Dia Mirza & Zayed Khan romance together

Dia Mirza & Zayed Khan romance together: The trio with brio They have leased office space, printed stationery and visiting cards (all three are directors in the company) and they’re going to make lots of movies Age: Youthful, the two guys barely 30, Tweety bird pretty Dia, younger at 29 Enthusiasm.
High up there COMPATIBILITY: Like besotted newly-weds with a life to look forward to together Vision: Clear as crystal – scripts that excite, films that are viable with goal entertainment Financial muscle: With Sahara Motion Pictures backing them, no worry over moolah Born Free, their new production company, really had its birth in Dia Mirza’s mind.

Her boyfriend, Sahil Sangha – eligible, good looking, green card holder, with a background in advertising and marketing, and a stint in the studios as assistant to Nikhil Advani on Salaam-e-Ishq – had a script in hand which he wanted to direct.

Her best buddy, actor Zayed Khan – “Di and I have always been friends,” quote, unquote Zayed. Dia says more: “Zayed and I did Fight Club and we hit it off very well. Then we did Dus, Cash and I became very, very close to his wife Malaika. What really bound us was his wedding, the preparation for the sangeet, all of us getting the skit together with me leading the brigade.

That really bound us further and we’ve stuck it out together, never missed a birthday, never missed an important occasion in each other’s lives. His son Zidaan is the new binding force in our lives. He is the joy of my life. I love babies and I love him. Watching this little thing become this wonderful little boy is such a joy. Such connections just happen.”The clincher from Dia: “I’ve been a great believer in Zayed for a very long time.

There is a lot more in him than what has come out so far, I strongly believe that. I hope our collaboration and our love and respect for each other can bring all of that to the fore. I will fight tooth and nail for him.”Dia is chronologically the youngest but the seniormost in experience with 34 films behind her. Zayed is 15 films old, Sahil is the baby of the team. “He has to do pairi pauna to us (touch our feet) every day,” teases Zayed. But as a professional, Zayed respects his partner. “We’ve found a great talent in Sahil,” he enthuses. “He’s a super writer and a great director, besides being a partner who understands the business of entertainment.”

Boyfriend and buddy got on so well, Sahil had an action-comedy all written and ready for filming which excited Zayed Khan. They were like two boys with a new gizmo. It was Dia who put it all together for the three of them: “After 10 years of working here, I didn’t want to be in a space where I had to be explaining why I was doing something to anyone.

It was time to introspect and grow. So I told the two of them, listen guys, we have a great story, we get along well, let’s do it ourselves. So if you ask me whose idea it was to start this company, I’d say, it was mine. We discussed it sitting on Zayed’s rooftop.”

But it was also Dia who burst the little boys’ bubble. A little petulant about having to put aside their pet action comedy, Sahil reveals, “Zayed and I loved the action comedy, you’re either laughing or watching action in every scene with very endearing characters.

But it was Dia who influenced us to start with a romantic comedy. She had this wonderful idea, a one-line idea which she once told me about. I started working on it and by the time Zayed and I were ready with our action comedy, I was also ready with the first draft of the romantic comedy. Dia reasoned with us and said, ‘We’re all going to put our hearts into this company, let’s first make a story of the heart’.

We mulled it over. Boys will be boys, we wanted to do the action comedy and we were like, won’t that be fun? But what she suggested made a lot of sense. So our first film will be this romantic comedy.”

Well whatever, but they’re here to make movies.
Zayed: “I know writers who’ve left their scripts with corporate offices, they’d gather dust for three years and then the subject would get stale. We are saying, broaden your vision guys, come to us with your new ideas. It’s not necessary that Dia or I should be in it or that Sahil should direct it.”

They want to follow the model set by Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan – make films that make money for everybody down the line. Zayed has the last word. “Some icons are already following the model but we are the youngest producers in town today!”

FACTS FROM INSIDE
When you walk into the Born Free office, it’s functional with no evidence of Zarine Khan’s upper crust touch. Or Zayed’s sis, Sussanne Roshan’s expensively stylish hand. “We’re on tight budgets, we can’t afford Zarine Khan and Sussanne Roshan yet,” grins Zayed. One of Dia Mirza’s own paintings will soon come up on a wall.

