Showing posts with label Vaishno Devi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vaishno Devi. Show all posts
Orry booked in Katra for allegedly consuming alcohol near Vaishno Devi
10:23 AM
HINDUSTAN TIMES (March 18, 2025)
Social media personality Orhan Awatramani, aka Orry, has been booked for allegedly consuming alcohol at a hotel in Katra, the base camp for the pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, Jammu and Kashmir police said on Monday.
An FIR was registered against Orry and seven others on Saturday under BNS section 223 (disobeying an order given by a public servant) after Katra police received a complaint that a group of guests staying at a hotel were found consuming alcohol. Orry had posted a video on Instagram Stories featuring himself and his friends in Katra. Bottles of liquor were visible in the clip.
“Orhan Awatramani, Darshan Singh, Parth Raina, Ritick Singh, Rashi Dutta, Rakshita Bhogal, Shagun Kohli and Anastasila Arzamaskina consumed liquor on the hotel premises despite being told that alcohol and non-vegetarian food were not allowed,” a police officer said.
“Sensing the gravity of the matter, instructions were issued by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Reasi, Paramvir Singh to nab the miscreants and set an example of zero tolerance of any such act at a religious place which can hurt the sentiments of people,” the officer added.
The Union Territory administration has banned the consumption and sale of liquor and non-vegetarian products in the town, owing to its proximity to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine.
SSP Singh told reporters, ”There is no place for those who don’t follow the law of the land and try to disrupt the peace.”
We reached out to Orry, but received no reply till the time of going to press.
Bipasha Basu to give pandal hopping a miss: Our baby is going to arrive soon
8:27 AM
Rishabh Suri (HINDUSTAN TIMES; October 4, 2022)
Durga Puja, this year, is rather special for actor Bipasha Basu Singh Grover, as she and her husband, actor Karan Singh Grover await the arrival of their little one.
“This year has been blessed by Maa Durga. Our baby is going to arrive soon,” the mum to-be tells us, and goes on to share an incident she holds very close to her heart: “Last year, in November, we had a beautiful darshan of Maa Vaishno Devi, and Karan and I prayed to have a baby. When we got to know of my pregnancy and I went for my first ultrasound, the due date turned out to be the same date on which we were there (in Vaishno Devi)! Maa Durga is a part of our lives.”
Given the stage of pregnancy she is in at present, Bipasha has been told by her doctors not to venture out much. And that means no pandal hopping, either. “I’m pretty close to my due date. Even though I want to go, my size doesn’t permit me. Also, I don’t have clothes. Any time I have to step out, I’ve to think what to wear! But, the main reason (for not stepping out) is the health of the baby. I’d prefer to not to expose myself much to the viruses around, at this point,” she says.
Pujo has always been very special for the 43-year-old. She recalls, “Though I was born in Delhi, we used to travel to Kolkata for this (Pujo). I’ve been a devotee of Maa Durga from a very young age. My mum gave me a Durga locket, and I don’t go anywhere without it. I miss the celebrations in Kolkata. It’s beautiful in Mumbai, too, but I still miss the fervour there.”
It was when women visit the set, and hug me, breaking down, that I realised how popular Anupamaa had become-Rupali Ganguly
8:26 AM
Not just a thick Gujarati accent, Rupali Ganguly is getting every nuance of a spurned woman right as she sashays into the anals of the TRP hall of fame with Anupamaa
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; April 10, 2022)
How does it feel to inspire someone to walk out of a bad marriage? Rupali Ganguly takes a deep breath, soaking in the responsibility that sits on her shoulders, as she continues to drive Indian women to reclaim their space in the sun, every week night at 10 pm.
One of Indian television’s biggest stars currently, Ganguly, who some reports claimed commands a Rs. 3 lakh per day fee, says that the daily soap life doesn’t give her the time to even realise the enormous presence she holds among viewers. It’s 14 hours straight of shooting on set, returning to her home only to sleep. “On most days, I can’t find the time to check social media. It was when I had women visit the set, and hug me, breaking down, that I realised how popular the show had become,” Ganguly, 45.
