Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Asha Tai, We Love You: Anushka Manchanda


Asha Tai, We Love You: Anushka ManchandaA series of musical evenings entitled the Dum Maro Dum Nite are being planned across the metros of India in the next two weeks.

It's reliably learnt that these stage performances which are currently being kept a secret, would feature Rana Daggubati's newly-found skills on the guitar along with Anushka Manchanda who has sung the title song, and Pritam Chakraborty who has 'composed' the music (not taking stock of he fact that poor Rahul Dev Burman spent a good month creating the Dum maro dum track for Dev Anand's Hare Rama Hare Krishna). 

Abhishek Bachchan who has sung one of the songs in Dum maro dum is also expected to warble on stage for the Dum Maro Dum Nite. 

But the big news is that the singing diva Asha Bhosle who sang the original Dum maro dum track to ever-lasting fame in 1971, is expected to give her blessings for the Dum Maro Dum nites. 

Ashaji, never known to mince words, has cut down all comparisons between her version of Dum maro dum and the new-age version sung by Anushka. "Just because you call a hotel 'Taj' it doesn't become the Taj Mahal, " Ashaji is quoted as saying. 

Apparently the team behind Dum Maro Dum is busy persuading the diva to bring her formidable presence into the new version of the song. 

Vijay Singh, the CEO of Fox Star India who have co-produced Dum Maro Dum is guarded in disclosing their on-stage plans visa-a-vis Asha Bhosle. "All I can say is, we would be very happy and proud if she gave us her thumbs up. 

At the moment I am not at liberty to say anything more. We'd like Ashaji to know that Dum maro dum is not just a song for us. It's the heartbeat of our film. It's our film's title. Our song and film are a homage to Ashaji and R. D Burman. " 

It remains to be seen if Asha Bhosle joins the team for the Dum Maro Dum Nite in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore in the coming weeks. 

Interestingly the team does not intend to take the Dum Maro Dum Nite to Goa the place where the film is located. Apparently the heat of the Goan authorities who have raised objections to the way the touristic place has been projected in the film, would be too much for the Dum Maro Dum to handle. 

Says Vijay Singh, "We're restricting ourselves to the metros. Goa is not part of our Dum Maro Dum Nite plans. " 

As for Rana Daggubati on stage the popular Telugu star promises, "I can't reveal the exact plans. But no one will be disappointed. "


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Best Regards,


JLo's cousin Caterina bows down to the Sheilas & Munnis


JLo`s cousin Caterina bows down to the Sheilas & MunnisCaterina is international pop star Jennifer Lopez's cousin and loves everything about Bollywood - its song-dance culture, superstar Shah Rukh Khan and it's fun experience. She feels that Hollywood has become too repetitive and says she bows down to the "beautiful Sheilas and Munnis" as they are "awesome". 

She will make her Bollywood debut with an item song in the movie "Bhindi Baazaar. Inc".

"Bollywood style of dancing is not easy. Everybody thinks it is easy, but it's not! I bow down to beautiful Sheilas and Munnis because they are awesome. I am getting the hang of it," Caterina, a trained hip-hop and salsa dancer, told in an interview.

"I feel Hollywood needs to change things around as the movies are becoming too repetitive. May be they could just start having some singing and dancing in their movies. 

"In Bollywood films, you have a lot of singing and dancing whereas Hollywood is just about acting. So I find Bollywood really attractive, it's fun," she added.

Caterina is ready to woo Indian audiences with her groves in the item song "Taan ke seena" and says it was quite a challenge for her.

"For me, learning Hindi words, being able to lip sync them and pronoucing them correctly was definitely difficult, but it was a good learning experience," she said.

"I am a huge fan of movies and I also read about the war going on between Munni and Sheila. I felt the songs were the typical Hindi movie item songs and I loved them."

She enjoys her on and off stay in India. 

"Experience of shooting for the film was good. Everybody on the sets and all the actors were very helpful. I didn't really know anyone. I was also nervous about how everything will work, but everyone was fun on the sets. They used to crack jokes whenever I was stressed out," said Caterina.

"When you are filming for a Bollywood movie, there are a hundred people on the set and that is something I wasn't really used to. So I had to pretend that there are not too many people around," added Bollywood's new item girl who worked as a model in New York earlier.

Born and brought up in Arizona, Caterina comes from a big family - she has seven brothers and sisters. 

Caterina is a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan and Imran Khan, but she wants to do an item song with Akshay. 

"I have a huge crush on Shah Rukh Khan, I haven't got a chance to meet him but hopefully I will. His smile is amazing and he is very smart. The way he promotes and pushes himself, it's very fascinating. Imran Khan is a very good actor. I saw him in 'Luck' and he was amazing," she said. 

"I really want to do an item song with Akshay Kumar because I feel we will have the best chemistry ever; he seems like so hilarious, I like him," she added.

Caterina is happy to see that Bollywood is opening up to foreigners and unlike the common perception that foreigners come and go, she says she is here to stay for long.


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Best Regards,