Vikas Bahl Director Of Queen Speaks On Life, Love, Sex, Marriage & Kangana Ranaut

Take the Leap of Faith & Follow Your Heart

“Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free & realizing that you were the prisoner” an opening statement he makes at our tete a tete that comes through in Vikas Bahl’s latest film ‘Queen’. Yes, we’re all curious about the man who has conveyed so many resonant messages through his film. & Won innumerable awards at this years Film Fare Awards night.

What a riotous film, and yet without being preachy, with uproarious funny moments -a film that does not try to talk down to you, but takes you on a euphoric thrilling journey and yet conveys so many important messages. I've loved it but so have the critics. An important film of our times.

The beauty remains in the fact that the film carries you with it, not attempting to teach to improve anyone. Vikas was just sharing his funda of life artlessly, while telling his beguiling story hilariously. 

What comes across to me most resonantly is that one just has to take the leap of faith and follow one’s heart. And if you don’t, then life’s greatest calamities, or what we view as calamities are actually that prod that throw us out of comfort zones and make us reconsider our lives and take the plunge into adventure, living, experiencing and being our true selves.

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A lasting Romance & A Long Innings!

Made-For-Each-Other

SC Vasudeva & Aruna Vasudeva

He was in his later seventies and she was somewhat younger. They came hand in hand, no overt pretence but genuine concern and absorbed in each other. He had come to buy her a bracelet, at a trunk show I was hosting for the luxury jewelry brand I endorse. 

I was riveted. A  wedding anniversary of over fifty years, and so much love and companionship. Mr & Mrs Vasudeva- I met them over coffee through the afternoon-had gone out for a tête-à-tête lunch, a walk down Delhi’s verdant Lodi gardens, and then a ‘little’ token for her. 

They chose the bracelet together, chose it with some discussion and loving collaboration.  It was a revelation to see that not only can relationships have such longevity but with such mutual respect, love and sense of companionship.

A refreshing change from the short lived marriages of today wouldn't you say?  Where at the first sign of a hiccough or discord you hear 'it's not working', 'I don't think I can take this anymore'. 

I see around me so many marriages crumbling apart, that had come together with such élan. Just recently I specifically noticed Mohammad Azharuddin looking so melancholy and solitary in the audience, while I compered a show. His marriage to Sangeeta Bijlani had crumbled even though he had got together with her after divorcing his first wife Naureen.

Some relationships that were expected to be everlasting did not turn out that way, and one such 

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Sex & The Single Woman

Sex, Relationships sans Marriage & No Srings Attached

@nishjamvwal

The Film ‘Queen’, is one of the more sparkling, endearing Bollywood films I’ve seen of late, and Actor Kangana Ranaut as the gullible or provincial hick from Delhi, unexposed and big eyed about all things ‘cool’, trendy and sexy is beguiling. Especially when the Italian hunk in the film asks her to prove that Indians kiss better than Italians. Dumped at the alter by her fiancée Kangana as the film’s ‘Rani’ is on her ‘honeymoon’ alone to find herself adventure. 

The film while delightful, brings to the fore questions about the new age single women, the importance of exploring oneself, the stifling nature of some intrusive Indian relationships. Ranaut’s self-discovery and her freedom prove that it is no longer the desperate need for a woman to be hitched to find happiness. Quite the opposite. She should not even need the institution of marriage to fulfil her need for physical connect and sex? 

  

Sex and the single woman has been a preoccupying thought with ‘new age’ India. West of the archaic Suez Canal there seemed once to be a cloud of horrific implications over a girl letting go of her virginity before marriage. Somehow as soon as you go east the virginity issue becomes a big deal. In India too there still seem to be steeped in the loss of virginity phobia. 

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Diana Hayden's Wedding Bells

Why Diana Hayden Didnt Go The Bollywood Way

At a crowded pre-holi party last evening, I was speaking with a smiling , unrealistically obliging and ingratiating socialite. - I wondered what made her come across so artificially polite and phoney. It was the dearth of something real, genuine, from the heart. That special something which differentiates the tangible from the sham is that warmth reflecting within the light inside the eyes. 

