Gaurav Dubey (MID-DAY; December 10, 2015)

A romantic-horror flick woven around the ‘haunted’ Mukesh Mills has been abandoned a year after it went on floors. Sources say the cast and crew of Haunting At Bombay Mill are upset not only since they were kept in the dark about the decision to shelve the project, but also because their dues have not been cleared.

Says a source, “Uncertainty loomed over the project after director Ayush Raina was shown the door following creative differences with writer Prawaal Raman (director of Main Aur Charles). The latter was willing to wield the directorial baton, but we hear the film isn’t working out anymore.”

The film’s producer, Vikram Kakkar and Raman remained unavailable for comment. A unit member says, “It came as a shock to us since the project was nearing completion. We have repeatedly requested the makers to clear our payment, but they are not listening to us.

Kainaat Arora, who was part of the star cast, also blames the makers for failing to clear their dues. In a text message to hitlist , she says: “All I can say is I was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.”

The filmmaker, who has been missing in action for a year-and-a-half now, admits to a new Affair
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 2, 2015)

Just when everybody thought that Ram Gopal Varma had vanished from the face of the earth, the filmmaker has raised his head in snow-capped Poland. He's been shooting a Jeet Gannguli composition that plays in a dream sequence, which explores the psychology of a romance and the thrill of an affair, for his next film.

The writer-director-producer, whose last release Satya 2 tanked at the box-office, is filming a "song with shock value" in the European country for his upcoming, psychological romance, The Secret. "I'll be back in Mumbai on June 8 with a shout out to all Ramu fans and face the media with a big bang," he promises.

His comeback film was earlier titled The Affair but he changed it because he thought that the title was a give away. The film revolves around an architect; his wife played by Grand Masti actress Kainaat Arora and Meera Chopra, a co-worker with whom he has an affair. Things go haywire when his boss, played by Makarand Deshpande, catches him red-handed after which a lawyer, Tisca Chopra, walks into the film.

The plot may have some similarities with the Akshay Kumar-Priyanka Chopra- Kareena Kapoor love triangle, Aitraaz, as also the Hollywood hit, Fatal Attraction, featuring Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. "The Secret is about an incurable attraction and how social media and technology can doom a relationship," admits Sachiin Joshi, who plays the architect.

Prod the actor who stepped into Aditya Roy Kapur's shoes for the Telugu version of Mohit Suri's Aashiqui 2, on why he chose to gamble with an RGV film and he says, "Like everybody else, I had my reservations too till Ramu pointed out that he's the same man who made Shiva, Satya, Rangeela and Company. He is always mistaken because he looks at things differently. He has a unique take on everything in life and has always gone ahead with his choices. Once he is fixated on something, you can't budge him," insists Sachiin.

A horror film based on a real-life encounter of the paranormal kind kicks off in a mill next week.
Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 9, 2014)

On June 12, in an interview to Mirror, Vikram Khakhar had revealed that he had joined hands with Main Aur Charles director Prawaal Raman to set up a production company which will focus on the genre of horror. The new banner has tied up with Team Pentacle, a group dedicated to Paranormal Research and UFOlogy in India, to make horror films based on real life investigations. The debut film, Haunting at Bombay Mill, being helmed by Horror Story director, Ayush Raina, will go on the floors on December 15.

The story written by Prawaal, takes its cues from an incident which happened in May this year. Chinmay Tiwari, a 32-year-old psychic and paranormal investigator of Team Tentacle, collapsed during a tour of one of Mumbai's oldest mills, after he felt a strong negative energy.

"His colleague and founder of Team Tentacle, Shishir Kumar, saw Chinmay gasping for breath even as the Electro Magnetic Fluctuations (EMF) went haywire because there was a electromagnetic interference which the investigators call 'intelligent' reading," explains Prawaal.

This was one of the cases documented in the files which caught his eye because incidents of hauntings in Mumbai's mills have long fascinated the film fraternity and sparked off hearsay stories. "And this one actually happened to a paranormal scientist in the midst of research," Prawaal points out.

Using the incident as the background, he spun an emotional love story set against a haunted mill. "I had goosebumps even when I read the script. I will be shooting the film in a week from now," says Ayush.

Vikram had promised that the films will be high on technique but made on a budget that will make them financially viable, which means no A-listers. While Prawaal is wary about revealing the cast, he admits that they have signed Nandu Madhav. He played Dadasaheb Phalke in the 2009 Marathi film, Harishchandrachi Factory, India's official entry for the 2009 Oscars.

"And we have shortlisted Feryna Wazheir who impressed me in Rang Rasiya and Kainaat Arora who fits one of the roles to the T. The girls should make their presence felt and the film, which will have its mahurat in a real mill, should send shivers down the spine." says the writer-director.

Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; January 10, 2014)

Actress Kainaat Arora, who was last seen in Grand Masti, was to travel abroad recently, for which she had to go through various rounds of verification at the German consulate in Mumbai. Her visa was stalled owing to errors in documentation. Our source revealed, “Kainaat’s real name is Charu, while her onscreen name is Kainaat. The name wasn’t consistent in the documents, which is why the visa request was held up and declined later.” The source also indicated that there was confusion regarding her date of birth. “Her father goofed up with her and her cousin sister Shilpa’s birth date, when he applied for her PAN card. She hails from Saharanpur and the required documents backing her claim were with her father. She couldn’t produce them at the consulate, as he was in Delhi at the time. The officers knew she was an actress, but they had to follow the procedure. Besides, she didn’t have an Aadhar card, which didn’t work in her favour,” the source added.