Salman Khan has gone a step further. He has put his head on the chopping block by campaigning for candidates from two rival parties - the BJP and the Congress. And here's how he did it.

Salman Khan struck his name off Sanjay Dutt's list of friends by turning a blind eye to Sanjay's support of Samajwadi Party candidate Abu Asim Azmi. Instead, he went campaigning for Priya Dutt. Dressed in a white sweatshirt, white-rimmed shades and a ponytail, Salman rode in an open van with the Congress MP in Mumbai's North Central constituency.

Salman also took nearly three hours out of his schedule to give his thumbs up to Milind Deora, the Congress candidate from South Mumbai constituency. Clad in a green T-shirt this time, the actor brought traffic to a standstill in the bylanes of Bhendi Bazaar and Nagpada.

He made his support for the Congress crystal clear when, a little while earlier, he campaigned for Congress candidate Anu Tandon in Unnao, UP, and went so far as to declare that Rahul Gandhi was India's future leader.

But we think his brains were addled by too much time in the sun. Why? Well, because on April 11, Salman went all out to support Bollywood star and BJP nominee, Vinod Khanna, in Gurdaspur, Punjab!

Is he trying to bring about a hung Parliament single-handedly? Salman needs to hire a political consultant. Pronto.

Bollywood director turned producer Sooraj Barjatya’s film “Ek
Vivaah Aisa Bhi” starring Esha Kopikar and Sonu Sood is slated for Friday (8-11-08) release.

Produced under the banner of Rajshri Productions Private Limited, the name that is synonymous with critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, promises a wholesome family entertainment.

Kaushik Ghatak has directed the film, which stars Sonu Sood, Esha Koppikar, Alok Nath, Smita Jaykar and Srivallabh Vyas.

On the subject of his film Sooraj Barjatya said that the film “Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi” was not a sequel to his earlier film Vivaha.

“It is not a sequel of Vivaha. It is another way of looking at the relationship, which I believe is so beautiful and we have yet not got into the depths of it because a man and a woman I think compliment each other so well. So it is another way of looking at the sanctity of the relationship,” said Barjatya.

Bollywood actor Esha Kopikar who plays the role of ‘Chandini’ said that she did not put in extra effort to enact the role but went with the producer and director of the film.

“To be very honest I did not prepare myself for the role and I completely went with my producer and director Sooraj and Kaushik Ghatak’s vision. I did what they wanted me to do. Yes to a very large extent I can relate myself to the character, I played in the film,” said Esha.

Sonu Sood, who plays the role of ‘Prem’, a carefree prankster who belongs to a rich business family and falls in love with Chandni the minute he sees her, said that songs of the film were so melodious that it became easy to mime them.

“Songs in the movie are sung by Shaan and his voice is so melodious and it was not at all difficult for me to mime the songs. But I think that all the homework which Sooraj ji and Kaushik dada had done really helped me to identify ‘prem’ here,” said Sood.

Ravindra Jain has composed the music of the film and penned the lyrics as well.

Plethora of singers like Shreya Ghosal, Shaan, Suresh Wadkar and Pamela Jain have lent their melodious voice to the songs.

Television actor Arjun Bijlani insists that he has always been a thorough professional though the media has labelled him a walk-out specialist, says Jyothi Venkatesh

Arjun Bijlani who is playing the lead in the new show Miley Jab Hum Tum on Star One asserts that today he is what he is, thanks to his debut with Left Right Left and not Mohe Rang De and hence he has no qualms for having walked out of Mohe Rang De after shooting for the show.

In fact Arjun says that it was Endomol who are producing Miley Jab Hum Tum who had offered the show first to him when he was acting in Left Right Left even before he had bagged Mohe Rang De. “I declined to be a part of Miley Jab Hum Tum because its launch was delayed and I accepted Mohe Rang De. Luckily for me, the producers approached me again when I was working in Mohe Rang De.”

Why did he walk out of Mohe Rang De? “I was not happy with the way my character in Mohe Rang De was shaping up. When I was offered the role I was told that mine was a parallel lead role, though I realised that in a 1940 period serial, I was just essaying a character. I had even put on weight to get into the skin of my character.
When I accepted Miley Jab Hum Tum, I told the producers of Mohe Rang De that I had taken up yet another show and hence would not like to do two shows at the same time. Though I had signed a one year contract with them, I felt that I deserved better. I did not ditch them at the eleventh hour. I gave them notice.”

