Wanted: a rap­per for Lindsay

It seems that the skin­ny trou­bled soul Lindsay Lohan has suc­cess­ful­ly un­der­gone re­hab. These days she is London, chill­ing out, and try­ing to cut a mu­sic al­bum (the last time she did that — in 2005 — her sin­gle Confessions of a Broken Heart did not en­hance her rep­u­ta­tion as an ar­tist at all and the song bom­bed at the charts). She is now more hope­ful and wants to give her vo­cal chords an­oth­er chance. However, for that to hap­pen, in­sid­ers say, she is look­ing for a good rap­per to fea­ture on her new sin­gle.

Lindsay dear, the kind of life you’ve so far led, we feel you need a so­pra­no not a rap­per to ac­com­pa­ny you in mu­sic (wink)!

It could’ve been Sandra

Ever since Hollywood A-lis­ter George Clooney got en­gag­ed to the very el­e­gant and elo­quent Amal Alamuddin, Sandra Bullock is nev­er in a good mood. Those who are close to the ac­tress are of the view that nowa­days Sandra B cuts a brood­ing pic­ture.

When the news of the high-pro­file en­gage­ment broke, she is re­por­ted to have said to a friend: “That could have been me.” Well, Sandra B, tough luck. Your role in Gravity has made you lose your grav­i­tas a bit.

Angelina Jolie: no act­ing

We don’t know how to re­act to this news item. If you feel the wom­an with the lus­cious lips, Angelina Jolie, is a good ac­tor, then it should sad­den you; if you feel she hams in front of the cam­era, you should be hap­py about it. Why? The Hollywood cel­eb is tak­ing some time off from act­ing. The rea­son for this, as told by Angelina J at a press con­fer­ence in London last week, is that she wants to do oth­er things. “Acting is go­ing to take a back­seat … I’d like to fo­cus more on writ­ing and di­rect­ing, and above all on my work with the UN.”

Hmm … does the work with the UN in­volve more adop­tions?

Humaima

Suddenly, the very pret­ty and pen­cil-thin Humaima Malik is sing­ing praises for Pakistan’s fash­ion in­dus­try. You won­der why the gal, who is these days known for her not-yet-re­leased proj­ects in Bollywood, is look­ing in­wards.

Talking to a jour­no re­cent­ly she claim­ed that our fash­ion in­dus­try has no com­pe­ti­tion what­so­ev­er (in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, that is) and is do­ing its job quite well. Perhaps there is noth­ing to de­code out of this par­tic­u­lar news item, ex­cept that Humaima M means com­pared to the fash­ion fra­ter­ni­ty our film and TV in­dus­tries leave much to be de­sired, which is why she’s look­ing for act­ing as­sign­ments across the bor­der. Smart lass!

Ash ba­by’s ex-lov­er

My o my, talk about be­ing a heart­throb! And you thought that pri­or to her mar­riage Ashwariya Rai had flings on­ly with Salman Khan and Akshay Khanna. No dea­ries. At least this is what a Sri Lankan man by the name of Niroshan Devapriya sug­gests. Apparently, this man has filed an of­fi­cial com­plaint about his re­la­tion­ship with Ash ba­by which the ac­tress re­fu­ses to ac­knowl­edge. Niroshan D has even hired a law­yer to fight a case to make his ex-be­loved con­fess of the af­fair.

It has al­so been sug­ges­ted that this guy is suf­fer­ing from some kind of men­tal stress. Methinks the stress might have been the re­sult of his re­la­tion­ship with Ash ba­by, not a post-break­up thing.

Sweet Child o’ Mine and ham­na­wa

Now that’s what you call cre­a­tive fun. Who could have thought that one day there would be a qaw­wa­li ver­sion of the icon­ic Guns ‘n’ Roses song, Sweet Child ’o Mine? Not just that, the ex­peri­ment hasn’t gone top­sy-tur­vy: it’s quite a song to lis­ten to. Hats off to Omer Ikram, the man be­hind the idea and gui­ta­rist, for rop­ing in Taji Qawwal and turn­ing a rock pow­er­house track in­to an ori­en­tal com­po­si­tion!

The way the qaww­al has sung the lyr­ics in his Urdu ac­cent with­out giv­ing two hoots about the cor­rect pro­nun­ci­a­tion and the way Slash’s gui­tar riffs are played on the si­tar, are an au­di­to­ry treat. Kudos! If you ha­ven’t yet heard the song on­line, you have no idea what you’re miss­ing.

Sallu mi­an in trou­ble

They say jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied. In Salman Khan’s case it’s hard to fig­ure out wheth­er jus­tice is be­ing done, de­nied or de­fer­red.

In Sept 2002, Sallu mi­an was charg­ed with cul­pa­ble hom­i­cide for run­ning (his SUV) over some men in Bandra. The ac­tor’s law­yers man­aged to stretch the case for more than 11 years say­ing the Dabangg star was not in the driv­ing seat when the ac­ci­dent hap­pened. But now a twist in the tail (or tale) might force the ac­tor to spend some years be­hind bars. Three eye­wit­ness­es have emerged claim­ing that it was Sallu mi­an who was be­hind the steer­ing wheel and they had seen him get­ting out of the ve­hi­cle af­ter the in­ci­dent. If this is pro­ven right, the ac­tor can be put in the slam­mer for up to a dec­ade.

Wow, af­ter all, show­biz stars too are hu­mans. Ah, be­ing hu­man!

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 18th, 2014