We are in her room at Set No. 17 at Goregaon’s Film City, where she spends more than half the day, every day, playing Anupamaa Shah, now Joshi. The saree is yellow, the blouse pink, in her characteristic contrasting style. The hair is done up in a braid that she brings to the front over her right shoulder, giving it a symbolic tug each time she makes a win of some sort.
Ganguly is sipping on Thumbs Up, while a stray nuzzles up to her. He is one of the several she has informally adopted around the set. It’s lunch time and she has a few minutes off before she’s back to being the servile homemaker who finds the strength to live life on her own terms when her masochistic husband marries another woman.
Minutes before, she was sharing a laugh with her prickly former husband, Vanraj Shah, played by Sudhanshu Pandey, as the two took pictures for an online teaser. They are hardly the enemies they must play on screen. And it’s this simple reality that viewers, she says, taken in by the power of entertainment, tend to forget. For them, she is Anupamaa, the woman they can’t be, but secretly hope to emulate—the one who finds love after she is abandoned; the one who returns to her passion for dancing, and turns entrepreneur.
“I was in Gujarat, acting in a play when they [the show’s creators] called me. I was a last minute casting choice. They asked me to send a video test, and overnight, I was in,” she recalls. The show’s top boss, veteran producer Rajan Shahi, last directed her in 1999 for her first television stint, Dil Hai ki Manta Nahin.
Ganguly isn’t a stranger to fandom. Her last hit show, the comedy Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, catapulted her and much of the cast, including Ratna Pathak Shah, Satish Shah and Sumeet Raghavan, to stardom. After Parvarrish–Kuchh Khattee Kuchh Meethi in 2011, she took a seven-year-long break. Until 2020, when this role landed in her lap. “I told Ashwin [husband Ashwin K Verma], this is a good character. He asked me, ‘So, do you play the hero’s mother’. I said, ‘no, I am the protagonist, and she is as old as me, 42’. In the years before that, I got offered to play women younger than me or way older. Here, I would play my age. My husband thought I hadn’t got my due as an actor, and said he’d take care of the house.”
Verma seemed to have had the right hunch. In fact, Ganguly says that Shahi wasn’t sure if the idea would work and had planned to give it three months. “I was chubby when the show launched, and wanted to lose weight before we shot, but he said, ‘there’s no time!’”
The show that began to air at the start of the lockdown is now a top ranker. The Broadcast Audience Research Council India, which releases TRPs every week, placed Anupamaa at the top with a TRP of 3.5 as recently as last week (the closest second was Ghum Hai Kisikey Pyaar Meiin). It was the week when Anupamaa decided she would marry her college friend Anuj Kapadia, played by Gaaurav Khanna. It was also the week she uttered the now iconic monologue on marriage. “Yeh dadi ab shaadi karegi!” It’s no wonder that the show is set to make its way to the OTT platforms with a prequel titled Anupama-Namaste America, where the early life of its protagonist will play out.
Ask Ganguly if she is anything like her character and she says, “The only thing we have in common is our love for loving everyone. For me, like her, it doesn’t take much to be nice to someone, but it means a lot for the other person.” That her character is an under-the-radar feminist was always the point of the show. “It’s not about waving a flag. It’s about changing how people think. It’s about asking them to think in the first place. It’s also the story of every household in some way. All of us know an Anupamaa somewhere,” she says trying to put her finger on the reason for its humungous popularity.
The scriptwriters are clear that they will put Bharatiya sanskar front and centre in every episode, but Anupamaa’s new avatar allows her to be progressive in thought. The show tackles gender stereotypes using its only daily soap language, with Anupamaa always clad in cotton sarees, her nemesis, Kavya in Western wear. ‘Will you wear tracks to the office?’ she asks Kavya in one scene. “It’s [the debate] not about the clothes. That’s not being modern. It’s about how you think and react,” she says alluding to a scene where her daughter-in-law says despite her plain Jane lifestyle, Anupamaa is the only one in the house to have told her that the decision to have a child can only be the mother’s.
