April 2009

I once described the two Khans in my magazine as the highly acclaimed actors of Indian screen and also how one is spontaneous and the other one as perfectionist. I wrote in the print about the Khan connection, their war of words and their personal differences. But this time they have showed unity in their thoughts. Yes Shahrukh Khan and Aamir khan have joined hands for the first time on one platform for a professional cause.

First they met at Karan Johar’s house and then participated in a press conference to support the producers cause in the ongoing strike of the film industry. When asked how are they together? Shahrukh responded, “I don’t think we have a problem in getting together in a car, plane or even in films.” The reason that these young producers have come together is that they want ‘fair rights for Friday nights’.

The producers of the film fraternity have gone on strike from April 4 and they do not want to release any films till the multiplex owners agree to the revenue sharing of 50:50. The multiplex owners have said no to their demands and stated that they will pay the 50:50 revenue only when the film does well and if not then they are not ready to share the revenue equally. I personally think this problem will take some time to solve.

The Press Conference was attended by the who’s who of the film industry with veteran producers like Yash Chopra, Ramesh Sippy, Mukesh Bhatt, Ronnie Screwwala and many others. Anyhow, this strike has brought two intelligent minds of Bollywood together for the first time and that too for a short period of time and this is the story of this month. Also in HUM this time, we are introducing a new exciting feature on legends of Bollywood. To start with, Prithviraj Kapoor is our first choice. In issues to come, we shall provide more valuable information on some remarkable personalities of Hindi Cinema.