Help, Help

Actress and model Saheefa Jabbar Khatak is in the news these days for all the wrong reasons. Apparently she gave her househelp a significant amount of money (Rs 50,000) as an act of charity and then got miffed because her househelp spent the money on procuring Eid clothes for her kids and a bicycle for her children. She took to social media to shame her househelp’s alleged financial irresponsibility. Quite rightly, netizens blew up at Saheefa JK, not only for publicising her act of charity and shaming her househelp by name on Instagram but also for her privileged sense of entitlement, in assuming she knows best how her employee should run her private life and in trying to control it. We think Saheefa JK needs more than just househelp.

Filhaal

Actor Danish Taimoor has caused a ruckus with his comments on TV. Hosting a Ramazan transmission on a channel, he shocked everyone when he went on about how he had a “God-given right” to marry four times but that he was simply not doing so out of his own choice. “Filhaal [For the time being] I am only married to my wife,” he added. Viewers are now used to male actors spouting misogynist claptrap using religion but what made it more shocking was that his wife, the much-more famous actor Ayeza Khan, was sitting right there in front of him. He later tried to justify the use of the word filhaal by claiming he meant he doesn’t know how long he will live. No wonder the beautiful Ayeza K is considered a better actor too.

Love at 60

On March 14, Bollywood A-lister Aamir Khan turned 60. A couple of events were held to celebrate his big day, including a conversation with screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar. At another function, Aamir K introduced his new girlfriend, Gauri Spratt, to the media but requested them not to take her pictures. Forty-six year-old Gauri S is from Bengaluru and runs a salon business. This is his third relationship, the previous being two marriages — first to Reena Datta and the second to Kiran Rao. Alrighty then, let’s see if it proves to be the third time lucky kind of a situation…

Dealing With Hecklers

At a recently held event in Karachi, actor Gohar Rasheed was talking to TV host Nadia Khan about his character in the play Mann Jogi. When he said an actor doesn’t do any kamaal [wonders] on his own and it all depends on how good a team he’s working with, an actor sitting in the audience, who himself does character roles in TV plays, shouted in Punjabi that actors do contribute. To this, Gohar R immediately responded, “You are that actor who does good work and bad work,” implying a performer alone isn’t anything. It shut up the character actor. Now that’s a good response to a pointless comment.

Great Work Love

Kate Hudson is in love. She is already engaged to musician Danny Fujikawa but this is something else. The actress has claimed in an interview that Matthew McConaughey, with whom she’s co-starred in two films — How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) and Fool’s Gold (2008) — is one of her great loves. “It’s like you have great loves of your life and then, like, as actresses, I think you have great loves in your work. And he’s one of my great loves. That just is something that happens when you meet and you feel that chemistry. It’s just sort of an energetic thing. And great producers can see that right away. I feel really lucky that I got to experience that with someone as talented and as fun as Matthew.” Hmm… So, no great producers came along since 2008 we’re guessing.

Sheikh’s Comeback

Seasoned actor Javed Sheikh has narrated a story from the time when he first met Bollywood B-grader Emran Hashmi on the sets of a movie. He said that, when the two first met, Emran shook hands with him but didn’t look at him and turned away. When the rehearsal for their first scene together started, Javed S refused to go to Emran H and asked the makers of the film to tell him to come to Javed S. It happened, and that’s how Javed S got even with Emran H. Now, why are we telling this story and why did he tell this story? No idea.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 23rd, 2025