Zayed’s dad, Sanjay Khan too, has looked on indulgently. “He’s given us his blessings and that’s about it,” says Zayed. Sahil is delighted that there are positive signs all over. They zeroed in on Dia’s suggestion of a butterfly in the logo – he now discovers he’s got butterflies even on his lighter. Zayed: “We’ve had a caterpillar’s journey. Now it’s time to come out and bloom!”Filming in Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh will begin in February and Born Free will come up with its first release this summer.

Veena Malik tries not to speak for me

Veena Malik tries not to speak for me: Much has been made about Veena Malik’s “behaviour” in the Bigg Boss House from the twin flirtations she struck to the short clothes she wore. To me, this spells Veena’s victory. Out of 14 housemates including a global star, Bollywood actors and Bhojpuri film industry’s Shahrukh Khan — Veena managed to make an impression.
While she was busy inside, the world outside was delirious with anger: how dare a Muslim, Pakistani woman conduct herself like this in, horror of horrors, India! The other side was also quick to retort: Veena is representing the ‘modern woman’ of Pakistan. For good measure, they threw in a comment or two about people completely irrelevant to the discussion such as, why aren’t Pakistani, Muslim men criticised for their behaviour while in India? And the answer to that could be that perhaps because we have yet to read about a similar controversy regarding, say, Atif Aslam, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan or Ali Zafar.

As for me, I am neither the ‘moral brigade’ and nor am I part of the ‘immoral brigade’, so to speak. But I am the modern Pakistani woman, the girl who Veena was supposedly representing. As I observed everything and listened to arguments from both sides, I found one essential thing missing from both arguments: Veena Malik does not represent me. I do not relate to her and our similarity ends where it begins: like me, she is a woman, a Pakistani, a Muslim and she wears heels. And for some women, the latter two don’t hold either.

While I appreciated Veena at some point, especially for the proper Urdu she spoke, she is insignificant because there are much better rolemodels out there, people who I can actually relate to and look up to.

One such woman is Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. An award-winning filmmaker, Sharmeen has worked with refugees, women’s advocate groups and human rights defenders in over ten countries. (More detail about her work can be found on her website.) Another woman who represents a woman like me is South Asia’s fastest woman — Naseem Hameed. A resident of a locality in Karachi populated by middle-income families, Naseem started her sporting career in school and was eventually spotted by army coaches. The rest is, as they say, history, with her winning a gold medal at the last SAF Games. Apart from individuals, the modern Pakistani woman is also lucky to have a whole team of good rolemodels. One is referring to the Pakistan women’s national cricket team which recently won a gold medal at the Asian Games.

To me, Veena Malik’s dresses, men and stilettos don’t matter because she does not represent me. The modern Pakistani woman goes out wearing whatever she wants baggy pants or running shoes and carrying whatever she wants a tote or a camera bag. The modern Pakistani woman is a success story who does not flirt with men to show to the rest of the world that she is good and has potential. I am a modern Pakistani woman who has a job, pays her taxes and drives around town. And I don’t need a Veena Malik to represent me not in India, not anywhere in the world.

Amitabh Bachchan makes ‘deadly proclamations' about media

Amitabh Bachchan makes ‘deadly proclamations' about media: Amitabh Bachchan has had a 40-year-old long love-hate relationship with the media, ever since he began his Bollywood journey. The actor, who is 68 years old and is still going strong, knows how to prove people wrong by his witticisms, Zee News reported.

According to a report, the living legend, who made an appearance on Karan Johar’s talk show ‘Koffee with Karan’, expressed his deadly views on some of the well-known faces of the fourth estate on a recent episode.

However, the audiences could not hear the stalwart’s comments as they were chopped off the episode. When quizzed by the filmmaker on which was the most over exposed couple, Big B spontaneously replied, “Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi are the most overexposed couple of the year,” the website reported.

When promos of Amitabh’s statements were aired, some people showed great interest and made frantic calls to the producer of the show for the sound bytes. Considering the fact that the statements were quite controversial, KJ’o decided it was best to pull it off from the episode to be telecast.

Moreover, when KJo asked Big B about the worse criticism that he had ever heard about himself, the actor said, “Devyani Chaubal saw ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’ and wrote ‘his sun is setting, he’s over’...Pritish Nandy wrote an article on me and titled it ‘Finished’,” the report said. daily times monitor.

