Radar Raheem

Great news for singer Hassan Raheem’s fans! The renowned audio streaming platform Spotify is launching him as the first artist to be part of its Radar programme in Pakistan. The programme aims to nurture local talent and focuses exclusively on helping emerging artists reach the next stage in their careers, by paving the way for them to find what it calls “global fandom”. Hassan R is excited to see how Pakistani music will evolve with such projects. Well, we are also pretty excited to know that he is excited.

Doctor and Princess

We all know that Humayun Saeed will be seen from the next month in the role of Dr Hasnat Khan in the upcoming, fifth season of Netflix’s celebrated series The Crown. Elizabeth Debicki is playing the part of Princess Diana in the season and has some noteworthy scenes with him. Talking to a media outlet about Humayun S, Elizabeth D has said, “I absolutely adored Humayun — he was such a lovely actor, and such a beautiful person. You never know how that’s going to feel when you’re playing things like that with an actor. So I was very lucky to have him, and I think he does such a beautiful job.” Wow, now that’s what we call princely praise!

Cricket and Women

Mawra Hocane has a YouTube channel and it’s called M-Live. She broke the news on October 21 by releasing its teaser on social media. In a message, she especially homed in on cricket with the following words: “Nobody is allowed to tell me in comments or in real life that I’m a wannabe cricket lover. When the World Cup arrives, I always act as my guy friends react. You need to stop telling girls that they don’t know anything about cricket because, when the World Cup arrives, we know everything.” Well, we hope Mawra H is not into cussing like her guy friends probably do when things go wrong on the cricket field.

Urdu in English Style

It was such a heartwarming moment when countless fans of Jemima Khan, producer of What’s Love Got to Do with It and ex-wife of Irman Khan, saw her on a TV show put her Urdu-speaking talent on display. She sang the famous Aao bachon saer karaaen tum ko Pakistan ki in the cutest of ways. Not only did she get every word of the two lines right, but, to be honest, she ain’t a bad singer either. No wonder she is out of a life associated with politics and is now involved in artistic activities… because this… Jemima Can.

Unclothed Khalnayak

Contrary to what people think, Sanjay Dutt has a killer sense of humour. Take a recent example from a show called Cast To Banta Hai which is hosted by Riteish Deshmukh and Varun Sharma. Sanjay D appeared on it as a guest and when a discussion began on who among Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Vicky Kaushal should play the role of Khalnyak (his iconic film) in the movie’s possible remake, pat came the reply, “Ranveer Singh should definitely not because these days he doesn’t wear clothes.” Good call sir, a naked Khalnayak would be very slippery to handle.

Sibling Advice

Bollywood starlet Jhanvi Kapoor’s younger sister and the late Sri Devi’s daughter Khushi Kapoor will begin her acting career with Zoya Akhtar’s upcoming film The Archies. When asked by someone what advice she’d give to her sister in order for her journey in the film industry to go smoothly, Jhanvi K said, “Don’t date an actor. Just because I think the kind of girls she and I are, I think it would be better.” However, she didn’t explain what kind of girls the siblings are — homely, outgoing, party loving, introverted, talkative, reticent, desi, Western etc… all of whom can date actors.

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 30th, 2022