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Raaj Recalls How Dutt Bonded With Children

Sanjay Dutt

TV star Raaj Singh Arora, who is currently seen in the OTT-released film Torbaaz, notes how the films hero Sanjay Dutt has a way with children. He recalls how well Dutt bonded with children on the sets of the film, while shooting in Kyrgyzstan.

Raaj, who plays a cricket coach in the film, said: “In the film, Sanjay sir takes up the challenge to protect kids from the shackles of religious terrorism. In fact for the shooting that took place in Kyrgyzstan, we had taken kids from various places all over the country to portray an ethnic mix. Sanjay sir and the kids bonded really well.”

“After the shooting hours, all of us would play games and engage in various fun activities. One could notice the playfulness of a mega actor then. I am sure that he is a doting father to his kids. The kids did not get intimidated with him, be it the beard, the voice or the height,” Raaj added.

“Having worked with young people a lot, Sanjay sir knew how to create the perfect environment. The kids being kids, at times do not understand what is happening.

We soon began to eat and spend most of the time together. We were all gloomy on the last day of shoot, especially Sanjay sir and the kids, now that the journey would be paused,” Raaj recalled.

Directed by Girish Malik, Torbaaz also features Rahul Dev, Nargis Fakhri, Gavie Chahal and Kuwaarjeet Chopraa. The film streams on Netflix.

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Bollywood Celebrity Lite Blogs

Raveena Shares Swiz Sharukh Poses

Actress Raveena Tandon is on her Himachal trip for ongoing project, and shares some of her wonderful postures from the freezing mountains.

In her latest post on her verified Instagram account, Raveena can be seen posing in the snow clad mountains of Himachal, just like Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan did while shooting in Switzerland.

“Was doing a #Switzerlandkasharukh in the stunningly gorgeous Himachal mountains .. just love, love my beautiful India! yeh desh hai mera!” captioned the actress.

Raveena Tandon is having the time of her life in Himachal Pradesh, where the actress is currently shooting for an upcoming project.

Last week, the actress shared a photo sitting beside a fireplace. “Books, winter, fireplaces …these are a few of my favourite things,” Raveena shared on Instagram.

Sharing the photo of mountains in another post earlier this month, Raveena wrote: “Breaking through the clouds, When the snow melts and you warm up to the sun again …I find my happiness where the sun shines.”

Also Read: John Abraham Named For PETA Person Of The Year

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Bollywood Celebrity Lite Blogs

John Abraham Named For PETA Person Of The Year

Bollywood actor John Abraham has been named the Person of the Year for 2020 by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

In 2020, John had sent a letter urging e-retailer Quikr to stop trading in live animals. Over the years, he has teamed up with PETA India to push for a ban on animal circuses, speak up for Mumbai’s dancing monkeys, and star in an ad-campaign urging everyone not to keep birds in cages.

He also adopted a community dog, Bailey, urged authorities to stop illegal pig slaughter in Goa and put a football jersey on the auction block to benefit the organisations work to help animals.

Past recipients of the honour include politician Shashi Tharoor, former Supreme Court Justice KS Panicker Radhakrishnan, cricketer Virat Kohli, and actors Anushka Sharma, Sunny Leone, Sonam Kapoor, Kapil Sharma, Hema Malini, R. Madhavan, and Jacqueline Fernandez.

“John Abraham has been helping PETA India advocate for animals since our inception, and he shows no signs of slowing down. If birds are suffering in cages, puppies are being cruelly sold, or animals are in danger anywhere in the world, we can count on him to come to the rescue,” said Sachin Bangera, PETA India Director of Celebrity and Public Relations.

Also Read-Vidya Feels Grateful To Applauds

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Bollywood Films Lite Blogs

Abhishek Hates To Wake Up Early

Abhishek Bachchan

Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan hates to wake up early, and the actor gave a hint of the fact to fans on social media.

The actor made his confession while reacting to a study that says: “Starting school at 10 AM instead of 8:30 AM halves student illness and improves academic performance”.

Reacting to the tweet, Abhishek wrote: “Why didn’t they realise this when I was in school??”

Commenting on Abhishek’s tweet, netizens turned nostalgic and started to share their early morning experiences from the school days.

“My school would start at 7.15 in the morning and finish by 12.45.. Then my mom had the entire day to send me to all sorts of classes and tuitions like drawing, dancing, karate falana dhimkana. Right right I can’t do any of that…. why didn’t this rule come then,” commented a user.

“In the 70s, our school started at 7.30 AM during winters, At the bus stand at 5.45 AM in blazer & shorts to catch the school bus! Between 8 AM to 9 AM many of the class were in the queue at the washroom, because the bowels took time to adjust to the winter timings,” recalled another user.

“My school started at 7:30 with an extra class starting at 6:30. That too in winters.. Lets not forget , I did my schooling from northern most state of india,” wrote another user.