Suddenly then Diana Hayden breezed in. And when I say breezed I mean breezed in. Like a relief factor from the painfully put on fare Bombay sometimes offer's especially in the air-kissing lot. 

To put you upto speed, Diana won Femina Miss India in 1997, crowned Miss World 1997. I thought to myself, ‘this is the real thing’. Shes always from the heart –what –you-see–is-what–you–get. Nothing changes her, not the great highs nor the sometime lows. And anyway, which of us doesn't go through the lows?

So what actually kept Diana differently real and fun to hang out with? I mean she's belonged to the glamour industry. Diana told me her tale over one of our long coffee sessions. Would you believe it, I didn't know she was from Hydrabad. The daughter of a plumber, her mother is a teacher. An ordinary home, where her parents split up when she was merely thirteen.  She had to leave school to fend for herself to take up a job and work  really hard "I worked as a receptionist, a telephone operator, I held at least fifteen jobs. Life was very basic. Our foundation of education was good so that while I might have been an eighth drop out I always got books as Christmas presents, read a lot and I turned into a curious romantic person.”

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Do Besties Exist? Are You Looking For That BFF?

Do We Need That Best Friend At Any Cost?

Do Besties Exist?

Can It Last Forever?

Is There A Forever?

 @nishajamvwal

These questions came to me often through my growing up years. I often wondered at all departures, break-up's and farewells whether there is a forever. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But are there tricks to make it last forever? I'd say yes, and that magic formula is respect, politeness and some healthy distance. The second you take your friends for granted and push them around, or then get pushed around, is the beginning of the end. 

How do we handle a good friend who  often pokes us and pricks our self esteem and prods us to confront ourselves in a manner that we would rather not. Do we do away with the friend or how do we handle it all was a question my friend posted on her facebook status. She seemed to suggest the friend becomes a pain in the neck that we're better off without because she was at a stage in life when she is fairly attuned to what she wants and has chosen to be. To the many responses she elicited on her ‘wall’ the most balanced ones echoed my belief strongly.

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Open Marriages, Open Love, Open Sex! Do They Work?

Does another society marriage bite the dust? It is being said that the once very romantic couple -ex-model Rhea Pillai and tennis ace Leander Paes- are allegedly daggers drawn and trying to agree on a settlement to go their separate ways. Both came into the relationship with much history, but also what appeared to be much passion. 








The relationship gained momentum even as Leander was supposed to be in a serious relationship with actor Mahima Choudhury- and she stated that she had only stumbled upon the truth of his two timing her much into his relationship with Rhea. She had said at the time "In any relationship, there has to be love, trust, commitment and loyalty. If any one of these elements is missing, the relationship isn't worth pursuing," and most of us would agree with that assumption of a relationship?

Today the situation has come full circle with Rhea and Leander allegedly parting ways in a bitter custody battle, and rumour mills cite the cause of the trouble being an allegedly open marriage.  While this might indeed be chinwag, it makes one ponder the ‘institution’ of open marriages and what they must actually mean.

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Hritik Roshan & Suzanne Roshan Break Up! Turmoil in human relationships...........

It’s been an eventful year for most people I know. I must admit, for me personally, one of the more challenging years of my life, and yes challenges I’ve indeed had my share of. That’s what actually gives me the bandwidth to chat with you on varied issues, the ability to unravel the secret behind making things work despite the tests and trials that life throws at one. As things go, unless there are calamities at world level, turmoil’s in human relationships assume almost as gigantic proportions as earth shattering events. I have seen so many of these cataclysmic chaos-es this past year- almost like an epidemic. 

In 2013 , some of the most happy relationships broke down and public declarations of divorce, separation and severe cracks euphemistically termed as ‘taking time out’ from the marriage dotted the relationship scene like commas and full stops in a page.

