Desi News Corp - Index

Desi News Corp - Desi News - June 2009 - Index

All-time hits
Manna Dey celebrated his 90th
birthday at his Bangalore residence on
May 2. The singer whose mellifluous
voice has enthralled listeners for over
70 years still practises daily, singing
sargams three hours a day. “My wife has
been my inspiration for all my romantic
songs, be it in Bengali or Hindi,” he said.
Lata Mangeshkar has renewed ties
with the family of her Mukesh bhaiya
by agreeing to sing Ae maalik tere bande
hum for the late singer’s grandson, Neil
Nitin Mukesh, in Madhur Bhandarkar’s
Jail. She sang it for V Shantaram’s
Do Aankhen Barah Haath 52 years
ago. The song that inspired prisoners
in the film continues to move Indians
even today. But what has tickled Lata
more than the fact that she returns to
playback singing at the age of 80 is that
Mukesh’s grandson features in the film.
The young actor claims, “It was Lataji
who named me Neil.”.
Mangeshkar believes that Mehdi
Hasan is the “voice of God”. When
she came to know of his protracted
illness, she offered to bear all his
medical expenses. Her nephew,
Adinath, called Mehdi Hasan’s
nephew Arif and invited him to
Mumbai. Pakistani president Asif Ali
Zardari has given Rs. 1 million and in
2002, when the maestro fell ill, the then
Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, an avid fan, had offered help
from the Indian government, says Arif.
Farhan rocks on
Talks are on for a remake of the
superhit Kannada film, Budhivanta, in
Hindi with Farhan Akhtar in the lead
role. Fans of the director-turned- actor
and star of Rock On, will get to see him
romance six heroines in the film.
Dancing to her tune
Katrina Kaif upset choreographer
Vaibhavi by acting disinterested, being
late for rehearsals and not rehearsing her
moves with the rest of the team. Finally,
the choreographer could not take it any
more. She made it clear to Kat that in
the choreography department she was
the boss and would call the shots and
Katrina would have to fall in line.
Sour note
Dilip Kumar claims he has not been
paid royalties for the music of Ganga
Jamuna. One of India’s biggest music
companies, Sa Re Ga Ma India (formely
HMV), holds the rights to the music of
the film the actor had produced and he
is now contemplating legal action, says
a source.
In happier news, Amitabh Bachchan
is Dilip Kumar’s biggest fan. In a
blog entry, Bachchan talks about how,
as a child, he had failed to get his idol’s
autograph.
Time passed. At the premiere of my film
Black, I was honoured by the presence of Dilip
sahib. After the film, I found him waiting outside
the theatre for me. I walked up to him. He
stretched out his hands to me and held both of
mine and stood looking me in the eye, without
saying a word. An eternity passed. No one
spoke. They were the most eloquent moments in
my life with Dilip sahib! Two days later a letter
came from him applauding my work. After 46
years I had the autograph I had craved!
Bachchan also dismisses rumours
that Kareena Kapoor ignored him at
an awards ceremony recently. He writes
that Kareena and her family have always
given him respect, he has seen Kareena
grow up, and the Kapoors and the
Bachchans are very close.
And in related news, Mumbai’s most
popular tourist haunt, Bachchan’s Juhu
bungalow, was made out of bounds for
outsiders under order from traffic
police. Even though Big B doesn’t live
there any longer, the floodlights in his
garden are on every night. “We know
that Anil Ambani of Reliance Energy
is his close friend and he probably
enjoys subsidized or free electricity, but
this is sheer wastage,” whispers a source.
Exquisitely
yours!
CRYSTAL
CHANDELIERS
DRESSED WITH
SWAROVSKI
CRYSTALS
OVER 120 STYLES!
PLUS DECORATIVE
MIRRORS
& CRYSTAL LAMPS
136 CARTWRIGHT AVE.
TORONTO
416 • 783 • 3535
CALEDONIA
401
BRIDGELAND
CARTWRIGHT
DUFFERIN
June 2009 Desi News 23