Is there any bad blood between him and Deeya and Tony since he had walked out of Left Right Left? “I do not hold any grudge against Deeya and Tony. Nor do they hold any against me. They had even offered me their new show but I could not accept it because I am pre-occupied with Miley Jab Hum Tum. After working for a year in Left Right Left, I did ask for a hike since I was getting just peanuts. Though we had been signed for an exclusive contract, to our chagrin, we realised that our characters did not progress or graduate in any way. We wanted to quit when we were not given a hike. They cast new faces in the show when we refused to renew our contract for the third year, but had to wind the show.”

Arjun insists that he has always been a thorough professional though the media has labelled him a walk out specialist. “Ask any producer with whom I have worked till date. I have always adjusted in terms of dates and done my shows sincerely. If you ask the Mohe Rang De guys, though I had walked out of the show, they will tell you that I had never ever thrown tantrums.”

Arjun is not ready at all to be a part of saas bahu shows. “I do not want to do any saas bahu shows because I prefer to be part of young shows. The fact I is that I want to aim for a career in Bollywood and I do not want to be over exposed as an actor. Once I move onto films, I would never ever come back to TV, because I am using TV as my passport to films and have no qualms to admitting it.”

Film idols Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham star as a pair posing as gays to get nearer to a woman. For India, that's cutting edge.

"We are gay -- this is my boyfriend." The shock in this statement comes not so much from what is being said but who is saying it. The speaker in question is John Abraham, an A-list Bollywood hero, known for his chiseled chest and sexy smirk. The "boyfriend" is being played by Abhishek Bachchan, another well-known actor who is considered Bollywood royalty (he is the son of superstar Amitabh Bachchan and the husband of leading actress Aishwarya Rai).

Abraham and Bachchan, both strapping matinee idols, have built their careers playing sensitive lovers and good sons, but in their upcoming film "Dostana" (Friendship) they are breaking with tradition, risking their carefully cultivated screen images and testing the sensibilities of Bollywood audiences.

"Dostana," which will have its worldwide theatrical release Friday, is the first big-budget mainstream Bollywood film to feature gay protagonists. But the movie has more in common with "Three's Company" than "Brokeback Mountain" or "Milk." That's because the characters aren't actually gay. They are heterosexual men pretending to be homosexuals so they can save on rent and share an apartment with a curvaceous and conspicuously single magazine editor, played by popular actress Priyanka Chopra.
Predictably, both fall in love with her but are forced to keep up the charade of being lovers themselves. The film, set in Miami, is a breezy romantic comedy, with what producer Karan Johar calls "a candy-floss take on homosexuality." But in a country where homosexuality is a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, candy floss is cutting edge.

While police in India don't usually arrest people simply for being gay, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a law dating back to 1860, criminalizes even private, consensual sex between adults of the same sex. Subsequently, the law has pushed homosexuality underground and there are no reliable numbers on the gay population in India. In 2004, the National AIDS Control Organization pegged the number at a minimum of 2.5 million, but some media estimates suggest a much higher number, as many as 50 million out of India's total population of 1.13 billion.

Despite the numbers, the Indian gay story has rarely become fodder for film. Popular Hindi cinema has largely reduced gay characters to comic sidekicks or, on occasion, villains. India's first bona fide gay film was a 12-minute adaptation of a poem by R. Raja Rao, who is one of the best-known gay fiction writers in the country. The film, titled "BOMgAY," made in 1996, circulated at festivals and private screenings. It generated media buzz but was never commercially released.

In 2005, "My Brother . . . Nikhil," a low-budget drama about a gay man's struggle with AIDS, found distributors and critical acclaim but failed to connect with mainstream audiences at the box office. The film's director, who goes by the single name Onir, says: "After 'My Brother . . . Nikhil,' I met several producers who said they loved it but nobody wanted to make another film that went near the subject." In comparison, television has been quicker to feature gay characters and themes, in news shows and on the occasional soap opera, but is still a long way from airing a show like "Will & Grace."

With the $10-million "Dostana," Johar and his stars are entering uncharted waters. Which is why even a faux-gay angle is couched in glittering, mainstream trappings -- stars, sun-kissed Miami beaches, trendy styling and several set-piece songs. But within these commercial parameters, Johar and writer-director Tarun Mansukhani are attempting to push the envelope.