The biggest buzz all year was the breakdown of Hritik Roshan’s marriage of so many years, and their public declaration that came some recently with speculations of the divorce settlement. The golden couple of seventeen years is no longer in the happily ever after. There was an alleged entry of a third party, Arjun Rampal to which Suzanne declared- “it is only about me and Hrithik, nobody else” and wouldn’t you agree? An outsider, of which there are always many prowling about cannot be the cause for fracture of a relationship. Things go wrong in deeper multifarious levels. 

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Shashi Tharoor's 'Friendship's repercussions on Sunanda Pushkar's Life & Her Mysterious Death

What repercussions did Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Friendship’ have?

In an email to Shashi Tharoor, Meher Tarar says feelingly-" ...so I guess I was right all my life. Friendship between a man and a woman will always be labelled incorrectly and even the woman who's the love of your life will doubt your word against very circumstantial evidence" 

To which Shashi replied that he'd been asked by Sunanda Pushkar to not be in touch with Tarar anymore. "I hope you will understand and forgive me if I stop our phone and email exchanges" he said.

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/leaked-mehr-tarars-email-to-shashi-tharoor-on-sunanda-pushkar-123606.html

 The events that followed spelled disaster for Shashi Tharoor, who quite obviously was unable to stop communication with Tarar despite his best intentions. I remember the few times I met them, they had looked so happy and engaged with each other. For a third marriage for both, it was delightful to see such a youngster like romance and attraction. Also shows how deceptive appearances can be, and how easily their relationship became prey to suspicion, acrimony and the forbidden apple of Shashi's 'friendship' with the opposite sex. Today months after Sunanda's 'demise' there is no clarity as to the reason of her death, the aplrax placed on her bedside is not present in her blood say the tests conducted to unearth the reason of her untimely death. So were the strips placed there for a reason?

In 'Hum Tum' Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee have an interesting exchange about the friendship between a man and a woman? Or then 'When Harry Met Sally' Meg Ryan argues with Billy Crystal about the possibility of a platonic friendship between the two sexes.

It might indeed be possible but with the Democlese sword of sex, attraction, lust, chemistry always hanging on the head of the friendship- ready to take it into another dimension anytime. And so it is that a man woman friendship is like a diet which can anytime give into the forbidden chocolate 

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Party Season & You're Feeling Left Out? Here's How To Handle It!

    Alone On New Years Eve?

No where to go and mortified? Not that you don't have a million things to occupy you, but you don't like the feeling of being left out? 

Yes Cinderella was alone too on the night of the Ball, and no, we dont have a physical fairy God Mother who will appear with a magic wand. But don't panic, you can change it all by being your own fairy God Mother. Change your attitude, and be a friend before the upsurge of expectations begin to engulf you. 

Start by inviting your friends over or take them out for a change. Don't believe that it's your birthright to be called when your close circle is invited, just because you belong to the gang. And please do not sulk with your friends, that is indeed harakiri!

 Do you know , that to gain a friend you first have to be one. Not by just hanging around, but by making the effort, reciprocating, calling, asking and being hospitable. And if you still are not invited then please do not throw a tantrum!

It’s the party season, and friends host parties galore at this time.   I find myself inundated with bbm’s of how attractive I’m looking on my dp, ESPECIALLY at the time I am hosting a party. 

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Trust & Loyalty, Are They Relevant Words Today?

The timeless ingredients that outlast rapids and turbulence in relationships is communication and trust.

Backbiting and gossip is rife in a society where social aspiration and climbing up the ladder for invitations and name dropping abound. So how do relationships and friendships survive in a predominantly farcical and superficial urban milieu, where page three culture dominates?

When all else points to a loved one or a friend being guilty, telling you that they are at fault, and you are the victim-stop to think and evaluate the situation before jumping to conclusions. How are you going to do that!

 I'd like to ask you if words like 'loyalty', 'trust', 'honesty' have become obsolete, traded for upwardly mobile attributes like ambition, pecking order and social advancement. I mean which world am I living in, I ask myself! And my answer is this- qualities like loyalty and trust are classics that outlast transient shallow trends.

