Madhur’s Maternity Leave Issues

Madhur’s Maternity Leave Issues • Vidya’s Promising Picture • Suddenly Curvy, Still Unlucky

Madhur Bhandarkar has been telling anyone who cares to listen that he’s being relentlessly pursued by Ajay Devgn to make a sequel to his last comedy, Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji. The director, who began shooting Heroine with Aishwarya Rai a few weeks before she reportedly discovered she was pregnant, might just have to consider making another film now.

He also insists that Shahid Kapoor has sent him feelers about casting him in the Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji sequel (although he didn’t feature in the earlier film), if he does go ahead and make it. Considering the film was only moderately successful at the box-office, and was hardly the most original or skilful piece of work to emerge from Bollywood, it might be a good idea for the director to think of an entirely new film project to dive into, instead of subjecting the audience to further mediocrity.

It just could be another big year for Vidya Balan. After picking up Best Actress awards for her performance in Paa in 2009 and Ishqiya in 2010, the new year started on a good note with a whopping hit in No One Killed Jessica. She’ll round off 2011 with starring roles in Sujoy Ghosh’s action thriller Kahaani and the Silk Smitha biopic Dirty Picture, both of which arrive at cinemas before the year end.

Early word on Kahaani is strong. Vidya stars as a pregnant woman who arrives in Kolkata in search of her missing husband, only to stumble into a web of lies and deceit. The film has been likened to Kill Bill, but director Ghosh insists his is an original story and describes Vidya’s performance as more “emotionally complex” and her part as more “challenging” than Uma Thurman’s in Quentin Tarantino’s cult hit. The only familiar face in a film populated by mostly newcomers and relatively low-profile character actors, Vidya is the sole crowd-puller in Kahaani, and will be expected to flex her box-office muscle when the film opens.

In Dirty Picture, which will come later, she has Naseeruddin Shah, Emraan Hashmi and Tusshar Kapoor starring opposite her as various love interests of Silk Smitha, the unfortunate Tamil B-movie star whose life ended on a tragic note a few years ago.

On the personal front, it appears that Vidya has decided to make her relationship with UTV honcho Siddharth Roy Kapur public after all. The couple made an entry together at Costa Coffee at Khar last week, which is just a stone’s throw away from the actress’ home. Located in the same building as Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, the coffee shop sees a steady stream of assistant directors and acting wannabes walk in and out of its doors daily. Many heads turned when Vidya and Siddharth took a table; the actress even said hello to a filmmaker who was seated nearby with his friends. An eyewitness says the couple looked happy, and very comfortable in the public eye.

Mercifully, patrons did not have to witness any public display of affection between the two.

Just about everyone in Bollywood is gossiping about a certain actress who seems to have suddenly gone from flat-as-a-dartboard to curvy and well-endowed. Always the butt of jokes for insisting on wearing glamorous gowns with deep-cut necks that did her square frame no favour, the actress has got tongues wagging since she began showing up recently in outfits that accentuated her ‘fuller’ figure. Those who know the North Indian beauty closely reveal that the actress decided to go in for a breast enhancement surgery because her married co-star and boyfriend repeatedly complained that she was lacking in the ‘top shelf’ department and insisted she get some ‘help’.

As it turns out, the married actor-boyfriend has now reportedly called it quits with the actress, and although they do still have one film in production, the vibes between them on the set are frosty, to say the least. Despite having starred in three films together—not to mention their off-screen affair— the pair now behave like strangers when they’re around each other.

Since the break-up, there have been rumours linking the actress to two other male stars, one married, the other Bollywood’s perennial bachelor. Incidentally, both these actors are thick friends with the actress’ married ex-boyfriend, who recently dumped her. Worse still, all three men suffer from that terrible disease described as ‘Kiss n Tell’, which puts the unfortunate actress in a messy dating situation.

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Rajeev Masand

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