Bollywood Masala Mix
Dimple Kapadia is bold, ageless and an equally elegant diva. The actress turned 60 this year (born June 8, 1957) and she totally makes us believe that age is just a number. With cult movies in her kitty and stunning good looks, Dimple Kapadia has proved that she has only evolved over the years.
Her doting daughter Twinkle Khanna posted a stunning picture of herself with her mother Dimple Kapadia on Instagram and wrote the sweetest caption which read, 'Happy birthday to the most beautiful woman in the world inside out! #birthdaygirl.'
The actress was launched by Raj Kapoor at age 16, playing the title role in his teen romance Bobby. The movie is a trend-setter in its own right. It introduced in Bollywood the genre of teenage romance with a rich-vs-poor clash as a backdrop. Numerous movies in the following years were inspired by this plot. Her debut film went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1973.
With her bold and sexy roles, the actress soon became an overnight sensation. From becoming controversial with her bikini shots in her film Bobby to her water shot in Sagar, Dimple outdid Zeenat Aman and Parveen Bobi and earned a cult status.
Exactly six months before the release of 'Bobby', Dimple who was a mad fan of super-star Rajesh Khanna and was regularly meeting him in the various success parties of Khanna's films, fell in love with Khanna. Khanna proposed to her in 1973 and the two got married. Rajesh was 15 years older than her. After her marriage she quit films and stayed with her husband.
Her marriage was not smooth and she did confess that she regretted getting married to Rajesh Khanna; however the couple never got a divorce but maintained separate residences.
They disbanded their relationship during 1983, enabling Dimple to make a come-back to the tinsel screen with Zakhmi Sher. She continued to act and has over 69 movies to her credit, the more popular ones being Saagar, Insaaf, Zakhmi Aurat, Ram Lakhan and Batwara. She was one of the most dominant personalities of 1980-1990 period.
While Sunny Deol was married to his wife Pooja and Dimple separated from her husband Rajesh Khanna, the two began a steamy affair. Sunny also apparently gave her the status of his wife, despite having a wife at home. It is said that their affair lasted 11 years. Pooja threatened to leave him and he ended the relationship.
All those who have been following Dimple Kapadia's career from Bobby, Lekin and Rudaali will assert that she is more talented than glamorous. She was one of the first actress to have ventured into arthouse films, later citing an "inner yearning to exhibit my best potential."
From playing the love interest of a much younger Akshaye Khanna in Dil Chahta Hai in early 2000s, being a Delhi Punjabi mother in Cocktail in 2002 to playing sexy Rosie in Finding Fanny, her career has seen several highs and she has proven her acting prowess every single time.
After Dimple is done following her heart and pulling off the most difficult characters with honesty and conviction, she is the most adorable mother ever. And while every mother is a doting mother, Dimple is an equally amazing mother-in-law. Akshay Kumar and Dimple look more like mother and son during their off-screen outings. The two even worked together in Patiala House.
Dimple is truly the original diva of Bollywood who became a trend setter with Bobby, won a national award for Rudaali in 1993 to being possessive about her family.
"Yes, we have filed a criminal defamation case...we have also kept the option of filing a civil defamation suit open," Pancholi said. Kangana had alleged in the past that she was in an abusive relationship with Pancholi, when she was a newbie in Bollywood.
Pancholi claimed that the actress had been maligning him for years, but when she named him and spoke in a derogatory manner about him on television, he decided to file the complaint. "Kangana and her sister Rangoli dragged my wife, son and daughter (into the matter) which was not good. I am concerned about myself and my family," he said.
"I can't be called a woman-beater or an abuser or (accused of) the image that she has given me. I am not going to sit back and take all of this," Pancholi added. "She does not have any proof about the complaint that she is talking about in TV interviews. The onus is on her to prove things now," the actor said.
He and Zarina had, a few days ago, issued a legal notice to Kangana and Rangoli demanding an unconditional apology, but they did not give a satisfactory reply, Pancholi added. The 'Simran' actress was in news recently due to certain developments in the ongoing feud between her and fellow Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan.
