Salman likes Momina’s song

Momina Mustehsen’s new song Aaya Na Tu, done in collaboration with the Indian singer and composer Arjun Kanungo, is a sweetly composed and effortlessly sung track.

It has to be said that it’s her second memorable performance after the singer’s duet Afreen with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan on Coke Studio a few years back. Perhaps more than the success of the number, what made Momina M uber happy about the whole thing was that none other than Bollywood A-lister Salman Khan and top-notch vocalist Vishal Dadlani liked and promoted Aaya Na Tu on their Twitter accounts.

The girl replied to them with a gushing sense of gratitude. Some are suggesting that pretty soon the gal will be lending her voice to a Bollywood project with Katrina Kaif playing the female lead. No, no, I don’t think Sallu mian has anything to do with it.

Taj Multani, alas!

Renowned singer Taj Multani passed away on June 23. He was 74. He was battling with cancer which eventually took his precious life.

Multani was known for his passion-filled patriotic songs that he especially sang during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. Jaag Raha Hai Pakistan and Shaheen Sifat Yeh Terey Jawan are two of his songs that depict how suited his voice was to patriotic lyrics. He was also adept at singing kaafis, folk and film songs. May he rest in peace!

Sequel on the anvil

Fans of the iconic Indian film 3 Idiots, check this out: the sequel to the movie is in the offing. Says who? Says the director of the film Rajkumar Hirani. However, he hasn’t given enough information to the media about the project.

What’s known so far is that writing for the sequel has begun. The filmmaker is in close consultation with his writer Abhijaat Joshi, and there’s likelihood that, this time round, the cast of the film will not be the same. Let’s see. It also suggests that an idiot or two might get added to, or subtracted from, the cast.

Mr Incredible

That’s how you try and ward off rumours about your divorce. These days, showbiz circles are abuzz with the news that Victoria and David Beckham’s marriage is on the rocks and the couple is seriously thinking of parting ways. Wait a minute.

The smart woman that the former Spice Girl is, she has given an interview to a magazine in which she’s said, “When I’m away, he’s at home doing the school run, cooking dinner, helping with homework. It’s about being in a working partnership … I have the support of an incredible husband.” Alrighty then. Is there a working title to this working relationship?

The Academy says ‘no’

Kobe Bryant is an internationally renowned, now retired, basketball player and the winner of an Oscar award in 2018 for writing and narrating an animated short film, Dear Basketball. This has made him a natural contender for membership into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Not to be.

The Academy has clearly said ‘no’ to him. The conjecture is that since there was an allegation made against Kobe B of sexual assault in 2003, and there was also a petition that his nomination for the above-mentioned short film be rescinded, the Academy became circumspect in allowing him to become its member, especially in the post-#MeToo movement time. Well, the ball, it seems, is no more in Kobe B’s court.

The second choice reaction

Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra shouldn’t have released the statement that he wanted Ranveer Singh and not Ranbir Kapoor to play the role of Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju. Of course, he accepted that he had to eat his words when he watched Ranbir K do the part so effortlessly.

But the producer is old enough to realise that Ranveer S and Ranbir K are contemporaries and, in the eyes of many a critic, fierce rivals. And when a journo sought the Sanju star’s reaction to Vidhu V C’s statement, he tersely replied that he’s happy that he got the chance to work in the film. Good on you, Ranbir K. We hope that the film succeeds both critically and at the box office so that your producer will keep satiating himself with his own words for the rest of his life.

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 1st, 2018