It’s Diwali time, folks! And what’s the festival of lights without some dhamaka created by colourful crackers and bombs (not our films at the box-office, for a change!)? So here we go, creating our very own dhamaka with suggested Diwali gifts for our celebrity brigade. They aren’t any less exciting than the Diwali crackers but minus the high decibels.
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John Abraham: The best Diwali gift for John would be a motorbike which just doesn’t pick up beyond a speed of 50 kms./hr. Perhaps, Vipul Shah, in whose as-yet-untitled film John is acting, could gift him such a two-wheeler with a pre-recorded song which would go thus everytime John is ready to not ride it: ‘Saal bhar (not pal bhar) ke liye John humein pyaar kar le, jhootha hi sahi…’!
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Aishwarya Rai: A robot will be the best gift for the most beautiful woman in the world. Not only will it remind her of her association with the biggest hit of Indian cinema – Enthiran (Tamil), Robot (Hindi dubbed) and Robot (Telugu dubbed) – but will also enable her to accomplish a great deal of work everyday with the help of the robot. She would also be able to do repetitive work efficiently, without monotony setting in – again by asking the robot to do it. After all, all she would have to tell the gifted robot is: “Action replay!”
Priyanka Chopra: The overworked actress is always complaining about not getting enough rest, because of which she has also had occasional health problems. The best Diwali gift for Priyanka would, therefore, be rest. Did we hear Vishal Bhardwaj offering his next film – titled Aaram – to the heroine of his Kaminey and Saat Khoon Maaf?
Sanjay Dutt: A book on how to lose weight in a jiffy. Of late, his paunch has been showing in every film of his. A bit of a weight loss would do him good. And no worries, he can open the Diwali gift and start reading the book after savouring all the Diwali sweets.
Akshay Kumar: The actor, who, till three years back, delivered hits and successes in quick succession, needs a huge hit now. And because a hit depends on the script he selects, the best gift to Akshay would be a ‘master chef’ of a writer – a writer who can cook up a fantastic story, garnish it with a superb screenplay and serve it with wonderful dialogues. Till he doesn’t get such a master chef, he will not be able to return to his form of yore.
Rohit Shetty: A gift for him would be in the form of nominations for Golmaal 3 in every film awards function. And yes, invitations to those functions too. Otherwise, the successful director of the three Golmaal films is bound to sing: ‘Golmaal golmaal, everything’s got to be golmaal…’!
Vivek Oberoi: Rakht Charitra before his wedding, and Rakht Charitra 2 after the wedding. In between the two Rakht Charitras, Vivek now needs a charitra (character) certificate from his wife. Her Diwali gift to him would come in the form of an announcement to the public about how she enjoys the ‘company’ of her ‘prince’, her ‘saathiya’. The declaration would end with an exhortation to the people to watch Rakht Charitra 2 as, unlike the recycled material used to make his classy wedding invitation cards, the sequel is not just recycled stuff from the first part.
Karan Johar: To the producer and/or director of such films as My Name Is Khan, Wake Up Sid, I Hate Luv Storys and We Are Family, the recommended Diwali gift is a book in English, listing down 10,000 film titles in Hindi. Karan can then take his pick from these shudh Hindi titles.
Rajkumar Santoshi: Diwali gifts for the filmmaker whose new film is titled Power? Absolutely new power connections by both, Tata and Reliance, in his home and office. The electrical installations will come with two separate Diwali cards, one each from Tata and Reliance. The Reliance card will say: ‘Your power is sponsored by Reliance. Say tata, bye-bye to power failure!’ And the card sent by Tata, along with the power connection, would read: ‘When it comes to power supply, Tata stands for complete trustworthiness and reliance.’
Anil Kapoor: The most appropriate gift for the international Kapoor would be a swanky apartment in Los Angeles. After all, it would save Hollywood producers wanting to sign him, a lot of travel expenditure.Did you say, this is mission impossible? Don’t say that! Maybe, a Hollywood producer gives Anil an apartment as the signing amount for his next English film. As Anil himself is apt to say, “Be positive. There’s ‘no problem’ in accepting this gift!”
Abhinav Kashyap: There’ll be not one but several Diwali gifts for this cool dude of a director. Every corporate will send him a cheque by way of signing amount as its Diwali gift to him. The cheques will be blank and Abhinav will have the liberty to fill in the amounts of his choice. For every cheque he accepts from the corporate house as a gift, he will be contract-bound to direct a film for it. What about the script? Not needed. As it is, when he went around with the script of Dabangg, the corporate producers showed him the door. Now, how can they expect him to show them the script?