Abhishek Bachchan is currently in Kolkata shooting for his upcoming film “Bob Biswas”.

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Bollywood Films

‘Signal’ Depicts Digital Addiction As Theme

Signal, a short film that highlights how digital detox is need of the hour, has now dropped on OTT. The 32-minute film revolves around the life of a young hotelier who gets trapped in a forest in Uttarakhand due to a landslide and ends up on an estate, owned by former fighter pilot Steve Lall.

Raghav Marwah, who plays the lead role in the film, is also serving as its creative producer.

“I strongly believe that each of us needs to build a connection with ourselves first, in this digitally connected world. We feel lucky to have launched this project at a time where the pandemic has changed the future of content consumption and digital platforms,” said Raghav.

“Though we have done quite a lot of short films in the past, this one is close to my heart as it addresses the current issue of digital addiction and highlights how a digital detox is the need of the hour. The music and background score is by Dhruv Dhalla, it is written by Niraj Sharma, and directed by Debangshu Chaudhry,” said Akshay Marwah, CEO of Marwah Studios, who have produced the film with Marwah Film Company.

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Vidya Feels Grateful To Applauds

Actress Vidya Balan has won many awards as well as love of the audience. She finds it really precious when people appreciate her work.

After making her Bollywood debut with “Parineeta” in 2005, Vidya went on to play impactful roles in films such as “Paa”, “Kahaani”, “The Dirty Picture”, “Tumhari Sulu” and “Mission Mangal”.

Due to her choice of roles, she is often considered one of the actors who have changed the image of women on the Bollywood screen.

Asked if she feels it has become her responsibility to show strong women through her work, Vidya told IANS: “No, I don’t think it’s my responsibility at all, but I think it is something I veer towards because I get inspired by strong women stories. I have always been inspired by strong women in my life which is why I choose the kind of stories that I do. I’ll do anything that I’ll relate to instinctively.”

Her award-winning short film “Natkhat” too has left an impact on people’s minds. It is a story of a mother teaching her young son about gender equality and toxic misogyny.

“The story called out to me. It’s so powerful, and the fact that may be it could touch people’s lives and make them think because it’s so relevant,” said Vidya.

Apart from acting in the short film, She is also attached to the film as a producer.

“Ronnie (co-producer Ronnie Screwvala) offered me the producer credit because he just felt that the budget could not afford an actor’s fee, couldn’t afford my fee, and he thought I could help if I came on as a producer,” she said.

“Natkhat”, featuring and co-produced by Vidya, had won top prize at the third edition of ShortsTV’s Best Of India Short Film Festival 2020. Now, it is one of the short films eligible for an Oscar nomination.

“I have never dreamt of awards, anything of this sort. So no, I didn’t have an Oscar dream but I am thrilled to know that a film with which I am associated as both an actor and a producer, is now eligible for an Oscar nomination,” she said with excitement.

For her, recognition is important.

Vidya Balan. (File Photo: IANS)

“It is an acknowledgement and a validation. One for me, the litmus test is always how I feel about what I have done. It is so precious when people appreciate your work. So yes, national, international or universal, I think recognition is important. I think more than important, it is just precious for an artiste,” said the National Film Award winner.

She was last seen in the OTT-released film “Shakuntala Devi”.

In October, she started shooting in Madhya Pradesh for “Sherni”, The film casts her as a forest officer.

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Bollywood

Swastika Mukherjee on her bond with Shamita Shetty, Mona Singh

Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee has opened up about her bond with co-actors Shamita Shetty and Mona Singh. She says she has made great friends on the sets of her new show, Black Widows.

“It was wonderful. We took a day to break the ice, but eventually we all looked forward to seeing each other. We chatted a lot on the set between takes. We met after work almost every day. The bonding that you see on screen turned into a larger bonding off-screen. I have made great friends, (and it is) not something that happens at this age,” Swastika said.

Swastika says Shamita and Mona are special and that she is very proud of them.

“They are special and I am very proud of them. When we work with a stellar cast, zeal builds up automatically and that’s exactly what happened while shooting Black Widows. Each and every person working in the sets was brimming with enthusiasm and energy. Post shoot we used to hang together, sing, dance, play games. We worked hard and we partied harder,” she said.

The show is a remake of a Nordic series of the same name. The story follows three best friends who are in abusive marriages, and whose lives are in for a twist when their husbands die suddenly.

The Hindi show is the eighth international remake following adaptations in Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, the Middle East, Mexico, Scandinavia and the Czech Republic.

Directed by Birsa Dasgupta, Black Widows also features Mona Singh, Shamita Shetty, Sharad Kelkar, Raima Sen, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Aamir Ali, and Sabyasachi Chakraborty among others. The show releases on the OTT platform Zee5.

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‘Un paused’ Anthology With New Themes

Filmmakers Raj and DK, Nikkhil Advani, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Avinash Arun and Nitya Mehra will explore the themes of new beginnings and moving on through five different short films, which have been shot during the ongoing Covid pandemic.

