MASAND's gossip for this week

Another Week, Another Girl

The tabloids reported earlier this week that Band Baaja Baaraat's Anushka Sharma is the new girl in Ranbir Kapoor's life. That bit of gossip comes barely a week after every tabloid worth its salt was swearing that Ranbir has ditched Katrina Kaif and moved on to his Rockstar co-actress Nargis Fakhri. The link-up with Anushka is being attributed to the fact that she was the only female actress present at Ranbir's 'dinner for friends' at the Olive Bark & Kitchen in Bandra recently. The Kapoor kid threw an impromptu dinner do, to which he invited Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma and his director buddy Ayan Mukherji. His on-off friend and colleague Imran Khan was invited, but couldn't make it as he was shooting that evening with Kareena Kapoor for Shortkut Shaadi. There was no sign of either Nargis Fakhri or Katrina, and no one was surprised that Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor hadn't been invited.

Eyewitnesses say they saw nothing to suggest that Ranbir and Anushka might be interested in each other, and that it seemed that Anushka was still clearly dating her BBB co-star Ranveer Singh. But a source reveals that the Anushka-Ranbir rumours may not be completely off the mark.

At Karan Johar's party at the Four Seasons Hotel a few months ago, Anushka was allegedly very interested in getting Ranbir's attention. She didn't seem to care that Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif were in the same room, or that her own date Ranveer Singh was present too. She's believed to have monopolised Ranbir for a major part of the evening, and laid the charm on thick.

With an image more colourful than Salman Khan's in the 90s, Ranbir has been painted'not without reason'as the kind of guy who changes his women more frequently than his sheets. It's a good thing he's a terrific actor, though. Or he'd risk going down as yet another flaky, spoilt, little rich kid.

By the time you're reading this, Hollywood star Hugh Jackman would already be in Mumbai where he's attending the Ficci Frames entertainment conclave on Friday. He'll share the stage with Shah Rukh Khan to discuss themes like crossover cinema and the Hollywood dream, on a panel moderated by Karan Johar.

It is Johar who's been instrumental in bringing Jackman down through 20th Century Fox, the studio with which both Johar and Jackman share good relations. The director is keen to have the Wolverine star appear on an episode of his talk show Koffee With Karan, but Jackman's time in India is limited. He will, however, show up at Shah Rukh's Bandra home for a party the Bollywood star is said to be throwing in his honour.

Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood's go-to-girl for Hollywood star-hospitality, has been roped in to present a memento to Jackman at the seminar earlier in the day. It's a job they remember her for each time a Hollywood actor descends on our shores. At the GQ awards last year, she was seated at John Travolta's table and was asked to present him a trophy. At a Bollywood awards show some years ago, she was asked to introduce visiting sensation Will Smith. The scenario is akin to pulling out your finest crockery when important guests visit.

There are murmurs doing the rounds in tinseltown that a much-married film director is allegedly more than just 'good friends' with his female assistant. The cat came out of the bag when another assistant director connected the dots after repeatedly spotting the filmmaker visiting his new squeeze at her apartment in the wee hours of the morning.

Incidentally, this isn't the first time the married director may have strayed. Currently in his late 30s, he's believed to have romanced at least one heroine off-screen. There were rumors not so long ago that he shared a particularly close relationship with a stunning doe-eyed actress he had acted opposite. Those stories were confirmed by the actress' now ex-boyfriend, a leading male star who discovered 'overfriendly' text messages from the director on his girlfriend's phone. It had led to a colossal fight between the couple at the time.

Neck deep in production on his latest directorial effort, an epic-sized action movie, the filmmaker has reportedly been seeing very little of his family these days. When he isn't on set, or in production meetings at his office, assistants say his car can almost always be found parked outside the building of his new girlfriend.