After a failed marriage (to UK-based businessman Rishi Sethia) and a not-so-lustrous film career, petite, peppy Bollywood actor and one-time veejay Neelam Kothari is proving she has not lost her shine. For those who haven't heard yet, Kothari is taking a shot at manufacturing and designing handcrafted jewellery. Her family has been in the jewellery business in India and abroad for long, but for Kothari, the exhibition of her eponymous jewellery collection at the Bridal Asia show in Delhi where she has a stall, will be a first. Her line will be laced with white and yellow gold, platinum and diamonds. What is that they say about diamonds being a girl's best friend?

Road to Stardom

"Madhuri will be flattered when I tell her," says Madhuri Dixit's manager Rakesh Nath. "It will be a great honour for her." Dixit, who is away in the US at the moment, is yet to know, but Ram Gopal Varma's next production, to be shot from November, is titled Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon. The film, to be directed by Chandan Arora, stars Antara Mali, for whom it will be her third film under the Varma banner. Mali will play a village belle in Mumbai with dreams of becoming a Bollywood goddess. But does she get to become Madhuri Dixit in the end? They won't tell yet, only that Mali has been a long-time fan of Dixit and is thrilled to bits about the part.

Family Talk Show

Television addicts can now take a break from watching Farooque Shaikh, host of the Zee talk show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai. Shaikh is going to be off-air for three months-he will be touring the US for Feroz Khan's play Tumhari Amrita. But the show will carry on with a proxy host, ex-actor Suresh Oberoi, now popular as Company star Vivek Oberoi's father. He was playing golf in Delhi one day when the show's producers caught up with him and made the offer. And to boost viewer ratings, there will be an episode in which dad interviews son. "It will be completely spontaneous," gushes the older Oberoi. "Maybe he will call me dad and I will call him Vivekji. He may touch my feet or just stand throughout." On Oberoi's roster are other celebs: V.P. Singh, Jaya Prada, Mahesh Bhatt and Adnan Sami.

Video Ga Ga

Music videos are becoming an alternative catwalk for models. It's now the turn of Shonali Rosario, the model who is sizzling her way up the music charts in Abhijit Pohankar's new video Piya Bavari. It's a song that should have fetched her ample calls from Bollywood. But Rosario, unlike ramp colleagues Jesse Randhawa, Aditi Gowitrikar and Co., is just not interested. What has her interest now, besides fashion shows like the recent Lakme India Fashion Week, is the tube- Rosario is in a rash of TV ads. Says photographer Rafique Sayed who has shot her for eight years, "She does not say yes to every assignment. That's why she looks fresh and exclusive." For now, Rosario will limit her exposure to music videos.