Priyadarshan: All those producers who’ve signed Priyan, including Subhash Ghai, Venus etc., will send him a joint Diwali gift – DVDs of his comedy films like Hera Pheri, Malamaal Weekly, Hungama, Hulchul etc., to remind him to stick to this genre for all times to come rather than straying and making horror fares like Aakrosh – not horror, as in genre, but definitely horror, as far as its box-office performance was concerned.
Ram Gopal Varma: A tortoise would make for an apt gift for Varma. The man, who shot a sequel along with the first part of a film, without waiting for the first part to release and without caring for the public reaction to the first part, seems to believe that you have to reach the finishing line first – and fast. The tortoise will remind him of the adage: Slow and steady wins the race!
P.S.: On second thoughts, the gift would be a dead tortoise, not a living one. For, after making Rakht Charitra and its sequel, the filmmaker seems to be more fond of having everyone killed. Wonder if he would spare the tortoise. So, why not gift him what he wants?
Ronnie Screwvala: A DVD of the speeches he has made in the last decade, on various public platforms – just so that he realises how well he speaks. At least, that way, he will get over his phobia of facing the television camera which he has steadfastly avoided as if it were the plague.
Shekhar Kapur: Tankers and tankers of water for his home. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. Hopefully, after being surrounded by so much paani, the international filmmaker will tire of it so much that he won’t threaten to make Paani – something he has been doing since the last God-knows-how-many years. Things have come to such a pass now that the moment he re-announces his plans to start Paani, there are people who want to drown themselves in frustration.
Aditya Chopra: Exhibitors of India will send a combined gift to Yash Chopra’s son, which will be an audio CD of the super-hit songs from his and his dad’s old blockbusters like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, Dhoom, Bunty Aur Babli, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Daag, Chandni etc. The intention of the gift would be to remind Aditya of the contribution of hit music to the box-office performance of a film. Maybe, Aditya Chopra will work harder on the music of his several forthcoming films after receiving this unique gift, which is what the all-India exhibitors are praying for. However, the opening song in the audio CD would be the Om jai jagdish hareaarti with emphasis on the line, Tera tujhko arpan, just so that Aditya doesn’t initiate legal proceedings against the exhibitors for copying his songs on a CD without the permission of the copyright holder (himself)!
Ekta Kapoor: One has heard of the metrosexual male. But the ideal gift for the erstwhile television queen would be a toy retrosexual female. Nahin samjhe? Since Ekta has proven lucky in two genres of films – retro (Once Upon ATime In Mumbaai) and sex (Love Sex Aur Dhokha and Kyaa Kool Hai Hum) – her gift of a retrosexual female – whatever that may mean! – would remind her of her three successes in two genres.
Anurag Basu: The Diwali gift for Anurag Basu will be the tiniest in the history of Bollywood Diwali gifts. It will remind the maker of such small gems as Murder, Gangster and Metro and one colossal flop called Kites to fly high but only by thinking small. For, in the case of his films, small is big!
Himesh Reshammiya: The best Diwali gift to this talented music director would be a handful of assignments (films) for scoring music. And yes, the contract will mention that he won’t act in those films.
Suneel Darshan: A television channel! Someone should actually gift this producer an entire satellite channel on which he can show the many films produced by him. Believe it or not but Suneel has not sold the satellite rights of any film produced by him. Had he sold them like other producers do, it would probably be time to sell the satellite rights of some of his films for the third time!!
Rajkumar Hirani: The one Diwali gift for him would be some attitude, a little jealousy, a bit of a temper and some amount of haughtiness – just so that he looks like someone who belongs to Bollywood. In spite of being supremely talented and greatly successful, Hirani has no airs, no attitude, no streak of jealousy in him and is so humble and down-to-earth. He is so unreal that it is difficult to believe someone can be like him. Thanks to the gift, if he becomes more like the Bollywood tribe, the industry would be assured that he is for real.
Preity Zinta: For someone who played a wonderful inning in the film industry and who was forced to retire (emotionally) hurt from the cricket field (IPL), the best gift would be a starring role in a big-budget film on cricket like, say, Lagaan, but not at all like her contemporary’s (read Rani Mukerji’s) Dil Bole Hadippa!. The million-dollar question is: who will gift this role to Preity? Shandar Amrohi?!?
Govinda: There’s only one gift for this reservoir of talent: a film to act in.
Dev Anand: What can one gift a man who continues to make films even in his late eighties? Of course, an audience willing to see his films!
