The insidious life of Charles Sobhraj, the tweed-coat criminal who liked reading Nietszche when not killing backpackers, will be made into a biopic with Jackie Shroff playing the lead. The film's producer-director Sorab Irani says it was the actor's "street-wise, macho and riffraff quality" that got him the honour and now he vows to "make Jackie work like a dog". "Sobhraj is a symbol of one who got away and this really makes you question morality," says Irani, suggesting that when films talk about moral rectitude, actors need to work harder. But controversy has already hit the project-Farrukh Dhondy, the proposed scriptwriter, has been kicked out because "he did not understand the medium". Sobhraj's reaction would have been worse.

Man on Board

Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year are usually the fellows who have excelled in the English summer season. The honours list announced this past week has made an exception for V.V.S. Laxman, whose 281 for India against Australia in Kolkata in March 2001 simply couldn't be ignored. But the 27-year-old Hyderabadi cricketer, who joins a select band of Indians going back to Ranji and C.K. Nayudu to be so honoured, downplayed his inclusion, saying "no award can be bigger than getting selected in the national squad". Laxman is obviously nervous: he was dropped last month from the Test team after a series of scores that would find no hope of mention in Wisden.

It's Not About Size

Some perceptive critic once said that there were no small roles, only small actors. Urmila Matondkar, never one to hide behind the laurels of length, took on the challenge of "romancing a gun" in a concept song, one of the more formidable assignments in Bollywood. Matondkar will be found writhing with the weapon when the titles for Ram Gopal Varma's Company roll out. "The track is a version of a Bond-like flick and Urmila fits the spirit," explains Varma. The cameo also quells rumours that the actress has split from her mentor ... and that she would keep going back as long as he keeps such roles ready.

Native Location

Filmmaker Asif Kapadia, a former electrician and sound recordist, had a ordinary upbringing watching Police Academy type spoofs in Hackney. Art house came in London's Royal College of Art and since then Kapadia has bagged a Cannes award for a short film and the Suntherland trophy at the London Film Festival for his feature film, The Warrior. The 86-minute debut, an undramatic but intense piece of diasporic nostalgia, was shot over 11 weeks in Rajasthan last year and is now kicking-off the eight month ImagineAsia film fest in Britain next month. "I was in the middle of the desert with a crew of 250 and horses, camels, buffalos, scorpions, armed warriors, filling a 500-year-old-fort. I looked around me, this was it, my first film," he remembers. Kapadia had ruled out Hackney as the location for the shoot.

-Compiled by Anshul Avijit