SRK invites people to coach KKR

Ahead of IPL season 3, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan Saturday invited the people to coach his Kolkata Knight Riders team and send in their suggestions for improving its performance.

"When we used to lose, I used to get inundated with messages, mostly suggestions. I feel sad when we lose, but you have to take all those losses with little bit of ease and a little sense of humour and all those messages and emails, I used to keep them," he said at the launch of the "Main Bhi Coach" programme in association with Nokia India here.

"Keeping in mind peoples' habit of giving suggestions, I decided with the team of Nokia that this time we will launch something which would be called 'Main Bhi Coach' which would officially give everyone a chance to coach KKR and suggest what should we do for our team," he said.

Shah Rukh said people could messages to 9664555555, and all these would be discussed with the team and the coach to see if the ideas could help in improving the team.

Shah Rukh said he is quite positive about his team this season.

"It happens in sports...one team wins and the other loses. I doesn't mean that the team losing is lazy or it doesn't want to win or it is a bad team. When one team competes, it competes to win. I won't say that we didn't work hard. Maybe our decision of multiple captains was not right, we can find excuses but the bottom line is that we worked hard, we played very hard but not hard enough."

"We need to play harder, we need to play tougher and we need to win this," Shah Rukh said.

On the controversy over the deal with Lux Cozi, he said he had kept in on hold because he doesn't want to hurt anyone with his decision.

"We wanted to have lot of local partners. If you have local partners it's nicer. Legally, as a company and in every way I thought it was above board.... it made some people unhappy and what happened over the last six months, I truly believe that lot of people love and support me and I don't want to hurt anybody and even our partners so we have kept it on hold because that's what some members in Kolkata wanted," he said.

Big B missing Allahabad ki Holi

As the festival of Holi approaches all the thoughts go back to the days in Allahabad and how preparations would start a month in advance.
Getting the pichkari cleaned and pumped up for instant operation. The collecting of the taysu phool and pulling out huge cylinders to fill with water and then to push the flowers into it to ferment over night for the colour to form. The basanti orange colour, thus obtained, would be the first colours that would be used the following morning when guests and family set out to enjoy the festival of colour. The kitchen filled with delicious special treats for the festive air.
Gujjias filled with great delicacies, mango shaped and with corrugated edges, would be circulated among the children and elders busy and involved with the splashing of colour all over would stop by to grab a few of them and then continue with the revelry. The evening would be calmer and refined. After the scrubbing and cleaning... fresh traditional clothes would be worn and we would sit and wait for the visitors to drop by, put the gentle tika on the forehead, wish each other a prosperous year ahead and move on to the next’.
Excerpt from Big B’s blog on Holi

Actor must follow director: Big B

If you are a true artiste, you follow your director. This bon-mot comes from no less than Amitabh Bachchan, perhaps the biggest superstar in the history of Bollywood.

"An actor, as a true artiste, has to follow the director," Bachchan said in a freewheeling discussion of his art with his fans at a function organised by Enlighten Film Club here.

He regaled the audience while talking about two of his directors who could be said to be poles apart in terms of style and genre: Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Manmohan Desai.

When Bachchan was about to shoot the climax of Mukherjee-directed `Anand', where the title character played by Rajesh Khanna dies, he started preparing for the sequence two days in advance, pondering emotions surrounding death, loss of near and dear ones, etc. "After two days, when I went to the set and shooting began, I blurted out everything within me, all that emotion, into the scene."

But Mukherjee wasn't impressed. "Hey, don't overdo it. You are doing it too much. (`Itna Nahi Karneka'). Don't get so excited," he told Bachchan, ordering another take. Mukherjee was "conservative" in use of sets and costumes, Bachchan said. "He would use only essential furniture."

Stars, style and talent at Filmfare Awards

When Bollywood says ‘awards’, more often than not they are referring to Filmfare Awards. Not surprising then, that preparations start weeks in advance of the big night with the lovely ladies and men ordering the best in clothes and gossiping for hours about who is likely to win (or not win for that matter) what.

Given all that, this year’s event went a notch higher with two superstars playing host and all the others in attendance. Shah Rukh Khan, who had the audience laughing uproariously along with co-host Saif Ali Khan, was there with gorgeous wife Gauri. Kareena Kapoor was sorely missed as she was shooting for an ad. Hrithik Roshan carried a kite for obvious reasons.

After many denials, Lara Dutta chose the event to make her relationship official by attending with tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi. Vidya Balan made an individualistic fashion statement in a yellow and orange sari and rudraksh jewellery. The reclusive Tabu made a rare appearance and the statuesque Rekha was her resplendent self. Bipasha bonded with Sridevi and the two held hands like long lost sisters as did Kajol and Gauri.

