When A Party Goes Boom -Special by Anu

Numerology, as experts in this discipline pronounce, is a study of
numbers and the effect that these numbers have on our emotional and
physical well being as well as on our financial success.
Numerologists are all the rage in India today -- people clamour to
get appointments with them -- whether it is to find out what their
lucky number is, or to get a lucky new spelling for their name, for
their newborn's name, new business and projects, or to get
auspicious addresses or mahurat dates... We're repeatedly told that
there are some numbers which suit certain persons and don't suit
others... and these numbers make or break our life! Then there are
apparently numbers which are positive, which are good for everybody,
and negative numbers, which are supposedly bad for everybody.

So, I did my own little investigation into sixty positive and
negative numbers between 8 and 68 vis--vis titles of movies --
names of the biggest hits ever made till date -- both in Bollywood
and Hollywood... and got a hit for each and every of the 60 numbers.
For the auspicious numbers I came up with the following examples; 9
is Grease and ET,10 is 10, 19 is Titanic and Gandhi, 21 is Omen, 23
is Murder and Casablanca, 24 is Deewaar, 27 is Dhoom and Psycho,, 33
is Yaadon Ki Baraat and Jurassic Park, 36 is Tom Jones and 42 is
Johny Mera Naam -- Wow, isn't that just fascinating...!? But guess
what, for an inauspicious, negative numbers I came up with this
list; 11 is Jaws, 12 is Karz, 14 is Bobby and Lagaan, 16 is Don and
Julie, 20 is Sholay, 22 is Border and Star Wars, 28 is Umrao Jaan,
29 is Veer Zaara, 38 is Love Story, 40 is Mughal-eAzam and Kaho Na
Pyar Hai and 44 is Amar Akbar Anthony, 58 is The Last Emperor and 62
is Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham ...

Hmmm ... Interesting, huh? Well, I suppose that goes to show that
when all's said and done, what really counts is that if one has done
a good job, it will be appreciated, no matter what the numbers add
up to -It doesn't really matter if you're a novice, first timer or a
Steven Spielberg, Subhash Ghai, Yash Chopra or Karan Johar -- if you
make a good movie, it's remembered forever. If you make a dreadful
movie, it will fail...unfortunately, over 95 per cent of the films
made worldwide flop every year -- so, all the bad ones are easily
lost in the crowd and forgotten forever... no matter how positive
the name numerals added up to! Hence, even though these
superstitions give us hope and umeed pe duniyaa kaayam hai... we
really need to concentrate only on doing good work and hard work,
consistently and constantly -- not on "procuring" good luck, which
as they say is nothing "other than a lazy person's estimate of a
worker's success!"

BOOM!
A mega bash hosted by Zoom Channel, called the Zoom party, was held
at the old Oberoi or if you'd rather call it the new Hilton, in
Mumbai recently. Yes, a thorough ly entertaining evening for the
adolescent lot I'm sure, but for those like me, it was chaos in
every sense of the word! The venue was large enough to accommodate
between five to six hundred people, but there must have been around
fifteen hundred party mammals floating around -- inside the actual
hall, outside it, in the porch and some like a bunch of us, who
happily allowed ourselves to get elbowed out and eventually ended up
at a neighbouring joint called the Bollywood Cafe instead! During
our brief stay inside, it was pitch dark and hot as hell and the
only drinks available were those that had spilled all over the
floor. When my vision became accustomed to the darkness, I managed
to spot the dazzling diva of Zoom, Pooja Bedi and other zoomies
Monia and Jerry Pinto there. I also bumped into Rashmi Uday Singh,
super cop Amitabh Gupta with wife Jugnu and Sonali Rathod. Roop is
in the USA having won a well deserved award for his song Tere Liye
from Veer Zaara. Other than this bunch, most attendees that night
were the local party goers and less of the Bollywood, TV or
fashionable P3P lot from the suburbs. At Bollywood Cafe, Sonali was
there singing songs from her soon to be released new album and we
chatted with Mukesh Bhatt who after his meal headed straight to the
airport to catch an overseas flight later that night.

