Singing Centurion

Pakistan cricket has a new star in the shape of opener Abdullah Shafique, who hit an unbeaten century to help his team win the first Test match in Galle in the series against Sri Lanka. The star tag, however, is not confined to the world of sport: as soon as he clinched the match for Pakistan, a couple of the cricketer’s videos from not too long ago went viral, in which he is seen playing the guitar and singing Bollywood songs such as Tera mera rishta purana from the movie Awarapan. He, for sure, knows when to hit the right notes, just like when to hit a loose ball while batting.

Good Sign

It doesn’t matter what the reviewers say about the Pakistani movies released on Eid-ul-Azha. The fact is that both the big guns of this year — London Nahin Jaunga and Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad — have done reasonably well at the box office. The healthier sign is that they have done so in the presence of a big Hollywood Marvel offering,

Thor: Love and Thunder, which began its screen run a couple of days prior to them. This also goes to show that we don’t have to be wary of foreign films getting released alongside ours because, at the end of the day, pulling the public in has its own love and thunder.

Listen Up

July 18 was World Listening Day, and this year’s theme was ‘listening across boundaries’. Commemorating the occasion, actor Ajay Devgn uploaded on social media a video of his wife, Kajol, talking incessantly while he is drinking a cup of coffee, emphasising how good a listener he is. The visuals were liked by his fans, most of whom feared that it might not go down well with his better half. Well, till last reports came in, Ajay D hadn’t yet become hard of hearing.

The Advice

Ranbir Kapoor is in the news these days for his latest film Shamshera and an upcoming project Brahmastra. He has also made many of his followers murmur about his person when he told an interviewer something quite interesting. He said that, when he was 14, Aamir Khan gave him a piece of advice: that in order to be an actor, he should use public transport buses and trains and visit small towns, to have a better understanding of India and its diverse culture. Ranbir K did not pay heed to it and said to himself ‘Yeh kya bol raha hai’ [what nonsense!]. To be honest, insightful as the advice may have been, if you see Aamir K eating gol gappas in a moving train in Laal Singh Chaddha, you would probably think he doesn’t practise what he preaches.

Bennifer in Paris

Now that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have tied the knot, the couple is not giving a hoot about shutterbugs or tabloid hacks. On July 21, the couple went on a dinner date at Le Matignon restaurant in Paris (the city in which they are honeymooning, if it can be qualified as such). They booked a table on the outside terrace, had a sumptuous meal, and were there for two straight hours after which the A-list pair stepped out for a nighttime drive. Ah, all things French!

Miss Not Miss

It’s been quite some time since Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow appeared in a movie. Apparently, she is busy with her lifestyle brand Goop and does not find time for acting. In a recent interview, she has claimed that she doesn’t miss acting. In her words, “I really don’t miss it at all… I’m so lucky that I got to do it, and I’m sure I still will at some point.” Let’s break it to you girl, the field of acting doesn’t miss you much either.

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 31st, 2022