak to his daughter Trishala in New York over phone in the presence of a police official.

Lodged in the same row as Dutt is notorious gangster Abu Salem. He was the man who delivered the AK-56 rifle at the actor's residence at the behest of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother Anees Ebrahim.

1993 serial blasts case main accused Yaqub Memon and his brothers -- Essa and Yusuf Memon -- were earlier occupants of barrack number 10. They have been shifted to Pune prison after Yaqub was sentenced to death while the other two were awarded life imprisonments.

Dutt will be lodged in Arthur Road Jail till August 2 after which he too will be sent to any of the Maharashtra state prisons, depending upon the availability of space.

"I don't want any harm to be done to him in jail," instructed Judge Kode to public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam as he delivered his verdict.

Arthur Road Jail is known for its notorious gang wars and has often hit headlines. Underworld members often fight with each other.

After he was sentenced to imprisonment, the actor continuously pleaded in vain before Judge Kode and also public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that he be given two days time to surrender as he was not prepared for this sudden decision.

"I do not have anything in my hand now. I had the powers to give you time to surrender under the Arms Act and I gave you time. Now, nothing is there in my hand," said Judge Kode.

Seeing no hopes, Dutt again stood up and requested the judge that he would be grateful if was lodged alongside his fellow co-accused Yusuf Nallwala. Accepting this request, Judge Kode told the public prosecutor, 'Both Nallwala and Sanjay Dutt can be kept in the same barrack.'

Emerging from the court, media persons mobbed a serious-looking Dutt. All that he told them was, "Pray for me. Nothing else matters"

Source - Rediff News