Child star Jhanak Shukla, who is also the daughter of actress Supriya Shukla, got engaged on January 7. Jhanak has been part of TV shows like Karishma Ka Karishma, Son Pari and films like Kal Ho Naa Ho. She shared her engagement news on her Instagram handle and wrote, “It’s official now.”

The young actress is on cloud nine and when we called her, she said, “My fiancé Swapnil (Suryawanshi) and I started dating four years ago. I was studying in Pune. He was also studying engineering there. We lived in the same area and got to know each other. After four years, we just had our roka ceremony.”

Jhanak said that she was sure about finding a partner herself. She said, “In my family, everyone has had love marriages, including my parents. They used to tell me that I have to find the right person for myself. When I felt Swapnil was the one for me, I told my parents and he told his family.”

So, is marriage on cards this year? “No, we will tie the knot in 2024. I am going to Ireland for a year for my further studies, which is why we got engaged now,” says the 26-year-old.

Jhanak was last seen in the TV show Gumrah in 2012. When asked about acting, she said, “I didn’t quit acting intentionally, it happened on its own. I was a child artiste, but after a point my parents told me that I should also focus on my studies and pursue acting post graduation if I wanted to. So, I immersed myself in my studies and by the time I completed my graduation, I wasn’t interested in acting.”

She continued, “I was keen on studying further, so I pursued archeology. During the lockdown, I did my MBA and have now decided to go to Ireland for further studies. However, in the future if I am offered a really good character in a web show, I may take it up. I don’t want to stop myself from doing anything that interests me. But I don’t want to be a full-time actor.”

Having learnt from last two box-office duds, Sanjay Dutt promises to bounce back with action and comedy outings
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; April 15, 2019)

At 59, Sanjay Dutt is ready to reassess his career. The actor admits that the failure of his last two releases, Bhoomi (2017) and Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3 (2018), has made him more discerning while choosing projects.

"I can't take my work for granted. I have to start taking onus of my characters; earlier, I would leave it on the directors. [Having said that] I will still surrender myself to Bhatt saab [Mahesh Bhatt] for Sadak 2, which we start soon," says the actor, who dominated the '90s with his action hero image. "People want to see me as Baba again, and I will give them that. In my next few films, you will see a lot of action and comedy. So, I am confident that it will be a good journey ahead."

The Abhishek Varman-directed Kalank is his first step in that direction. The pre-Partition drama was originally conceptualised by producer Karan Johar's father, the late Yash Johar. Dutt, who plays the patriarch Balraj Chaudhry, is proud to have earned a place in Karan's vision.

"During the shoot of Gumrah [1993], Yash uncle had briefly mentioned about the story. Dharma Productions is like family; so when Karan approached me with the film, I had to do it. It is also a coincidence that my character is named Balraj, which is my father's [Sunil Dutt] real name. He too came from Pakistan during Partition, so it has an emotional connect."

The multi-starrer marks his on-screen reunion with Madhuri Dixit-Nene 22 years since their last outing, Mahaanta (1997). "It was great to work with her again. I was a little nervous, but she made things easy. She's got terrific command as an actor. We spoke about our kids. In fact, I made my children [Shahraan and Iqra] meet her when they dropped by on the sets."

Khalid Mohamed (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 26, 2018)

SRIDEVI 1963-2018

No she couldn’t be saying this, “I’m scared of tomatoes. I couldn’t sleep all night.” “Exxxxcuse me,” I jumped. “Did I hear you right?” I had. By way of explaining her groggy look in a suite of the now-defunct Sea Rock Hotel in Bandra, she had elaborated, “Not real tomatoes but round, red monsters in a horror movie I was watching on video last night.”

For evidence, she pointed at the culpable video cassette of The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, a 1978 Hollywood Z-grader. Its jacket sleeve bragged at length, “They’ll beat you, bash you, squish you, mash you, chew you up for brunch!”

To date, I believe that was a quintessential Sridevi moment. She could be funny, shuddery, sweet and vulnerable. I was converted on the spot, forgetting the most-wanted heroines on the scene then. Here was a star-actress, on the cusp of striking gold in made-in-Mumbai cinema. She couldn’t speak a word of Hindi. Who cares? Her Bambi eyes, the pert nose, the tallish frame and citrus fruity lips spoke for themselves. Besides I’d never seen any woman, on or off screen, with such a perfectly timed split-second fear.

She spoke in staccato English, then. Her sister, Srilatha, entered to reprimand her, “Speak properly. Discuss career” and then darted an instruction to me, “Be quick. She is very tired, so many sittings for story sessions.” Although her first outing Solva Sawan (1979), in the company of Amol Palekar, had laid an egg at the ticket windows, Sridevi continued to be coveted by the Bollywood sovereignty.

An appointment with Salim Khan, lately gone solo as a scriptwriter, was within five minutes. Someone knocked, he was already at the door. Entered the ever genial Khan saab. On sighting me, he retreated charitably, saying that he would return in an hour. “Carry on, carry on,” the writer smiled, advising the sisters, “Yeh press log can be very touchy. Don’t get on their wrong side.”

No way, in the case of Sridevi, never. She was the right side of every coin, of every film for years. Although many of her movies could be yuckfests, she was capable of transforming the absurd to the delectable. She was our very own Alice in Wonderland, Delilah, Eliza Doolittle and even the vengeful Snake Lady rolled-‘n’- rocked into one.