Kangana had alleged that she was in a relationship with Hrithik, but the latter had denied any off-screen romance between the two of them. Both have slapped legal notices against each other.
When contacted, Kangana's lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee said, "My client, who has been a victim in the entire episode, has largely spoken about her personal experiences and it has been reported on various media platforms since 2007."
"Besides, the law of the land does not give any added advantage to any male person to silence any (victim) woman with the threat of filing defamation proceedings against her."
life in British vault
A chemical smell hangs in the air at the British Film Institute's National Archive, where some 250,000 reels of old film are stacked floor-to-ceiling.
"As we're restoring them we're pulling back the veils of history, and we can see much more clearly than we used to," curator Bryony Dixon told AFP on a visit to the archive in the town of Berkhamsted last week.
A selection plucked from the shelves is being showcased at the BFI's London Film Festival, including a tale about the heartbreaking Indian love story of the Taj Mahal mausoleum.
"Shiraz: A Romance of India" was being screened at a gala for the first time since its release in 1928, following months of restoration.
"It's beautiful, it's dramatic, it's got exciting locations, and great acting. And it's unique, there are almost no surviving Indian films from that era, so it's very special," Dixon said.
A score by composer Anoushka Shankar, daughter of late Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, has also been added to accompany the silent film.
BFI curators have restored a wealth of films including Alfred Hitchcock's nine surviving silent films and footage of a legendary Everest expedition in 1924 in which two of the climbers died.
Despite technological leaps, preparing the film begins with it being checked by hand.
"There will be a lot of hand, manual repair on the original film copies, using tape to make sure the films can pass through cleaning machines, and also through the scanner," said Kieron Webb, the archive's film conservation manager.
The team used the original camera negative of "Shiraz", along with a copy made decades later, which were combined digitally to obtain the best images and restore tens of thousands of frames.
"The removal of scratches and dirt; de-flicker, which makes the image look more stable; reduce the light and darkness changes in some shots," said Webb, summarising hundreds of hours of work.
Ben Thompson, an image quality section leader, demonstrated how to remove a scratch from a "Shiraz" scene without accidentally brushing out a horse's leg.
Restorers have also sharpened the images, which Thompson said creates more work: "As soon as you improve the sharpness of the image it reveals, brings into sharp focus the detail but also the defects." Digital techniques, which have replaced much of the old photo-chemical processes, have enabled restorers to become more precise in their work and upgrade every single shot in a film such as "Shiraz".
The Indian film is nearly 90 years old but BFI also holds films going as far back as the 1890s.
Despite the films' age, curators said they were easier to restore due to their brevity.
"Some of them are only a minute long," Dixon said.
"With the 1920s it gets much more complex, because the films get longer and they have a grammar to them which means if you're missing part of the film print, you have to sort of compensate in order to make it understandable for the audience." Colour and sound add further layers of complexity, although silent films are themselves problematic because they often lack any documents to dictate the speed they should be shown at.
Restoration is a costly endeavour and the archive relies on public funds and private donors, as well as ticket sales from screenings.
But the restorers say the cultural value is boundless, giving audiences a window into an unseen age and places that have since disappeared.
"Fiction film, or non-fiction film, is this fantastic record of the whole of the 20th century that people can look at... It is, for those that care to look, a real experience," said Dixon.
"I am truly honoured that Narendra Modiji has penned the foreword," Hema tweeted on Saturday.
'Beyond The Dreamgirl', by former editor of Stardust and producer Ram Kamal Mukherjee, was launched on October 16, on Hema's 69th birthday. Its launch also marks the celebration of the actress' glorious run of 50 years in Indian showbiz.
Earlier, in an interview, Mukherjee said: "Our PM has written very briefly in the book about his feelings for Hemaji. It's short, crisp and sweet, not rubble and bubble. It's an honour for me as an author and for Hemaji also that it is perhaps the first time that an active Prime Minister has written a foreword for a book on a Bollywood actor."
Hema, married to legendary actor Dharmendra, is best known for her roles in films like 'Sapno Ka Saudagar', 'Seeta Aur Geeta', 'Sholay', 'Dream Girl' and 'Satte Pe Satta'.