The five short films comprise the anthology “Unpaused”, the trailer of which was released on Tuesday.

Raj and DK have made “Glitch”, starring Gulshan Devaiah and Saiyami Kher. It is about a hypochondriac man who meets a strange girl on a blind date.

“Creating ‘The Family Man’ was a liberating experience for us as content creators, and the assurance of thinking unconstrained encouraged us to extend our collaboration with ‘Glitch’. We loved making the short, as we tried a new style and genre! It was a bizarrely unique experience shooting it during the pandemic, and with all kinds of restrictions,” said Raj and DK.

Then there is “Apartment” directed by Nikkhil Advani, starring Richa Chadha, Sumeet Vyas and Ishwak Singh. It will throw light on how a woman spirals into a maze of self-blame and attempts to end her life when she finds out about her husband’s sexual indiscretions.

For Advani, “Apartment” allowed him to “explore complex emotions in a simple way, one that the traditional format would never have permitted me to do”.

Tannishtha has directed “Rat-A-Tat”, featuring Rinku Rajguru and Lillete Dubey. In the short, the protagonists will be seen confronting loneliness and forming an unlikely friendship during lockdown.

Giving an insight into her story, Tannishtha said: “In such unprecedented times, new beginnings are the only hope for many across the world… Shot under lockdown rules it was both exciting and challenging to bring alive the story. I hope the viewers relate and connect with it the way we connected and felt while making it.”

Avinash Arun has helmed “Vishaanu” with Abhishek Banerjee and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan leading the cast. The story is about a young migrant family who after being thrown out of their rented house during lockdown, decides to illegally sneak into a lavish flat.

There is also Nitya Mehra’s “Chaand Mubarak”, featuring Ratna Pathak Shah and Shardul Bharadwaj. The story is about an affluent middle-aged single woman who is forced to seek help from a young rickshaw driver to run errands during lockdown in Mumbai.

“It felt great to be back on set and back on shoot after months of being indoors. I was happy that Amazon said it wasn’t just about lockdown, but it was about them wanting us to tell stories that reflected positivity and that’s how ‘Chand Mubarak’ came about, because I wanted to actually celebrate an unlikely friendship,” Nitya Mehra said.

The Hindi anthology film will release on Amazon Prime Video on December 18.

Also Read-Actress Kriti Sanon Tested Covid Positive

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Actress Kriti Sanon Tested Covid Positive

Bollywood actress Kriti Sanon on Wednesday confirmed reports claiming that she has tested positive for Covid-19. The actress is currently quarantined.

Kriti issued a statement on her verified Instagram account to share her health update and also asked fans not to worry as she is “feeling fine”.

The statement reads: “I would like to inform everyone that I have tested positive for Covid-19. There is absolutely nothing to worry as I am feeling fine and have quarantined myself as per BMC and my doctor’s advice. So I am gonna ride this tide, rest it out and resume work soon. Till then, I am reading all the warm wishes and they seem to be working. Be safe guys, the pandemic hasn’t gone yet.”

Kriti has just returned from Chandigarh where she was shooting with actor Rajkummar Rao for Abhishek Jain’s upcoming comedy “Second Innings”. The film also stars Paresh Rawal and Dimple Kapadia, and is scheduled to release next year.

Kriti will also feature alongside Akshay Kumar in the action film “Bachchan Pandey”, and will be seen in Laxman Utekar’s “Mimi” where she plays the role of a surrogate mother.

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Mahie Prefers To Do Less But Good Work

Actress Mahie Gill is content with her decade-long journey in the Hindi film industry and says she prefers to do less but good work.

“A lot of people tell me I do very little work, ‘dikhte nahi ho’ (you are not visible enough). I think I am a very satisfied person, very content in my life. I prefer to do less work but good work. But it has been very nice,” Mahie told IANS.

Mahie made her debut in Bollywood in 2003 with “Hawayein” but she became a familiar face playing a new-age Paro in Anurag Kashyap’s 2009 release, “Dev.D”. Her notable Bollywood roles have been in “Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster”, “Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns” and “Gulaal”.

She thanks Bollywood for accepting her.

“I am thankful to the film industry for accepting me and giving me respect, which I had not thought in my wildest dream. I thought I would shift to Bombay and this will happen. So, I think it has been great. I have worked with interesting people, great directors and scripts. So, I am very content. I will keep working,” she said.

Mahie will next be seen in “Durgamati”, where she plays a CBI officer Satakshi Ganguly.

Talking about her role, Mahie said: “She is a tough person and full of authority and interrogates Durgamati and how there is a give and take relationship. Both these people are very strong.”

What prompted her to take up the film?

“I loved the script and the character I am portraying in it because it is very different from what I have been doing so far. It was very different for me. So, this is the reason,” she said.
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