“My nani was Muslim and she married a Marathi man. She embraced his culture. We grew up seeing this. My father was a feminist. He never distinguished between my brother and I. He encouraged us to think and set our own standards for morals. I am married to someone who is looking after the home and my six-year-old son. He doesn’t need my money, he wants me to enjoy the recognition. And then there is a man like Rajan, who created Anupamaa. I am surrounded by the right people.”
Does she then have any say in how her character behaves? Can she, on a given day, not agree with what the writers have planned for Anupamaa to say or do? “No. The actor never knows the character the way the writers do; they bring in the twists. I don’t interfere,” she says. During the monologue that she performed last week, stretching over 32 pages, she says they granted her the freedom to do it as she deemed fit.
She is called in for the next shot. We return to what she said at the start of the interview, about her responsibility towards the audience. “It’s huge. The messages I get... women have walked out of bad marriages, they tell me [after watching the show]; they realise their self-worth, and want to be independent. It gives me hope that somehow I may be touching lives. I was at Vaishno Devi recently, and even though there was a film star next to me who had also arrived for darshan, people were crowding up to me—not Rupali, Anupamaa.”
Sonu Nigam performs at Vaishno Devi ceremony; admits that his first reaction was to say no
8:39 AM
Initially hesitant to return to India due to spike in COVID-19 cases, Sonu says he agreed to perform at Vaishno Devi ceremony due to stringent safety norms
Sonia Lulla (MID-DAY; October 24, 2020)
When the nationwide lockdown was announced in March, Sonu Nigam was relieved to have found himself in the UAE, where Coronavirus cases were far and few. The singer had then decided against returning to India, citing the spike in cases. However, come October, Nigam was among the first to participate in a live sangeet session at the Vaishno Devi festivities in Jammu.
"My first reaction was to say no," admits the singer. Nigam, who flew down to India only a few weeks ago, says he had a change of heart after being familiarised with the safety measures adopted at the festivities, which kicked off on October 15. "Only a small group of people are being permitted, no more than 5,000 devotees a day. [The footfall is dramatically lower] because the trains are not running. It was humbling to see empty paths to the shrine, especially during Navratri. Nobody was allowed to move around without a mask," says Nigam, glad that the protocols were being stringently followed by one and all.
His live performance at the event last week invited numerous selfie-seeking fans. While he didn't have the heart to turn them down, Nigam says he maintained safe distance, removing his mask only when he was in open spaces with them. "Not many [artistes] were agreeing to [take part in the event], but I wanted to do it. [Over the past few weeks] I have been frequenting hospitals, where the risk of contracting a virus is higher," reasons Nigam, alluding to the hospital rounds he has made to attend to his father who recently underwent surgery.
Aware that he could pose a risk to his ailing father, the singer asserts he returned to Mumbai only after clearing a rapid antigen test that was being conducted for each devotee. "You have to move on. For how long will you keep people from working? People are performing, and it is likely to [be encouraged] here on."
Sonu Nigam performs the rituals with wife Madhurima
Sonu Nigam en route to the shrine
Kedarnath has a lot of purity and heart-Abhishek Kapoor
8:27 AM
Hiren Kotwani (DNA; November 27, 2018)
The last 12-odd months have been a roller-coaster ride for Abhishek Kapoor. His ambitious project Kedarnath, starring Sushant Singh Rajput and debutante Sara Ali Khan, not only changed hands but the writer-filmmaker also had to go back and forth on its release date.
However, all that is now in the past as the tragic love story, set against the backdrop of the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, opens in cinemas on December 7. Even though its trailer and songs like Namoh Namoh and Sweetheart have garnered an encouraging response, Abhishek is not taking it easy when we meet him at his office. Ask him if he feels ‘ab manzil door nahin’ and Gattu, as he’s fondly called by his family and friends, says, “It’s not over till it’s over. I think I’ll be a little relaxed only after Kedarnath hits the marquee.”
