THE GRAPEVINE

Published May 5, 2017

T-T-T-T-TED

There are arguments both for and against Shah Rukh Khan’s acting talent. If a big number of his admirers think that he is a good actor, then no less is the number of people who believe he is terribly overrated. No matter which side of the divide you are on, you can’t dispute the fact that he has the gift of the gab.

Last week, the actor was in Vancouver to deliver his first Ted Talk. As expected, he peppered his speech with smart one-liners, laughter-eliciting phrases and some replete-with-wisdom sentences. One such wise line was: “You can use your energy to spread the darkness of destruction or you can use it to spread the joy of light to millions.”

He forgot to mention that you could also use it to sell skin-whitening creams to spread the joy of fairness.


CONSPIRACY TO MURDER

Boy oh boy! Life imitating art. Twelve years ago, a model-cum-actress Preeti Jain accused filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar of raping her. She even approached a gangster to kill the director and gave the hit-man 75,000 rupees to do the job. The plan got botched up as the model and the gangster developed differences.

The case went to court and on April 28, Preeti J was sentenced to three years imprisonment along with two other people who tried to help her in the attempted murder. However, the court granted them bail and suspended their sentence for four weeks so that they could file appeals. Madhur B, time to make another film?


CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL

Hollywood against Trump, the battle rages on! American President Donald Trump’s tweet that climate change is a Chinese hoax has angered a great many people who have been campaigning for the environment, including showbiz celebrities.

To protest against Donald T’s policies on climate change, a massive climate march was organised in Washington DC on April 30. Among those who took part in the rally were the Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former US vice-president Al Gore who’s made a documentary on the issue.

Donald T was not in town that day, perhaps because global warming or not, he can’t take things heating up.


BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

Now this gal is true girlfriend material. I’m talking about actor Varun Dhawan’s squeeze Natasha Dalal. On April 24, Varun D turned 30. He celebrated his birthday in London where he is busy filming Judwa 2.

Natasha D gave him a surprise by landing in the UK capital with a pretty pricey gift for her beau. Isn’t that sweet!

Or it could’ve been an unpleasant surprise for Varun D because the actor is in London shooting a comedy with lookers Jacqueline Fernandez and Taapsee Pannu. Kebab mein haddi?


CONCERT GOES KAPUT

One can only describe it as sad. After a pretty long time, Karachi was playing host to a mega-music concert. Who was the singer? Atif Aslam. Not too many minutes into the gig, a man had a verbal showdown with a security guard. Things went out of hand and the showdown turned into a ruckus. As a result, Atif A left the venue much earlier than expected. Apparently, Ali Zafar was slated to perform after him. This goes to show that it’s not just concerts we need to revive. We need to establish a culture of organising concerts in the country … from scratch.


THE TOWEL SEQUENCE

The gorgeous Katrina Kaif has finally joined Instagram. As soon as the actress did that, she shared on Instagram her pictures taken by internationally renowned photographer Mario Testino.

The images were in line with the photographer’s famous ‘towel’ series. Before Katrina K, he has grabbed images of Selena Gomez and Gigi Hadid in the same pose.

Hmm … Katrina K’s ex-boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor also did a famous towel scene in his first film, Saawariya. Is she trying to say something to him?


KAPIL OUT, SALLU IN

It was inevitable. Comedian Kapil Sharma was becoming a little too big for his boots. His squabble with his co-actor Sunil Grover, who was an integral part of his TV programme The Kapil Sharma Show, led Sunil G to leave the show. His exit proved fatal for TKSS as its TRPs (ratings) took a nosedive.

Now news is that TKSS has been replaced with the quiz show Dus Ka Dum hosted by none other than Salman Khan. A comedy of errors for India’s leading comedian?

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 7th, 2017

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