Vivek Oberoi

28-year-old Priyanka Alva kept her first karva chauth for the Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi.

At 6.10 p.m, Vivek told Times of India from Bangalore, “I’m in the karva chauth puja. The shaadi, on Friday, is just three days away and I’m delirious.”

Priyanka is the daughter of the late Janta Dal politician from Karnataka, Jeevraj Alva, and Nandini Alva. She is a business graduate from London, a keen social activist and a lover of the arts. Both Priyanka and Vivek are Kshatriyas and carrying a sword on the wedding day is mandatory. Priyanka sourced out a special sword for her husband-to-be. It is a heavy one for which designer Tarun Tahiliani is crafting an embroidered sheath with precious stones. Says Tarun, “The idea is to make Vivek look like a maharaja.”

Vivek’s outfit for the baraat will be a deep maroon heavy brocade affair with some royal imagery. Beneath it, the actor will wear an A-line kurta of the finest material that will help him move easily as he climbs the mare (ghodi) and jumps down from it. Tarun, who is also making the wedding outfit for the bride, says, “Priyanka, since she is marrying a Punjabi, will wear a lehenga with 14 different colours on the panels; almost like a Persian carpet. The lehenga that will have a peacock motif will be short in the front exposing her ankles, so the intricate mehndhi and payal can be seen. The bride will also wear an antique jewellery set of rubies set in gold, an heirloom.”

BT also found out that the Bangalore house where the wedding will be held has 60 palm trees which will be lit to herald Diwali. “The ambience is truely classic and traditional,” says a family member. An excited Vivek admitted, “I’m excited and truly happy. I describe this as being the happiest week of my entire life.” On October 31, the Oberois will hosting a reception for Bollywood and close friends at a five-star hotel in Mumbai; 1,800 large scented candles will decorate the venue, as will 800 pink Thai lotuses and 30,000 strings of rajnigandha gajras, specially brought in from Kerala. Even as he enters a new phase in his personal life, Vivek will dub for Rakht Charitra 2, the morning after the wedding. And Priyanka will see him off at the door – Meena Iyer

Omkara (2006)

Vishal Bhardwaj’s compelling adaptation of Othello, released theatrically in the US and UK in summer 2006, sticks more closely to Shakespeare than his Maqbool (2003) followed Macbeth, yet still makes several inspired changes, the first in its opening scene. On a parched hillside in Uttar Pradesh, Bhardwaj’s lago, Langda, tells a dim, wimpish bridegroom, Raju (Roderigo), that Langda’s boss Omkara is abducting his bride. His lavish wedding to Dolly (Desdemona) is abandoned, and in his subsequent role as Langda’s accomplice, he is not the play’s hapless suitor, but a justified avenger, pursuing the man who destroyed his future with a beautiful bride.

Next, Raghunath, Dolly’s father, blames Omkara’s ‘seduction’ of his high-born daughter on his being a half-caste, so status largely replaces Othello’s racial strand (although several characters remark on Dolly’s comparatively fair skin). He only spares Omkara’s life on the orders of their boss, Bhaisaab (the formidable Naseeruddin Shah as a shaven- headed Doge), head of the Brahmin youth party, who needs Omkara, his General, and Raghunath, his lawyer, to secure his release from jail so that he can win a parliamentary seat against his rival, Indore Singh

As Bhardwaj shuttles between Omkara’s fort-like family home in a hillside village and various city locations, constant political violence replaces the Turks’ short-lived threat to Cyprus and enables the director to reflect the bloody world of contemporary politics in Uttar Pradesh by engineering a Macbeth-like cycle of attacks.

First, Langda’s marksmanship saves Omkara and his handsome young lieutenant, Kesu (Cassio), from Singh’s agents, one of whom, Kichlu, later tries to assassinate Bhaisaab. This incites reprisals against Kichlu and, finally, a rain-swept night-time assault on a train, in which Omkara and Langda kill Singh and his bodyguards. All this spectacularly overcomes the problem, for genre film-makers rather than stage directors, of Othello’s dearth of incident between the drunken brawl and the climactic murders, which here take place, with terrible irony, on Dolly and Omkara’s wedding night.

The rousing title song has proclaimed Omkara ‘the greatest warrior of all’ and links him to Uttar Pradesh folklore about a legendary band of brothers. Compared to Othello’s heroic exploits, however, the ruthless political killings make Ajay Devgan’s muscular, brooding Omkara a considerably less sympathetic figure than the Moor.

The open-air shootouts and arid widescreen landscapes sometimes give Omkara a Western tang, and Saif Ali Khan’s Langda has the tough, mischievous presence of Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). His customised conspiracy, involving Dolly’s incriminating, jewel- encrusted cummerbund, and mobile-phone eavesdropping, is unambiguously attributed to the exhilarating early scene in which, following Bhaisaab’s election, the newly promoted Omkara must appoint his successor. In a religious ceremony at the top of a high temple overlooking riverbanks filled with hundreds of expectant followers, Omkara anoints Kesu, dashing Langda’s expectations and initiating his revenge. This simplified motivation works in tandem with Bhardwaj’s most radical change: Emilia becomes Indu, Omkara’s sister, and she and Langda have a young son, Golu, whose ninth birthday party is wrecked by Kesu’s drunken punch-up with Raju.

