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EYECATCHERS
Match Point
  Naseeruddin
Shah is a man of many parts. He has just joined the league of game-show
hosts. By his own admission, Shah does not play cricket. Yet he will field
questions on Super Selector, a cricket game show that will allow viewers
to pick their own dream team. Shah is an unusual choice for the show that
will also feature Navjot Sidhu, Geoffrey Boycott and Sunil Gavaskar. But
the true sport that he is, he told the channel's publicity agent he has
practised all his life for the part. Shah & Co may have some tough
competition coming from Tony Greig, who is hosting Bat Chat, a
cricket talk show on Doordarshan with ex-cricketers Arjuna Ranatunga,
Rameez Raja, Bishan Singh Bedi and Sanjay Manjrekar. The match has only
just begun.
So Much To Do
 Mira
Nair's award-snapping Monsoon Wedding might just have another winner —
Neha Dubey, stage and TV actor Lilette Dubey's daughter. Like her,
the Punjabi girl Neha portrays in the film is full of spunk. What's more,
she even gets to demonstrate she can do a Farah Khan-choreographed dance
number as well as anyone else. Such confidence has, of course, come from
theatre. Neha has acted in school plays ever since she was six. Last year,
she marked her stage debut in mom Lilette's Siren City. An invigorating
coffee-session with Nair in Delhi after that got her the film role. The
20-year-old understates, "I enjoy doing many things at the same time."
That's college, a degree in criminal psychology, a play on child sexual
abuse called 30 Days in September, and a shot at commercial cinema.
Rerun Rage
 Lagaan
girl Gracy Singh has a problem on her hands. She's peeved at
a television channel for putting out screaming advertisements and hoardings
with a curious 'Watch Gracy After Lagaan' punchline. The ads are actually
part of the promos for Intezaar Aur Sahi, a 46-episode soap Singh acted
in and which was telecast on Doordarshan last year. Her gripe is that
the channel is using her newfound stardom to push the serial's rerun.
Singh is away in Houston but her publicist is issuing full-page clarifications
in trade magazines saying the promos are "misleading" and she
was "no longer part of the serial and that it's a repeat". Singh's
relations with the Amaanat unit are still cordial though-she has been
spotted at shoots not as the lovable Dinky but as Gracy the Star.
To All Things Artistic
 She
may be pushing 40, but Bengali actor and star-mom Moon Moon Sen can
still make a pretty picture. And that's one department daughters and aspiring
stars Riya and Raima will still have a lot of catching up to do. Turns
out Mama Sen has an ambition: she wants long-time friend and Kolkata artist
Wasim Kapoor to paint a nude portrait of her. Now isn't that original?
It was, till word leaked to the press. "It was to be a very private
painting," says Sen. "Besides, what's wrong with nudes? Didn't
the great Raja Ravi Varma paint them?" Kapoor, who has painted nudes-and
burqa-clad women-before, but never a celebrity like her, agreed initially
but now has second thoughts. "I'm a very sensitive painter,"
he says, "I can't work with the media watching." Shouldn't Sen
be the one worrying?
--Compiled by Methil Renuka
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