Over coffee and sandwiches, we talk about his pilgrimage, as he calls the making of his movie. Excerpts...
The way you have captured the flood sequence has become the trailer’s talking point. How did you go about it?
The devastation was massive, so we’re just trying to be as true to it as possible. We had to go through many processes like building a massive set, having water tanks coupled with live action and VFX. What we’re trying to achieve is pretty complex. So, we’re doing the best we can, while staying true to the story.
What was your inspiration for it?
The inspiration is the real location’s imagery. It has to be true to its own geography. We’re not trying to imitate a western film, I’m making an Indian movie. When you go to Kedarnath and study about the floods and what happened, you realise that the topography of it is so mammoth. And it’s a real event. So, you study the history and follow what happened, in as much detail as you can and recreate it from scratch.
How did the idea of Kedarnath come about?
As a filmmaker, you’re always looking for a story to tell and my quest has been to not repeat myself. I want to enter a new world with every film. After my last movie, Fitoor (2016), I wanted to travel a bit. I decided to go to places where those people, for whom I want to make my movies, reside. When I went to Vaishno Devi, I noticed that devotees from all strata and various parts of the country go to pay obeisance to their God. Many of the porters who carried the pilgrims to the temple were Muslims. Bahut kamaal ka drishya tha, ki Hinduon ko unke dharmik sthaan par Musalmaan leke jaa rahe they.
Today, when you see the divide being created in the name of religion and politics, elders tell you that 40-50 years ago, such things didn’t happen so much. You realise that love and humanity is still alive in Kedarnath. And I found that fascinating. Moreover, the 2013 Uttarakhand floods saw the loss of many lives. The idea of making this film is to bring a lot of healing, to who we are and also offer shraddhanjali to those who died or went missing. The maximum number of people were poor, and sadly, there was no value for their lives lost.
So, why a love story against the backdrop of Uttarakhand floods?
If I make a film only about the event, I should make a documentary. But participation of the viewer needs a fictional plot. So, why not a love story? I chose the simplest and easiest route to take the viewers there.
In the interim, when the film ran into rough waters, what thoughts crossed your mind?
Those were difficult times. I was halfway through the film but I had to do what I had to in order to secure it. It’s not easy to attempt a movie like this. The kind of location I went to shoot in, the kind of film I’m making and the story that I’m telling is my calling, it’s a pilgrimage of its own. Kedarnath has a lot of purity and heart. I’ve immense faith and love in Bholenath. Making this film has brought me closer to him. If I’m going through hard times, I know the force that Lord Shiva gave me while helming this movie, will see me through it.
Who was your support system at that time?
Halfway through the film, my wife (Pragya) was about five months pregnant. It was a tricky time and I had taken the film upon myself. So, I had to protect it. She was the one who supported me, came on board and did the entire production for me. In the bargain, I got a great producer. You realise that people have certain qualities and strengths, you didn’t know existed; and how you perform under stress is what defines you.
What has been the biggest takeaway for you from this experience?
I learnt that one has to be prepared in life for any circumstances. Making a movie is not an easy task. I’m still going through the process as I haven’t finished the film yet. There will be time for introspection and retrospection. Right now, my focus is on taking the movie to theatres.
Was Sushant Singh Rajput your first choice?
Yes. He suited the role perfectly. He has the mental and physical strength to play this part. Moreover, he brings a lot to the table as a performer as he has his own way of crafting his character. What’s also important is that he has managed to retain his innocence, which is important while essaying different characters.
Did you think of Sara Ali Khan because roping in a star kid creates some curiosity about the film?
I needed a fresh face as I was making a young love story. In the film, the girl’s role was quite strong, so I needed someone young and special. While an industry connection helps, that alone can’t be the criterion for casting. The person has to be the best for the role. Sara’s name kept popping up during various conversations. I got in touch with one of our common friends, designer Sandeep Khosla who introduced me to her. We met and I realised that she’s a bright girl who has a mind of her own. However, as she didn’t have any prior acting experience, she had to start from scratch. Also, as she was sharing screen space with actors like Sushant and others, she had to raise the game to that level. She has worked really hard and played her part with conviction.
