Earshot — Chandigarh

Hot property!We've been hearing rumours of an affair between Papiya Sen Gupta and director Sanjeev Bhattacharya for quite some time. Even...

Hot property!
We’ve been hearing rumours of an affair between Papiya Sen Gupta and director Sanjeev Bhattacharya for quite some time. Even to the extent that after Sanjeev’s wife expired they started living together. And now hear this: apparently, Papiya who is out of work these days after five of her serials winded up, is making a comeback in Sanjeev’s Amaanat. Her character will be introduced when the unit goes to London. Bhattacharya had given Papiya her first break in his college saga Campus.

Maha-sad
Recently when Maharana Pratap came on air again after a gap of three months as Shoorveer Maharana Pratap in place of Junoon (Mondays 10.30 pm) we thought thank god, finally, everything is okay. Until we got to hear this: as you all know, Vinod Khanna makes his debut on the small screen with a small role for which he was to start shooting from 26th September. It was an outdoor shoot and the whole unit was ready but there was no sign of Khanna. After several calls, a panicked Arjun Singh got to know that he was in the US and the shoot had to be called off. This is what we call Maha-trouble!

Hostelities
While on sitcoms, here’s yet another one. This time by Kamlesh Pandey who has written films like Dil, Tezaab and who made his foray into television with Mrs Madhuri Dixit on Zee. You’ll never guess what his sitcom is called: New Ganesha vs Lord Dalhousie. No, it’s not a mythological or a historical. Pandey feels there has been a deluge of family comedies and hence he thought of a young subject based on a tiff between two hostels by the names New Ganesha and Lord Dalhousie. While it is also being written by Pandey, Nishikant Kamat directs it and except for Ajit Vachani, the cast consists of new faces. It is slated for a November release on Zee.

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Treble trouble
Looks like Raman Kumar of Tracinema, who was once ruling TV with five serials and a daily soap, has gone into a deep decline. It started last year when his serials were pulled off the air. Now we hear that Yehi Hai Zindagi, the only serial that he had on Zee, is also being terminated. It also came as a shock to learn that he split with his girlfriend, writer Vinta Nanda, after 11 years. Their association was both personal as well as professional. Kumar had created a software company along with Pooja Bhatt called Pooja-Trac productions. But it seems even that didn’t work out and they have parted company!

Will it be No1?
Try this one out for laughs: Family No 1 (Sony), produced by Bennaifer Kohli and directed by Sameer Kulkarni (who also directs All The Best on DD2) has Kanwaljeet and Tanvi Azmi as single parents who are forced to share the same house with their children. Funny eh? Going by the producer’s previous track this one doesn’t sound exciting. He is the same guy who had produced Hum Aapke Hain Woh and the Jaspal Bhatti-starrer Hi Zindagi, Bye Zindagi which was abruptly terminated. Last Tuesday, there was a press conference at Mumbai’s Oberoi Hotel for launch of the sitcom. Wanna know the joke? Family No1 had hit the box a week earlier.