Fight to be more Bengali, Vidya Balan versus Rani Mukerji

Fight to be more Bengali, Vidya Balan versus Rani Mukerji: Imagine Vidya Balan staying up till 3 in the night and singing “Aar koto raat eka thakbo… Chokh mele dekhbo naa tomake…”That’s from Rani’s Believe It Or Not collection about her No One Killed Jessica co-star.

One is a Bengali by chance. The other a Bengali by choice. Between them on Monday evening, Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan were more like two Bengalis coming home to Calcutta than two big Bollywood stars coming to the city to promote their film.

The last time Rani and Vidya were seen together in Calcutta was in August, in the front row of designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s debut show in the city at Taj Bengal. On Monday, the venue was the same and both were again wearing Sabyasachi but this time the spotlight was firmly on the two women.

They had flown in from Mumbai earlier in the morning. And the moment they set foot in Calcutta, Vidya had squealed out loud at the airport. A concerned Rani turned around and asked her what had happened. “I am in my city!” Vidya replied. “Pagol meye!” Rani concluded.

A few hours later Rani was in the mood to make most of that mad streak. “I am telling you Vidya was a Bengali in her last birth... she loves to speak Bengali, she loves to eat Bengali food and she loves Bengali men,” Rani announced even as a stunned Vidya didn’t know how to react.

And then came the killer line. “Vidya would love to get married to a Bengali man who has a long surname ending with ‘jee’, like Chatterjee or Mukherjee,” Rani quipped, before adding: “She would love to be a Mrs Mukherjee.”

The impromptu Bengali jamming between the two Bolly beauties didn’t end there. Recovering from this sudden onslaught, Vidya started singing the Autograph chartbuster — “Aamake aamar moto thakte dao... aami nijeke nijer moto guchhiye niyechhi...”

Rani was not done. “See, her Bengali pronunciation sounds like a Bengali.” Vidya was ready with the repartee this time — “Karon aami mon theke Bangali!”

If Vidya’s Bengali was sounding just right — after spending two months in the city shooting for Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani — Rani’s Bengali was sounding very Lokhandwala. “Don’t make me speak more Bengali... I am getting exposed,” the Miss Mukerji herself pleaded.

Raj Kumar Gupta, director of No One Killed Jessica, confirmed that even on the sets of the film, which is inspired by the Jessica Lal murder case, it was one big, mad Bengali party. With Sabyasachi designing for both the actresses in the film, “everyone was jabbering in Bengali all the time”.

What’s more, they even shot a few crucial scenes of the film here in Calcutta — Maidan to New Market, Ballygunge to Dum Dum. “Sabrina Lal’s (Jessica’s sister, played by Vidya) journey brings her to Calcutta and it was important that we actually came to Calcutta to shoot that portion,” Raj Kumar revealed.

Cut to Monday morning, and it was Rani who was taking a trip down Calcutta memory lane. The actress had gone straight from the airport to Elgin Road for a bhanr of tea.

“It’s a place where my maa and mashi used to take me from the very beginning for bhanrer cha,” Rani told Metro. “I really enjoy it. There are so many things I would love to do here in Calcutta but I always come with so much work in hand that it never happens.”

But what binds Vidya to Calcutta? “Rani is always curious about my Bengali connection... ‘what is this connection I want to understand’, she asks me,” Vidya said. “Wish I could understand it myself....”

So has she become more Bangali than Rani? “That I don’t know, that I don’t know,” Vidya laughed out loud with a twinkle in her eye. “But all I can say is that Tomate aamate dekha hoyechhilo, jaani naa kobe kothay... That’s what I feel about Calcutta.”

All is not well between Priyanka and Bebo

A French manicured birdie who was present backstage at Umang 2010 — the annual Police Mela — called to say that Priyanka Chopra may be telling the world that she and Kareena Kapoor have buried the hatchet. But it’s far from true.

The birdie was flapping her wings backstage when she saw Priyanka go up to Bebo and say ‘Let’s forget what has happened and start anew’.And kareena Kapoor just gave her the popular Poo ‘Whatever!’ look and continued with what she was doing.

Does not look like the Kapoor girl is in the mood to forget.

