Bollywood On My Mind (April 7, 2011)

Doing an interview with Mr Ram Gopal Varma is always a treat. He is doing a film 'A Love Story' based on Neeraj Grover murder case. As always, RGV was candid in his answers. As a matter of fact it was his birthday today but he says he "hates birthdays since one year of the life has gone away".

We also spoke about the other film that he'll be starting in mid June called 'Department' starring Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay dutt and Kangna Ranaut. This film releases in November this year. He isn't affected by the disastrous response to Abhishek's last few films. He also spoke on Rangeela and Satya. Yes, there's something more that he spoke about but for that one ought to check out the interview. Coming tomorrow.

I wrote yesterday that I'd like to interview noted film author Nasreen Munni Kabir. Well, the wish came true today itself. A very nice, affable and simple person, she wins you over instantly. She had seen the review that I had done on the book on 'Pyaasa' (written by her). It seemed she had liked the video of that review.

http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/broadband/video/Special-Features/9VeoXl31/3/Book-Review-The-Dialogue-Of-Pyaasa.html

Nasreen told me that the book on Rahman was written over a period of eight years since the idea germinated way back then. She met Rahman in Chennai, London etc and the final productive stage of the interviews happened through Skype. Interesting. Isn't it! She also spoke about her hugely popular documentary 'The Inner and Outer World of Shahrukh Khan'.

While speaking to my colleague Zoheb later in the evening, I was told something that made me chuckle and gasp both at the same time. Zoheb told me that at the Rahman book release function yesterday, a journalist asked Nasreen that if she added Munni in the middle of her name after 'Munni Badnam Hui' became hugely popular. Yes, some of the questions during the press conferences are really silly and gross. This must have been one of them.

Bollywood events for tomorrow:

1) Press Conference of the film 'I Am' where Juhi Chawla, Sanjay Suri, Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Arjun Mathur, Abhimanyu Singh and Shernaz Patel will be present apart from director Onir.

2) At the book launch of 'Broken Melodies' by Gajra Kottary, Anupam Kher, Dimple Kapadia, Kunal Kapoor and Mahi Gill will be present.

Also, 'Thank You' releases tomorrow.