Comic timing of a Swiss clock’s precision, high drama marinated and crisped, romance as seductive as a touch of velvet, she was the stuff that movie dreams are made of. If this verges on the hyperbolic so be it, you come across a Shree Amma Yanger Ayyapan — abbreviated to Sridevi — once in a lifetime.

From a child wunderkind and girlwoman of the 1970s to an empress of all she surveyed in the ’80s and the early ’90s, her power was on high voltage — this at a juncture when stardom could be so iffy that actresses couldn’t expect to stay hot much longer than a Himalayan hilltown’s summer.

The Salim Khan-scribed Ghungroo (1983) didn’t happen. Smita Patil was pencilled in instead. Next: Dev Anand called me over for a dinner at his Juhu cottage, he’d called in “a girl from the south”, as he said, for Sachche ka Bol Baala (1989). At the end of the evening he wasn’t sure, he was more captivated by Meenakshi Seshadri.

As for our Sri, fortuitously lost opportunities were to her advantage. She had already been anointed Thunder Thighs, courtesy the turmeric curry Himmatwala (1983), a huge hit. In the same vein, Mawaali (1983) and Tohfa (1984) saw her go jiggy as if her life depended on her fluid bodyspeak.

No more sleepless nights, Sridevi had made it. She had checked out of the suite to jet-hop between her Chennai home and the Mumbai studios. Super duper at those now retro-chic hippy-hippy shakes, uncannily enough she wasn’t trained in any dance form (kathak is the preferred option).

Indeed, her thighs weren’t her fortune though. Would the media coin such a sexist term for an actress today? Not likely, without being troll-bashed. Hers was an angelic, cherubic face, reminiscent of Hollywood’s wit girl Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night).

Unlike the cultivated dialogue throw of her peers, Sridevi’s voice had a child-like, sing-song lilt which dubbing artistes — including yesteryear’s Baby Naaz — would replicate to the hilt for the initial line-up of Jeetendra-Sridevi pots-and-pan pourris.

The masses and the mandarins rarely agree. They did for Sridevi, reaching the consensus that her amnesiac act in Sadma (1983) has been grossly undervalued. The classic breakthrough arrived with the iconic Hawa Hawai breeze of a boogie in Mr India (1987). Her fun-time performance had a wow effect, prompting its director Shekhar Kapur to open his eyes wide with astonishment.

As the slithering Nagina (1986), the beer-swigging judwaa half of ChaalBaaz (1989), topped by Yash Chopra’s white Amrapali-costumed Chandni (1989) as well as the lovelorn Lolita of Lamhe (1991), these are just some of our most cherished Sridevi-naamas.

Of course, everyone has his or her most memorable Sri acts. Mine happens to be the double role whammy she pulled off in Khuda Gawah (1992). At one point, her face switches off, she goes stonecold dead in sync with the scene’s requirement. Now that’s a one-of-a-kind feat in the Bollywood domain where it’s still not accepted that to do less is more.

Call it personal if you will, I treasure her tremendously in Gumrah (1993), in which she’s accused of couriering drugs, a plot premise cadged from Bangkok Hilton. The late Yash Johar had flown in a batch of journos to cover the shoot in Mauritius. Buzz was, Sridevi had been approached by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studio, an offer which couldn’t be refused. So why the no? To that she had with a straight-face, “He wasn’t directing it himself. I wasn’t convinced by the script. So what to do? I had to say no to Spielbergji.” How I loved the ji, chats on or off the record, she was so politically on-the-button.

When The Illustrated Weekly of India had splashed Madhuri Dixit on the cover with the headline Out Sridevi In Madhuri Dixit, she was conjectured to be upset. Coincidentally, the editorial team of Filmfare were planning a cover with Sridevi.

She would be clicked, her hair style alluding to Michael Jackson’s ringlets, the headline would read Dangerous, hinting that Sridevi could combat any threat. The next day she called to plead, “Can you use another picture? I don’t want to get into a controversy.” Take it easy policy, I replied. When the cover hit the stands, she sent over a tree-sized bunch of roses. I’d like to think, she was quite chuffed with the retort to La Dixit. It was our retort, not hers.

She wouldn’t open a window on certain aspects of her life. She had married Mithun Chakraborty, it was reported by Stardust, soon after completing the shoot of Jaag Utha Insan (1984). A marriage certificate to prove that had been published in a magazine. Subsequently, the two had divorced. The slightest probe on the subject would draw a plaintive, “Why get into all this, please?”

All of a sudden one evening, at an event manager’s house in Chennai, she had announced that she was pregnant. Producer Boney Kapoor and Sridevi married. His first wife, Mona, was naturally distraught. A taboo area. She wouldn’t go there, least of all with a journalist.

She wouldn’t be queasy about the fact that her attempt at a TV serial, Malini Iyer (2004-‘05), hadn’t worked. She was cool with the word ‘comeback’ when she chose to return after a 15-year lay-off with English Vinglish (2012) and then Mom (2017).

Yet, there’s still so much I’d like to know about my Abhinetri No. 1. About her lost childhood since she started acting at the age of four. About her pairing with the way more senior NT Rama Rao, MG Ramachandran, A Nageswara Rao and Sivaji Ganesan. About her equations with her parents, sister and brother Sateesh. About why she had started looking anorexic. About issues, if any, about ageing, as we all do.

Perhaps it’s just as well that I could never bring up these questions. Her private life was her own. That has to be respected, no matter the volume of public curiosity.

What more can I say? Except, truly here was an extraordinary woman and actress, who has taken the most priceless piece of us — our hearts — with her today.