You sued Sara’s agency for giving away the dates allotted for Kedarnath to Rohit Shetty’s Simmba. Her father Saif Ali Khan, too, met you to sort out the issue...
It’s unfortunate that it happened. When we got into a bit of a problem, it seemed we had got delayed and Sara was concerned. When Rohit’s (Shetty) offer came about, I told him that she is great and he should consider her. He was like, ‘No, your film should come first’ and I told him that we’re both making movies. It didn’t matter to me whose film came first. And if he wanted to, he should work with her. Sara’s management agency assumed that I may not be able to pull through and they gave her dates away. I had no choice but to resolve the matter in court.
Kedarnath’s release date, too, saw many changes. Did you have to rush through your post-production to meet that deadline?
I had many dates in mind, but we never took our foot off the pedal. Now with us hitting the marquee on December 7, it looks like we’re racing to meet the deadline, but the post-production has been at the same pace.
Have you thought what you’d like to make next?
I’ve not decided on anything yet. I’m still busy with the post-production. Right now, I’m focussing on completing the film and releasing it on December 7.
The makers of Guddu Rangeela decide to cash in on the 'Mata Ka Email' song controversy?
7:55 AM
Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; July 2, 2015)
We had reported a few days
back how a few religious groups had taken objection to the
lyrics of the Mata Ka Email song from the upcoming entertainer Guddu
Rangeela, starring Arshad Warsi and Amit Sadh, threatening the
filmmakers to remove the song from the film or face dire consequences
including disruption of shows. In an innovative marketing twist to this
controversy, we have now learnt that the makers have announced a
digital contest asking the audiences to pose with their Guddu Rangeela
movie ticket to win a chance to visit the Mata Vaishno Devi temple with
their family. Well, this certainly seems to be a first. We will wait to
see the result of this marketing idea this Friday when the film hits the
theatres.
Armaan Kohli-Tanishaa Mukerji off to Vaishno Devi; marriage likely by end of 2014?
7:57 AM
Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 3, 2014)
Sparks flew on the sets of Bigg Boss 7, but now it’s serious love leading all the way to the altar. On Saturday afternoon, Tanishaa Mukerji and Armaan Kohli walked hand-in-hand into a Juhu 5-star hotel and revealed to Mirror that they would be taking a chopper ride to Jammu together on Sunday to visit the Vaishno Devi Temple.
Tanishaa’s mother Tanuja and Armaan’s father accompanied the couple to Jammu yesterday. Tanishaa is seeking Mata’s blessings for the first time and it’s crystal clear what she wants—Armaan as her partner for life.
Buzz is, while Armaan’s family has always supported the relationship, Tanuja wasn’t too keen on the match. But her ‘resentment’ didn't stop the couple. After the curtains came down on the reality show, they rang in the New Year together in Goa. Later, during a Celebrity Cricket League match in Dubai, Tanishaa was spotted in the stands, cheering for Armaan. She also nursed him when he was injured and they were so engrossed in each other that they forgot the spectators who were watching them intently.
“Tanishaa took good care of me even during the show, that’s what I like best about her,” smiled Armaan. “If she wasn’t around, I would have been out in the third week after some huge fights with the contestants. I used to be really aggressive then, but I’ve changed thanks to Tanishaa’s calming influence.”
Aren’t these the qualities of a homemaker? Tanishaa smiled and Armaan, looking at her admiringly said, “She is marriage material.” She touched him on the shoulder and blushed, “”Hey Armaan, why don’t you praise me more?”
They admitted that they are “very much together” and in a “happy zone” now that both families have given their blessings, before walking, hand-inhand to a channel's party. Mirror has it that they plan to tie the knot by the year-end or early next year.
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