Earshot — Golden oldies

Calling the shots

The chirpiest nymphet to adorn the idiot box, Ruby Bhatia, is all set to enter the world of acting. She’s been cast as an inspector in UTV’s detective serial Raaz. It is to be directed by Karan Razdan of Tehkikaat fame. This twenty something-year-old has shown a savoir faire in front of the camera which many a stalwart lack and with her kind of innocence she should soon be marching her way to success. So, look out for Inspector Ruby.

Lingua fracas

You’ve seen all those dubbed soaps on TV? Well, now the Bengali dubbing artists of Mumbai are on the warpath because local artists in Calcutta are trying to stop serials from being dubbed in Bengali in Mumbai. Leela Ghosh, who owns two companies which look after the dubbing of serials in different languages says that dubbed serials like Alif Laila and Shri Krishna have been showing in West Bengal since 1993 and have high TRP ratings. They enjoy a large viewership, particularly in the rural regions. Ghose has appealed for intervention from no less a person than the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Jaipal Reddy.

Unusual propaganda

Was the eminent Prof. Yashpal canvassing for Bhaskar Ghose as the head of the future Broadcast Authority (if it ever sees light of day)? It seemed like that to those who attended the seminar on the Broadcast Bill, organised by the National Telematics Forum in Delhi, last week. During his opening remarks and his introduction of Ghose, Prof.Yashpal suggested there wasn’t a better man for the job. Ghose was suitably modest and self- deprecating about Yashpal’s glowing words. He is a former DG Doordarshan and a former Secretary I&B as well as Secretary Culture. So his credentials are pretty impeccable. In which case he doesn’t need this kind of public vote of confidence. In fact, it might adversely affect his chances.

Camera angles

Noted director Buddhadev Dasgupta, winner of the Golden Lotus for his film Lal Darja, is presently shooting a thirteen part documentary for television. Titled Colours & Lines Of Freedom, the thirteen part series is on the `paintings of India’. The project has been taken up by Doordarshan as a mark of tribute to 50 Years of Indian Independence.

Buddhadev has been touring various parts of India. All big museums and store houses of ancient art paintings will be featured as part of the show. “I am deeply inspired by unique contours and experiments of Indian paintings which explore vivid humanism in subtle forms,” said Dasgupta. Indecent exposure

Actress Sandra Bullock turned up on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (NBC), last week and proceeded to expose herself. Well, almost. Bullock described how in the course of filming for a recent film, she got fed up of the long shoot and along with other members of the cast, decided to pull down her pants, shorts, whatever, in protest. So when the cameras rolled, they recorded the moment. Tapes of the memorable moment were selling all over Los Angeles and Leno picked up copy. He then ran the tape on his show. We saw Bullock turn and… Alas, Leno blocked out Bullock bottoms up salute and we had to settle for a wave instead!

(Contributed by Lata Khubchandani, Shailaja Bajpai and Pradip Biswas)