Amongst a host of travel, youth and trend shows..the one's I love anchoring, , are bollywood shows. And with good reason.This is a country that loves it's movie stars. I do too. I just don't care about the movies, i never have.
Most people are shocked, and some are convinced that I'm fibbing when I say... "I don't watch bollywood movies". But that's perhaps why i've been able to tirelessly do these shows for a few years now, because the films never excited me. The actors did.
I mean no disrespect to our cinema. It's our biggest cultural export, and perhaps our most entertaining one at that. Images of the Indian parliament and ministers hurling shoes at each other may rarely make it to the top of international headlines, but when Aishwarya Rai walks the red carpet at Cannes, the world sits up to take notice. Such is the power of our celebrities. Beauty over politically- flung footwear.
At the moment, we're shooting for episodes for a Bollywood show for the Zee network. We interview stars about their films. It's perhaps the first show , where I'm forced (by the show's format) to ask questions about the script,film,scenes (yawn!) and other things related directly to the movie making process. And yet somehow actors tirelessly repeat amusing stories about the process of putting together that film interview after interview. The very latest was a story about how a scene had to stop because a cow began giving birth on set! The film in question being My friend Pinto, the actors in question....were very amused!
I like that i have access to some of the most coveted people in this country. And i like that, I know some of them really well. Because the nicest moments are when the camera isn't rolling. Then it's just a bunch of young people having fun... and that's always a super thing!
P! :)
