Banjo goes dry to save water

With several villages across Maharashtra like Latur, Jalgaon, Nanded and Aurangabad facing severe drought crisis, many from the Bollywood fraternity have voiced their concerns and come forward to help the families facing the situation. Over 90 lakh farmers have been affected by the shortage of water and have died due to severe dehydration. In lieu of this, the makers of Banjo, decided to do their bit and re-worked a Ganapati song sequence that would require several litres of water. Actor Riteish Deshmukh was a strong advocate of the opinion that there are other ways to engage the viewer and along with the crew decided to rework the said song sequence and avoid wasting water.

Riteish says, “I hail from Latur and am fully aware of the drought situation currently across many regions in and around my hometown.  In such a scenario, it dint feel right for us to use excess water for filming a particular scene, it was a unanimous decision between the producer, director and me to rework the scene.”

“The sequence originally had Riteish dancing with his band in a rain sequence during the Ganpati song and this would have resulted in wasting a lot of water. Being responsible citizens, and understanding the seriousness of the water crisis in the State, we opted for dhol, gulal and dance instead, to create a festive revelry without compromising the look or feel.” informs the Banjo producer, Krishika Lulla.

Banjo, produced by Eros International and directed by Ravi Jadhav features Riteish Deshmukh and Nargis Fakhri as leads. The music has been composed by Vishal-Shekhar and lyrics have been penned down by Amitabh Bhattacharya.

Radhika Apte to come up with special digital series on different phobias!

Radhika Apte will be next seen in Eros International and Viki Rajani’s psychological thriller Phobia, directed by Pavan Kirpalani.

The talented actress, who’s riding high on the success of Manjhi: The Mountain Man, Hunterr and Badlapur released last year, will be seen facing her fears in Phobia. Radhika’s character suffers from Agoraphobia (extreme or irrational fear of open or public places) in Phobia.

Now, to create awareness about this phobia and many others, Radhika has acted in a special digital series.

A source says, “Radhika has already shot for about 10-12 special series of videos. In each video, the actress will be seen talking about different phobias ranging from panophobia (fear of the unknown), astraphobia (fear of thunderstorms) and nyctophobia (fear of darkness) to aerophobia (fear of flying) and arachnophobia (fear of spiders).” These videos will be released online on a daily basis.

Phobia focuses on the central character, Mehak, (Radhika) an artist by profession, who has her entire life upside down when she accidentally dozez off in a taxi one night.

Radhika informs, “While preparing for my character, I got to know about the different phobias that people suffer from. Through these videos, I want to create awareness about them, so that people understand them better.”

Sonali Bendre Behl has become a favourite for brands catering to kids.

The talented actor has been approached by several brand makers to endorse their products related to kids.

Considering the fabulous response Sonali’s book ‘ The Modern Gurukul – My Experiments with Parenting’ has generated, the successful author has become quite popular among the family audience, especially kids. Taking this popularity into account, several brand manufacturers (including food products and clothing), have approached Sonali to be the face of their brands that sells products for kids. And out of these many brands Sonali has decided to endorse 3 brands which she finds has a huge connect with kids.

Huma Qureshi already on her way to becoming a top league south star !

Huma Qureshi who makes her big South debut with the Malayalam film, White, starring superstar Mammootty ,is already being celebrated down south.

The actress, who despite being relatively new, is immensely popular and also received several film offers from the south industry.

It was also quite recently that she was approached by the organizers of a prestigious award function, scheduled to be held in June, for a performance that very few would turn down.

Huma has been receiving several offers to perform at south functions but nothing that really excited her so far. After the announcement of her starring alongside Mammootty, the actress was approached by award function organizers for a whopping amount for a 5 minute performance.

Says a source, “Amounts like this are normally offered to top south stars and it is definitely a great sign that she has been offered it for a mere 5 minute performance. While she is busy with her movie commitments, Huma is considering the offer since it’s a very prestigious award ceremony”.

Yo Yo’s Thunderous Performance!