To convince their landlady, the heroes invent a romantic back story about how they met and several scenes show them flirting with each other, holding hands and even doing a simmering tango. Another leading Bollywood actor, Boman Irani, plays a gay magazine editor who visits the girl on pretext of work but is more interested in checking out her two roommates. Most critically, the film features the stock, smothering northern Indian mother who becomes hysterical when she first finds out that her son is gay (she isn't in on the lie) but eventually she blesses the union telling her son's boyfriend: "I'm not sure whether you're my son-in-law or daughter-in-law!"

This is the character that Johar and Mansukhani are hoping that viewers will connect with and take home. "The mother is the progressive element for India," Johar say. "She carries the one message I want to send to parents: that their child's sexual orientation is not something that should not be blessed." It certainly helps that the message is being routed through attractive and popular stars. Actors in the Hindi film industry have largely shunned such roles, which might sabotage their larger-than-life images and alienate their fan following. Another leading director, Madhur Bhandarkar, had a difficult time persuading actors to play gay designers in his recently released film "Fashion." "The two roles were rejected by eight to 10 actors," he says. "Each one told me, 'I would love to work with you but I can't do a role like this.' "

But Abraham and Bachchan had no such qualms. "I was laughing as I heard the script," says Abraham. "It's not offensive or derogatory. I said yes and didn't even think of the repercussions if there are going to be any." Bachchan was equally sanguine about the role. He says: "I'm not the kind of actor who is obsessed about one's image. I'm obsessed about not having one."

Both were so comfortable with the content and each other that Mansukhani often had to rein them in to keep the contact from becoming too cartoonish. Otherwise, he says, "they would go drastically over the top." The stereotypical gay flamboyance is not what the director was seeking. "I know exactly the tone I wanted," he says. "They did not need to be effeminate. We wanted to get humor in without making it cheesy." The priority was to make it lightweight and inoffensive, to the traditional and perhaps timid Hindi film viewer but also to the gay community. Johar says: "Even within the fun and games, handling it sensitively is a challenge. If we offend even one member of the homosexual community, it will really disturb me."

Johar, who earlier hosted a popular chat show on television and is considered a style icon, has been fielding questions about his own sexuality since he directed his first film in 1998. He has neither denied nor confirmed the rumors, but his ability to handle the issue with grace has created confidence that his film will do the same. Vikram Doctor, columnist and gay activist, says: "Karan is a class act. He is comfortable with himself, and that is an inspiration. Hopefully 'Dostana' will reflect that." Parmesh Shahani, author of "Gay Bombay," believes that "any mainstream acknowledgment, even if it is tongue-in-cheek, will go a long way. Laughing about it is the first step toward more textured and nuanced characters."

But at least a few are wary that the humor might be interpreted as ridicule. "This is token homosexuality," says Onir. "There is a need to normalize instead of perpetuating stereotypes. Moreover, being physical is an integral part of our culture, but by stereotyping that holding hands is gay behavior we are adding to the homophobia. The question is: What signal are we sending out here?"

The signal may be mixed but it's timing is apt. The Delhi High Court is currently deliberating a petition filed by the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, a nongovernmental organization that supports gay rights, which asks that Section 377 be reevaluated to decriminalize private consensual sexual activity. Prominent Indians such as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and acclaimed writer Vikram Seth have publicly demanded a legal change. Even the Health Ministry and Law Ministry have suggested the same. However the government maintains that gay sex is "against the order of nature" and propagates Western values. The hearings continue and a verdict is expected before year's end.

While "Dostana" doesn't make any political statements, Johar is confident that it will add to the conversation. He says: "This is a baby step, but endeavors like this do open up vistas. Cinema has a tendency of opening up mind-sets and making you a little more prepared for things. It will be a talking point. And there can therefore, someday, be a 'Brokeback Mountain.' "

Chopra writes frequently about Indian cinema and is the author of "King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema," among other books.

Hollywood and Bollywood rarely meet. But in the new film "Slumdog Millionaire," the two international epicenters of filmmaking find an unusually fruitful cinematic union.

The connection comes by way of British director Danny Boyle, who shot the film in Mumbai, India, with a cast of mostly Bollywood and local nonprofessional actors.

Filming with handheld digital cameras and working with a small crew from London, Boyle plunged into the slums of Mumbai to capture the city's vibrancy not like a foreigner, but like a chameleon.