Langda thus betrays bonds of family as well as professional loyalty and, compared to the isolated Moor, Omkara’s close relationship with Indu and some amusing moments featuring their ancient grandmother, added to the loss of the interracial element, make him a far less isolated (as well as less admirable) hero than Othello. Konkona Sen Sharma’s wisecracking Indu and Kareena Kapoor’s saintly, vulnerable Dolly have a sisterly, rather than mistress—servant relationship, and Indu’s horror at realising that Langda has caused Dolly’s death motivates one final twist. After smothering Dolly, Omkara spares Langda (why take revenge, he asks, when ‘our souls are forever damned’?), only for Indu to kill her husband with a single machete blow. Shakespeare’s tragic love story is thus incorporated into a three-generation family tragedy of a kind very popular with Bollywood audiences (echoing Bhardwaj’s domestication of Macbeth in Maqbooh.

Bollywood convention explains the three love ballads on the soundtrack, including the syrupy duet played under a flashback as Dolly recalls falling in love when she nursed an injured Omkara. Song-and-dance numbers are also obligatory, although Bhardwaj (who doubles impressively as Omkara’s composer) roots them in the story by turning Bianca into Kesu’s stunningly beautiful girlfriend, Billo (Bipasha Basu), a nautch girl who performs two dubbed, raunchy uptempo songs, the first at Golu’s party and the second at a police club, just before Langda and Omkara turn up to kill Kichlu. This forced transition from jollity to chaotic gunplay is one of Bhardwaj’s few missteps. One would also not miss the scene of Kesu teaching Dolly to sing Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ in English (pure kitsch). The family relationships could have been made clearer at an earlier stage, and we do not know whether Langda or Kesu kills Raju.

These are minor flaws in a story of great power and occasional flashes of poetry. Dolly recalls falling in love ‘like a blind bird plunging down an empty well’, and, sitting on a jetty, Langa nods ruefully to Raju: ‘Both of us are damned to lead donkeys’ lives.’

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2006, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Devgan Entertainment, Director – Vishal Bhardwaj, Music Director – Vishal Bhardwaj, Cast - Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vivek Oberoi, Naseeruddin Shah, Bipasha Basu, Deepak Dobriyal, Manav Kaushik

Prince (2010)

We’ve seen many superheroes flying in the air, such as Superman and Spiderman. It’s not only an international phenomenon though, since we have Krissh to add to that list as well. However, here is someone who has beaten them all, as he can fly and jump from enormous heights, with not even a little scratch. He has all the latest gadgets and all the hot babes, and what’s more, he’s a normal human being with no superpowers-except super powerful reflexes and combat skills which make it easy for him to knock down 10 armed men without holding any weapons himself. Nobody is ever able to stop him, and he has never lost anything to anyone. However, here’s what makes him different from the rest: He’s the bad guy who has lost his memory.

Prince is the cleverest thief that ever existed: he can penetrate his way through anything and nothing is impossible for him. That all changes when he wakes up one fine day, and cannot remember a single thing. The movie is about his journey of six days, where he has to find out everything he can about his past, and save the world as well.

However, 50 minutes into the movie and one is just as clueless as Prince is. The only thing that helps in making sense is the fact that the movie is based on another Hollywood flick, Hardwired (2009) and has some scenes which are lifted from Paycheck (2003).

Prince is an amalgamation of many disasters put together to create something that was completely unrealistic. The only reason it could have entertained anyone would be because of how everything was over the top and incoherent. For instance, the setting is in India; however the massive skyscrapers and mountainous terrains suggest otherwise. In a chase scene, the two gangs are fighting each other in what seems to be India. And the next thing you know, Sarang, the villain, is leading his entourage through a passage between the mountains. When questioned by his faithful followers about the destination, Sarang answers that they are traveling on the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. WTH? How did they manage to travel across an entire country in mere seconds. While the antagonist of the plot, Sarang, played by a newcomer to the industry, Isaiah did provide some acting relief, the same cannot be said for any of the leading ladies. None of them had any charm.

The girl who appeared in the beginning of the movie, I couldn’t even remember what she looked like towards the end as she was not memorable at all. None of the girls looked comfortable doing action stunts easily. Vivek Oberoi looked the part: one could see his biceps contracting as he punched and kicked almost everything in the movie. However, throughout he looked stunned, and confused.

Everything seem hurried, as if they had tried to include everything into the short duration of the film. It was like watching two very good teams playing basketball, at one point the ball would be in the court of the bad guys, and the other point it would be back in the hands of the good guys.

The plot kept changing like that till the very end. The movie unfortunately had nothing to offer: the babes were not so memorable, Vivek himself seemed in pain as no one can possibly figure out what he way trying to portray with his expressions. The plot was copied from Hollywood flicks and even the dialogues were weak and almost silly. In a nutshell, Prince is a waste of time and should be skipped – Manal Faheem Khan

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Action, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Renu K. Taurani, Ramesh S. Taurani, Director – Kookie Gulati, Music Director – Sachin Gupta, Cast - Vivek Oberoi, Nandana Sen, Aruna Shields, Niroo Singh, Isaiah, Sanjay Kapoor, Dalip Tahil, Manish Anand, Mayur Puri, Rajesh Khattar, Mohit Chauhan