Sept 27, 1999

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Elections 99

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Family Friend
"I have a spider's web of Bhatts around me," laughs Aly Khan. You bet. He's playing Pooja Bhatt's lover in the just-launched TV serial Dhund, and Soni Razdan's husband in a one-act play called The Lover, running in Mumbai now. For those who don't know, Soni is Mahesh Bhatt's wife (read Pooja's stepmom) and Aly is Pooja's ex-boyfriend. "Now all I need to do is a film with dad," he quips. Wonder what the role will be.

Operation Cover-up
Who wants Milind Soman in a costume drama? Not his female fans. The bod with the bod is playing Salim in the serial Noorjahan on DD1. "I don't think viewers will have a problem," insists Soman. "I didn't think much of Milind's acting," adds director Imtiaz Khan candidly, but "he's a good learner". A humble chap too. Top model though he is, he still checks all tuff, oops, tough Urdu pronunciations with Khan. Starry tantrums? No. Model behaviour? Yes.

Going Steady

After one year it's called a cotton wedding anniversary. And after 100 years? Ksheerasagars Lakshman and Lakshmibai of Athani -- 160 km from Hubli in Karnataka -- wouldn't know. But the 102-year-old barber and his 101-year-old wife crossed that milestone recently. Any regrets? "When we attend other people's weddings we always wonder what ours was like," says hubby. "We were too small to remember." Lakshmibai hastens to add: "We married off our three daughters only after they turned 18." When Lakshman tied the knot with her, he was two, she was half his age. Cradle snatcher!

Story of Their Lives

"In theatre there is only one camera angle and the audience is fixed," says Sujit Saraf. "In a movie, you can zoom in the audience, turn them upside down, etc. That took time to understand." Saraf and other members of Naatak -- a theatre group in the US -- recently premiered their film Bugaboo, on Indian professionals in Silicon Valley. It helps that most of them are Indian professionals in Silicon Valley. "We really weren't acting," adds Saraf, the film's director and an ex-NASA employee who has just returned to India. "We were merely being ourselves." It helps.

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