YO CHINA!
The ex-Ms Reema Lamba aka ex-Ms Karan Singh and presently the famous
sex-bombshell Ms Mallika Sherawat was on CNN's Talk Asia with
Lorraine Hahn recently talking about her latest film The Myth with
Jackie Chan... not bad at all! She has come a long way and she does
deserve three spanks, ooops, sorry, three pats on the back for that!
When asked by Lorraine Hahn about what kind of cinema she wants to
do now, now that she has sort of "arrived" internationally, Ms
Sherawat responds "I love South East Asian cinema. I'm a big fan of
directors like Zhang Yimou, Wong Kar Wai, Chen Kaige, Stanley Tong,
Suhar, Ringo Lam... There are so many film actresses like Gong Li,
Anita Mui, they're so inspiring. I would love to work with them and
do cinema like that". Hello...? Based on trade reports here, her
role in this latest flick is a bit of a myth too... just an
illusion... apparently, blink and she's gone! But then again, I
guess that much there is better than getting no role at all here
anymore. Gossip mills in Bollywood are working overtime too ever
since she got her new Mercedes Benz, purportedly a gift from Jackie
Chan... Yes, for her little cameo appearance -- She also told CNN
that "He (Jackie) taught me all the action secrets... All the action
secrets I know now!" -- Some stunts, I'll bet... Really, not bad at
all!

JUDGMENT DAY
The process and preparations for the fifth annual Hero Honda ITA
Awards, scheduled to be held in Mumbai, during Octoberend, is
rolling on fifth gear now... The final jury of the country's
biggest, finest and most coveted TV awards show sat in a discussion
all of last week, and have finally decided on who the crme de la
crme of Indian television is going to be this year... this was
subsequent to sifting through the findings of a previous jury, which
had deliberated over an equal amount of time to come up with the
final four nominees in every award category. The chairman of the
HHITA Awards 2005 jury is Ms Raveena Tandon and other eminent
members of the concluding jury include renowned TV personalities
such as producers like Vinay Apte, actress and producer Pallavi
Joshi, producer/director Saurabh Narang, director Arun Frank and
cinematographer Arvind Kumar. I guess we have a lot to look forward
to, for a fifth year in a row! I n conclusion, I'm sure you've all
seen the new Lux advert with Shah Rukh Khan and heard all the
critics' comments that followed -- honestly, wouldn't it have made
more sense for SRK to be parading on the outside with all the Lux-
babes in the hot-tub and maybe Juhi saying some thing like "Main
Hoon Na"... Now, that would inspire not just the gals, but even all
the guys would go out and buy that bar of soap! And, on that
motivating note, I'm off... until I return, please do stay tuned &
rukaawat ke liye khed hai...!

JUST CHILL
Popular for her role as Riya from Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin and
currently also starring in Rabba Ishq Na Hove, Pooja Ghai and her
hubby Neeraj Ghai cel ebrated their wedding anniversary recently, at
a party hosted by Neeraj's raakhi sister Kiran Bawa. Kiran also
happens to own and manage each and every single VLCC beauty salon
outlets in the state of Maharashtra! The festivities took place at
the High Stakes bar in Mumbai and celebs from telly-land thronged
the place -- the handsome Rohit Roy was there as was hottie Vikas
Bhalla. By the way, Vikas is all set to release a new music album
any day now! Sangeeta Ghosh, Shashi Ranjan, Sudhanshu Pandey and the
delightful duo of Shweta Kwatra and Manav Gohil were spotted around
having a great time too. NRI item girl Mink and her inseparable NRI
brother Punnu were at the party too, narrating experiences from
their first film production project which they have just wrapped up -
- actually they were more like horror stories about what all they
had to go through in terms of dealing with heroine tantrums and
tedious permissions and unbearable delays! A pleasing ambience with
the bar all decorated in wood, red candles and flowers... Fantastic
food, wine and music flowing... All in all, it was a fun evening!