Chasing Bollywood stars in Amsterdam

Toe Knee

Gauri Khan looks askance at me. She is dressed in white and clutches a shopping bag in either hand. As I move towards her on a busy street in Amsterdam, she takes a step back and frowns. I don't take the hint. As I start to mumble something, the wife of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan hurries past me and disappears into an alley.

No, I wasn't trying to assault her.

The IIFA Awards were being held in Amsterdam in 2005 and I was a cub reporter let loose in the city of canals. Celebrities from the Indian film industry had been spotted in The Netherlands and I had been pacing the sunny sidewalks hoping to catch a glimpse.

I had better luck a few minutes later. Chunky Pandey was rummaging through a stack of colourful T-shirts at a shop around the corner. We exchanged pleasantries but I didn't harass him further, sensing that he wanted to be left alone.

Bollywood stars - hounded by fans at home and abroad. I could understand their predicament. Their need to feel free. The need to walk unmolested through crowds who didn't care who they were. And why stars viewed reporters with suspicion.

I walk past alfresco cafes and Gothic churches, stopping only for a glass of hot chocolate (they call it Chocomel here). As I pause to admire miniature windmills for sale at a roadside stall, cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin walks past with wife Sangeeta Bijlani. I leave them at peace and walk back to the hotel where the stars are cloistered.

There I find Boman Irani at his entertaining best, waving to a clutch of NRI girls waiting outside. Aftab Shivdasani is in the lobby too, looking dapper in a black suit. Ayesha Takia is wearing a brown ensemble, which seems to add inches to her waist. Bad designer or Amsterdam chocolates?

In contrast, Amitabh Bachchan is looking haggard and unshaven. The Big B has received news that his mother is unwell back home. He assures us things will be better on the morrow.

Actors - legends and one-film wonders - troop in for dozens of press conferences held over three days. Salman Khan is late (as usual?) and keeps co-stars and reporters waiting at the No Entry presser. The stars reel off their lines with practised ease, flash their botoxed smiles and leave as swiftly as they came.

At the Marigold presser (the film is yet to be released), starlet Ali Larter lingers a tad longer for one-on-one interviews. She drapes an arm over my shoulder and giggles when she's flummoxed by a question. Good strategy.

The IIFA schedule is chock-a-block. Aishwarya Rai waltzes in to have a tulip named after her. Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan brighten up the centuries-old Pathe Tuschinski theatre at the premiere of Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta. Hrithik's team beats Shahrukh's bunch hollow when it comes to celebrity cricket.

And at the grand finale, Papa Bachchan, Abhishek and now Bachchan bahu Aishwarya enthral the crowds with 'Kajra Re' redux.

[Why am I being nostalgic about the 2005 awards now? Well, IIFA goes to Yorkshire in a few days and unfortunately, I am not going. A friend is covering the event and I can't help going green with envy. Grrrr!]

FLASHBACK: K A Abbas

Prithwish

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas is best known for being an adventurist. He not only worked with diverse topics and themes but also delved deep into India's socio-political and the economic sturucture. He was a man who boldly and sometimes subtly portrayed the issues pertaining to the society.

His first film Dharti Ke Lal (about the deadly famine) -- a critics delight -- was a breakthrough film which narrated the insensitivity as well as greed of the British as well as the hoarder who created a man-made famine which wiped out 3 and a half million lives.

He never backtracked from showing the greed and malice which existed in the society and his films reverberated the underlying discontent of the masses against opportunism.

Some of his brilliant works are:

Rahi -- a film about the lives of Indian tea pickers who are lured to malaria-infected tea estates of Assam

Munna -- a film about a child's search for mother where he highlights the adult world as seen through the eyes of the child

Shehar Aur Sapna -- a film which shows how a rural rustic man, dazzled with the glitter of the Mumbai metropolis comes to the city in search of fortune and his disillusionment thereafter

Do Boond -- a film in which he takes us to the drought-striken Rajasthan and narrates the beautiful dream of a man who wanted to construct a canal to bring water to the barren lands

We salute this master filmmaker of a bygone era through our blog.