While all the high voltage action was happening on and off the stage a dignified ceremony took place as veterans Shashi Kapoor and Khayyam were lauded with Lifetime Achievement Awards.

AR Rahman and Asha Bhosle reminisced about the lovely songs they have created together from Rangeela to Raavana. While this is just a sneak preview, catch the telecast of the electrifying event on March 7 on Sony TV at 8pm.

I missed Kareena at Filmfare Awards: SRK

Before getting some shut-eye after an exhausting night co-hosting the 55th Idea Filmfare Awards 2009 with Saif Ali Khan, Shah Rukh decided to do some tweeting.

He said, “Friends tell me that I shouldn’t make fun of myself at shows. I believe if I can’t laugh at myself, I have no right to ask you to laugh with me.” He added, “Saif was marvellous...& I had a good time.”

On the girls, SRK commented, “Vidya Balan looked ravishing..Bipasha towering...Deepika lovely & Katrina awesome. Missed Kareena...” He also had thanks to hand out, to “Kiran Kotria and Veerdas & his team for the script. Alpa. Mushtaq. Great inputs. Hope people find it as much fun as much as we had making it. All the girls who help us backstage...Ganesh Hegde..Sanjiv..my fantastic dancers...thanx for making it so easy and nice. Nothing without you.”

To Shahid Kapoor, who performed live to Michael Jackson’s This Is It, he said, “You were awesome. Well done, my man. God bless you...you are a treat to watch dancing.”

The show will be telecast on Sony on March 7.

Shah Rukh to sing, dance for KKR

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan said he would sing and dance to cheer his Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team during all the seven matches at Eden Gardens in the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) next month.

"I will sing, I will dance, I will be there to cheer up the boys," KKR co-owner King Khan told reporters via video-conference.

SRK, as Shah Rukh is popularly known, had gone to South Africa to encourage his side during the first five matches of the IPL last year.

He said KKR, in association with Nokia, will host Para (neighbourhood) cricket to create a platform for a new generation of cricketers.

Lara, Bhupathi hottest at Filmfare

Rating power couples that glided on the red carpet

Lara Dutta and Mahesh Bhupathi

Sizzle meter 9/10
You heard it here first. Even as the couple denied the story, they set about painting the town red with their rendezvous. The run can get tiring after a while, and what better than a famed awards night to turn out in full glory. The actress and tennis ace may have finally set the score right. Clearly, they look well salted together and pickled pink.

Genelia D'Souza and Riteish Deshmukh
Sizzle meter 6/10
They are, they are not ... but their relationship is already becoming stuff of Bollywood legend. The couple that has never admitted to their relationship share a moment in the company of friends and Riteish's co-star from Alladin, Jacqueline Fernandes. To their credit they make a fetching pair.

Sussanne and Hrithik Roshan
Sizzle meter 7/10
They look as if they were painted together on a canvas: Sussanne is all attention for the occasion at hand while our current Greek God looks attractively pensive. The famed termites that had ravaged the walls of their home a year ago seem to have been banished for good.

Subodh Maskara and Nandita Das
Sizzle meter 7/10
Actor and film maker Nandita Das was seated at the awards function expensively accessorised by South Mumbai industrialist and husband Subodh Maskara. The newly weds couldn't care much about the world around them and look completely taken in with each other.

Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan
Sizzle meter 8/10
SRK and wife Gauri are the first couple of Bollywood. The two leave no stone unturned to make a snappy style statement. Gauri turned up in a Donatella Versace gown, her diamond studded fingers clasping a stylish clutch. This is a couple that's truly been there, done that; there are no more mysteries to be unravelled, and they are just happy to be.

Arjun and Mehr Rampal

Sizzle meter 6/10
She mothers him to perfection, her friends have said of Mehr in the past, commenting on her relationship with actor husband Arjun Rampal. But that was the past ... Arjun's career has taken off since then and the two - both dressed in stylish black - look like an emerging power couple of Bollywood. It is endearing that they have settled down with contentment.

Kakli Koechlin and Anurag Kashyap

Sizzle meter 7/10
They make an odd couple here: actor Kalki dressed in a diaphanous white saree and an attractively embellished blouse, her bejewelled hairpin in keeping with the spirit of youth is an attractive juxtaposition to her beau, film maker Anurag Kashyap, who looks as if he was dragged out of the house in a hurry. Kalki has often said that Anurag is a tough guy to live with. What can we say, it shows.