"The normal thing you do as a film director is you take a bit of life, you stop it, control it, and then recreate it endless times to shoot it," said Boyle. "We did some stuff like that, obviously, but it feels a bit fake. It's got that kind of atmosphere thing that you can't quantify. Some of it's sound, but some of it's also visuals. If there's not that randomness about it, you don't believe it."

The story of "Slumdog Millionaire" itself is a bit unbelievable. It's about a teenager (Dev Patel) from the slums of Mumbai who ends up rising to the top of India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

A doubtful policeman interrogates him, accusing him of cheating. But his reasons for knowing each answer reflects his life story — a kind of truthful version of "The Usual Suspects." To do this, the part played by Patel also needed to be cast for two younger children — as did two supporting roles.

The casting headaches and the international production could have easily ended in disaster, or at least a poor movie. But "Slumdog Millionaire" has been hailed (Rolling Stone called it one of the year's best) and is getting a full Academy Awards push from Fox Searchlight, which also distributed the Oscar underdog "Little Miss Sunshine."

Hollywood blog Movie City News' "Gurus o' Gold," which compiles the Oscar prognostications of 14 leading industry insiders and critics, has "Slumdog" as a favorite for a best picture nomination.

The 52-year-old Boyle is known for the variety of his work, from 1996's druggie drama "Trainspotting" to 2002's horror film "28 Days Later" and last year's sci-fi space adventure "Sunshine."

But the last time that he took cameras to an exotic foreign land — for Leonardo DiCaprio's "Titanic" follow-up, "The Beach" — things didn't work out as well. The movie was panned and Boyle doesn't recall it fondly.

"If you go in as a bit of an invading army, it's much more difficult to adjust appropriately because you're just too big," said Boyle. "I've done that before. I went to Thailand to make `The Beach' and I went with a huge crew. Three months in Thailand, who'd say no to that? But in terms of making the film, I'm not sure that's the way to do it these days."

Producer Christian Colson said sending "hundreds of Europeans" into India didn't make sense.

"It would have been very expensive, but it's also dumb," said Colson. "We're traveling to one of the major filmmaking centers of the world — why do that?"

This time, Boyle kept the crew smaller and was working with a modest $15 million budget. He also enlisted casting director Loveleen Tandan, who helped so much (with work in the second-filming unit and local knowledge) that Boyle gave her a co-director credit in some markets.

"Danny never came in with a set of expectations," said Tandan. "He just went for it and was open. It's not about Bollywood or Hollywood or London. It's just him that made the film unique."

About a quarter of the film's dialogue is in Hindi — generally an impediment to U.S. box office success. The decision to go with subtitles was not originally in the all-English script by Simon Beaufoy ("The Fully Monty"), who loosely adapted Vikas Swarup's novel "Q & A."

But finding young English-speaking Indian children who could still play poor, uneducated characters proved near impossible. So their dialogue was shifted to Hindi just four or five weeks before production.

"That was a massive liberation," said Colson, who financed the film privately. "If we'd had to persuade a studio of that decision, we'd still be arguing about it now."

Bollywood's ways of making films can differ greatly from Hollywood's. Films are made incrementally — often just a few days at a time — to fit the schedules of the very popular stars. Financing is also done piecemeal, with producers paying more only after seeing early results.

"The film is sort of made in an Indian way," said Colson, adding that they did have a schedule and all the money in advance. "I think it's in the soul of the film.

"Marrying that culture to what we're used to, I think it would have been very difficult 20 or 30 years ago. It's changing now."

That marriage is most evident in a big, Bollywood-esque dance number that Boyle said just felt "natural" to include.

One way the cultures failed to mingle was in casting the lead. For the teenage Jamal, Boyle only found muscular and "butch" actors from Bollywood. He cast the scrawnier Patel from London.

"The hardest thing I found on this film was getting out of that foreign mind-set," said Patel, whose only previous credit is the British teen drama "Skins." "Getting into the mind of a slum kid was really hard."

Boyle said the Oscar buzz for "Slumdog" has been "an amazing vehicle" to finding attention for an independent film that might not have otherwise gotten much attention. But months after his experience in Mumbai, he's still buzzing about it.

"There will be more and more of that hybrid stuff going on that connects Bollywood and Hollywood. Without a doubt," said Boyle. "It just looks natural that it's going to happen."