Nana Patekar has just had a pretty good hit with Welcome Back, the sequel to Welcome which too had been a superhit. The movie doesn’t rank very high in comic quality but the Bollywood audience does like dumb slapstick comedies featuring multiple stars and this one had those elements in spades.
In any case, Nana, who has not had any decent hits for sometime, will now once again have takers in Bollywood. And then perhaps his choice of movies will get better. Except for a Marathi biopic on a social worker, Patekar’s recent Hindi movies — Ab Tak Chhappan 2, The Attacks of 26/11 — have been shoddy fares.
Welcome Back might get him the leeway to at least choose from different offers. But the man himself is in the news for an entirely different reason.
As the rest of the movie’s crew were celebrating the success of Welcome Back, Patekar was found involved in a different initiative. The state of Maharashtra is going through a severe drought and farmer suicides have increased. When a television news channel reporter was travelling in interior Maharashtra to cover the drought, in one village he ran into Patekar who was quietly distributing money to widows there.
On further enquiring, the reporter found that Patekar had been doing this regularly for some time. Soon after the media ran the story, Patekar’s deeds became known and now he is getting help from all quarters to further continue his cause.
He has launched a foundation that would try to scale up the efforts and Patekar exhorts everyone to contribute their bit not just in cash but also going to drought-affected regions and working for them.
He says he himself found it impossible to not do anything once he had come face-to-face with the misery these people were going through.
But Patekar is not the only one from Bollywood who is doing his bit in this area. Recently it became known that Akshay Kumar had also donated Rs 90 lakh (US$ 130,000) to families of farmers who had committed suicide because of the drought. This was revealed by a high-ranking police officer of the region who had during an event told Akshay about the situation and what people like Patekar were doing.
Akshay said that he also wanted to help. When a reporter asked Akshay about his good deed during an interview, he said that there was nothing to say and he didn’t want to talk about the charities he did.

Warm up time

Saif Ali Khan did an interview recently and made some rather intriguing comments. It was a wide-ranging talk but the answers that made the news pertained to his relationship with Salman Khan.
Kareena Kapoor, Saif’s wife, has made a number of movies with Salman and they share a good bond. But Saif and Salman have maintained a cool distance for a long time.
After Bajrangi Bhaijaan released Salman invited Saif for the screening and it was thought to be because Kareena was the heroine of the movie.
When Saif was asked whether that was the case, he said that he had known Salman even before Kareena and that he had great regard for Salman. He however accepted that they had had differences but refused to elaborate on what they were, saying that it was between him and Salman and would remain so.
The estrangement might be connected to the 1998 poaching case of an endangered animal species that Salman is charged to have been involved in. What is not so well known is that Saif was also part of the group that had been on the hunt along with Salman. They had all been shooting for Hum Saath Saath Hain when they decided on this outing. After that the two never worked together.

Recurring rumour

Ever since Hrithik Roshan separated from his wife Sussanne, Arjun Rampal’s name has relentlessly cropped up as being involved in some way. He had been linked with Sussanne and it was also said that Arjun’s marriage with former supermodel Mehr Jesia was in trouble.
He had had to repeatedly say that there was nothing to this gossip. But rumours of an affair refused to die down. Recently, it took on another form altogether when there were rumours that Sussanne had decided to marry a close friend.  Instantly, it was assumed that the friend was none other than Rampal. Sussanne’s mother clarified that the news was all nonsense and there was no one in her daughter’s life. She added that she couldn’t understand who was going on spreading such news.
Arjun, while not directly refuting the news, tweeted, ‘Games people play, arises from their own insecurities. I just wish them a lot of self-confidence. Hopefully they forgive themselves soon. Peace.’

Wannabe star

You have heard of sequels that get made of blockbusters but when does anyone make a movie that is seen by virtually no one and then goes on to make a sequel to it at almost lightning speed.
A maverick godman with enormous money to waste will do something like that and the name of such a man is Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, head of the powerful Dera Sacha Sauda sect.
Last year, he made MSG: The Messenger, in which he was the hero, the director, playback singer, costumer designer, music director and so on.
The movie predictably tanked and theatres went empty. But he has just released a sequel to the flop called MSG 2: The Messenger and this movie will also definitely flop.
Why does someone get onto a losing enterprise like that? For one, he is flush with cash thanks to the large following of the organisation. And a Bollywood movie, even a flop one, helps him get known beyond the little pocket of influence he has in a small part of the country.
In the movie he plays himself and does extraordinary feats. So this is also a huge branding exercise. It is all a little amusing to people in Bollywood but then if it provides work for a few, no harm in such crazy ventures.

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