Salman Khan slapped a fan outside Anil’s home

Bollywood actor Salman Khan has done it again, Salman Khan slapped a fan outside Anil Kapoor’s home, who apparently kissed and hugged him. The hunk of an actor even had the slapgate pictures deleted, The story quoted an eyewitness as saying, “The incident happened moments after Salman arrived at Anil Kapoor’s birthday party. Just a several times before this, Anil had escorted Salman’s father, Salim Khan, into the party.

Salman was alighting from his car when all of a sudden a guy, who appeared to be in his mid-20s and called himself Ajay, rushed towards him, hugged him and then kissed him.” “It seems Salman was in very high mood. Without batting an eyelid, Salman slapped Ajay,” said the eyewitness. Apparently, Ajay, who was least ready for Salman’s wrath, was in an utter state of shock.Meanwhile, an entertainment channel managed to take the video footage of Salman’s misbehaviour. When Salman saw this, he got upset.

At once, Salman’s security personnel came up and ordered the footage to be deleted. “Woh dadagiri karne lage. ‘Chal delete kar, chal jaldi delete kar,’ they said,” added the eyewitness. When tries were made to salvage the pictures, Salman stepped in to request the erasure of the footage. At this moment, Anil came rushing out. “Anil and Salim were wondering why Salman was taking so long to come, as they had already spotted Sallu’s car being parked outside the bungalow. Sensing the commotion, Anil went up to Salman Khan; he made a similar request regarding the footage,” said the witness.

Meanwhile, shielding Salman, another witness said, “The guy who hugged and kissed Salman was very extreme. You can’t get so close to them and make them this unpleasant. Anybody else in Salman’s position would have done the same thing.” Seconds after the recording was deleted, the celebrities went into the home.

Arjun Rampal gets kicked out of Housefull 2

Arjun Rampal’s costly techniques are not going down well with filmmakers. After having been replaced in ‘Don 2’ by Kunal Kapoor, Arjun is finally being replaced by Rahul Khanna in Housefull 2. News has it that Arjun has been substituted by Rahul in ‘Housefull 2’ because of his over-priced fee of Rs 2.5 crore.If ‘Housefull’ had Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh and Arjun Rampal, the sequence will have couple of new faces like John Abraham and Nana Patekar.

Talking to a daily, a source said, “Arjun is no more a part of the sequel. Rampal needed a stupendous amount of Rs 2.5 crore, which the producer Sajid Nadiadwala and director Sajid Khan found a bit too much. Nadiadwala also had a word with Arjun, but he did not seem to budge from the amount quoted.”“Both the Sajids chose to substitute Arjun and go ahead with a various face. They zeroed in on Rahul Khanna.

The sequel’s new faces will include Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar and John Abraham,” said the source. “It is believed the actresses’ of the film have also changed. Although Lara Dutta remains, Genelia D’souza and Sonakshi Sinha have been added to the cast” added the source.

Adnan Sami issued notice on his Mumbai estates

Adnan Sami has been issued a notice by the ED for owning eight flats and five car parking areas in Mumbai.Adnan Sami said: “I have received an order from the ED which says my estates will be confiscated if I do not file an appeal in the next 45 days.”He rubbished media reports claiming that his flats have been confiscated.”The order was received Dec 21 and we have 45 days from then to file an appeal, which we will move at the earliest. But the properties have not been confiscated yet,” said Adnan Sami’s lawyer Vibhav Krishna.The ED order describes that Adnan Sami’s petition for buying property in Mumbai was declined by the Reserve Bank of India in 2003 owning to his Pakistani nationality.

Adnan Sami, however, denies any knowledge of the rejection.Adnan Sami owns eight flats and five car parking spaces in Oberoi Sky Garden in suburban Andheri.Shifting the onus on the builder, Adnan Sami said: “I was friends with Vikas Oberoi, the builder of Oberoi Sky Garden. In 2003, I had told him I want to buy a property in Mumbai. He had told me about his upcoming project and that his legal team will take care of all the formalities if I want to buy property.” “In actuality my bank loan was also cleared and the property registered in my name. I had no plan that the RBI has refused my petition.”Adnan Sami had purchased the flats in 2003 at the cost of Rs.2.53 crore and had taken a loan of Rs 1.5 crore for the purchase.

Adnan Sami has been served the confiscation order under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Vikas Oberoi could not be contacted despite repeated tries.