August 24, 1998

Peace or no peace, do kids these days care? Arundhati Roy found out the hard way at the Independent Peace concert in Mumbai. There to read excerpts from her now-famous anti-nuke essay, Roy was booed with shouts of "Where's the music?" Be patient, yelled the show's emcees -- Channel V veejays Rishma Malik and Jaaved Jaaferi -- as the visibly shaken writer stood her ground. The chiding worked, and the rowdy crowd made its peace with Roy. Says Malik: "She's one of the most courageous women I've met." She faced a crowd of teenagers. She must be.

The Big, the Bad, the Ugly

Hindi films are flopping. We have the solution. Make sure your new star is big, ugly, has bad breath and dines on people. It works. Godzilla, that lunching lizard, had a record opening weekend of Rs 2.2 crore recently and is expected to gross Rs 25 crore. Just beating out the snake on the make, Anaconda (Rs 18 crore,) and Jurassic Park (Rs 16 crore). Says Vikramjit Roy of Columbia Tristar: "Animal stories always do well in India." So do boats that can't float. Titanic, with Rs 20 crore, is still running.

At the Take-off Stage

Fourteen songs, two weddings and a funeral. Is this Hugh Grant gone berserk? Actually, it's an English adaptation of Hum Aapke Hain Koun for the London stage. "The pool scene and the group songs are a throwback to the old Hollywood musicals. We've just adapted them for the western stage," says Suman Bhuchar of the Tamasha Theatre Company, the group that's doing it. What next? Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge remade as People with Hearts will Walk Away with the Bride? Dil To Pagal Hai as The Heart is Loony? Who knows, if Mel Gibson directs it, he might even call it Loonyheart.

Will He, Won't He?

He's tall. he's dark. he's handsome. He's got the right genes. Abhishek Bachchan's first film has just been launched, and, of course, he'll be a star. Or maybe not. Here's a look at some recent star-kid careers:

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