If you’ve cared for and loved someone for years, and something goes wrong where your loved one is ostensibly to blame, stop to think, evaluate, communicate and discuss the situation before jumping to conclusions. Ask what transpired and if he or she had anything to do with the problem. Always draw from the ‘bank balance’ of good memories and the loyalty you’ve seen all the 

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Desperate to get Hitched? Wait up!

Jumping headlong into a marriage because ‘it’s been decided’, ‘your family wishes it’, ''you're lonely and need company',  ‘you’re getting too old and you might miss the boat’, ‘you’re spouse to be is in the foreign service and you will get to travel the world’ –these are the wrongest reasons and spell disaster if you are not compatible. 

Companionship, friendship, love and trust are reasons to make it a lifelong commitment, convenience, alliances of businesses, age concerns, lust, pregnancy, desperation, money, fame and materialism are NOT! 

 It is indeed difficult to make the tough call of opting out with all the temptation to go ahead and take the easy route. I urge you to be brutal -with yourself and all around you. Better to be alone in harmony than together in mismatched disharmony where you will be even more isolated, forlorn and disappointed.

When you get that funny niggling doubt and misgiving which goes beyond just nervous butterflies, it is not prudent to go in for a relationship that will turn out to be traumatic long term.

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The Irrelevance or Relevance of Marriage by Vikram Bhatt

Dalliance, Love, Marriage With Vikram Bhatt

“To me, marriage is an archaic and oppressive institution that should have been abolished years ago. And love? Its magical comfort food for the weak and uneducated. Yeah, it makes you feel all warm and relevant but in the end, loves leaves you weak, dependent and fat” says the character of Matthew Mc Conaughey in the film ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’

Vikram Bhatt’s views are not far behind! Vikram has not only blazed a trail for his own brand of cinema but is also known for his unconventional personal life. 


- In my years of knowing him, he always came across as a very outspoken, real person sans pretensions, positioning, flim flam! So that when I was the Indian journalist doing the documentary ‘Twenty Four Hours In Mumbai’ the French journalist with me asked him superciliously ‘what do you feel about poverty in India’? Vikram answered cockily ‘what do you feel about drugs in France?' (sic). 

That pretty much says it all. Direct, self-assured, wry humor & delightful. 

So his views on the current scenario of marriage , while unconventional, are stimulating.

 Is it obsolete according to him? Does marriage have consequence in our times or is it just an institution to give us support and succor?  In this age many view it as a “contract” commissioned by the government ‘to disenfranchise intercaste, interfaith and interracial marriages.’

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Do You Want A Mama's Boy? Get yourself a Man

DIMPLE  LOOKS ON HORRIFIED AS SON SAIF ALI KHAN KISSES GIRLFRIEND DEEPIKA PADUKONE

Women Don’t like Mamma’s Boys- Wake Up Before It’s Too Late?

Just last week I had an experience that left me quite taken aback. A friend had feverishly implored me to help her son’s procure a job. I went all out and got him the interview despite there being an HR protocol for the job in question. He did go, was made to wait, was met with, post which to my utter surprise I received a spate of angry sms’s from his ‘mommy dearest’ annoyed with the fact that her darling son was made to wait. On further research I found out what I’d been suspicious about. He’d had a bad divorce, has not been working for some time now, and is generally finding it difficult to cope. You might already have guessed why! Yes, a molly coddling, over-protective, helicopter mother with an excessively attached son?

The truth here is that a lot of male children, especially in India, are the apple of their ‘mamma’s’ eyes receiving too much attention and nearly royal treatment from infanthood. Their every need is pandered to and become expecting of the same pampering and care from the spouse. They are often not allowed to fend for themselves and are feted, sheltered, and cossetted by the mother with unconditional love even after their marriage. They rarely think they are wrong and grow up with an exaggerated sense of self. Mothers are to blame for pandering to their son's every need, and unfortunately women don't like to date or be married to men who need to be served and can't take care of themselves.

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