Karan’s tomato Ganesha!

Karan Mehra, who plays the male lead Naitik in Star Plus’ Yeh Rista Kya Kehlata Hai, had a grand Ganesha experience recently. One day while vegetable shopping, he bought tomatoes for himself from a regular vendor. He lives alone in Mumbai for his parents are based in Delhi. Upon returning home, he was arranging the tomatoes in his refrigerator when to his surprise he saw that one of the tomatoes had the trunk of Lord Ganesha! After some hours an eye also appeared! He is a follower of Lord Ganesha but has never brought the Ganpati home. Since Ganesh Chaturthi was round the corner, Karan was convinced that this miraculous event was God’s blessing. And therefore, he did not hesitate to place the special tomato in the little temple he has at his home. Talk about divine intervention!

Channel V vs MTV


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s it too late already? That is what the industry is wondering even as Channel V goes in for a new look now, years after being beaten by MTV to the top spot as the country’s No 1 music channel. With a mix of music and cult youth shows like Roadies, Splitsvilla and Teen Divas, MTV has been gaining new ground with each passing year, while Channel V has failed to keep up. Introducing new shows this year has also not born fruit. And thus, Channel V has now relaunched itself with a new and fresh look, new VJs and new shows in the ratio of 60:40, music: reality shows. The bouquet of shows include Kidnap, Dare to Date, Lola Sunday, School Of Cool and Exhausted, it’s lead show produced by leading reality show production house, Endemol. Will this gamble work in favour of Channel V’s fortunes? Let’s wait and watch.

TV fashion at a click!
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o you know where you can get Anandi’s pretty ghagra-choli and Brinda Miller’s paintings at the click of a button? At www.sbuy.in, a world celebrities website that allows celebrities across the world to register for free and sell anything that they desire to their fans worldwide. The website was recently brought to India by actor Sachin Sharma and launched at a star-studded function in Mumbai. “From mobile phones, cars, furniture, clothing and accessories, anything can be put up for sale on the website and fans across the world can buy it,” says Sachin. On the occasion, there was a display of outfits from Balika Vadhu by designer Winnie Malhotra as also jewellery by designer Ekta Gupta was put up for exhibit. We only wonder if they’ll still be there by the time you finish reading this!

Pooja hops out of Palampur Express

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here seems to be no smooth ride in sight for Sony’s Palampur Express. For close on the heels of its male lead Ajay Singh Chaudhary’s decision to quit, comes the loss of its female lead, Pooja Kanwal. Pooja, who plays the feisty Paavni, says that at the time of signing the contract itself she had told the production house that she would require 12-15 days off for her wedding in November. “They promised me the same. However of late we reached a no bank situation due to script changes and each day we would shoot next day’s episode, which meant shooting for 22 to 23 hours everyday. In this situation they were honest enough to tell me that they would not be able to give me those 15 days off, and that I would need to shoot even between my functions to meet telecast deadlines. This was not possible and thus I decided to opt out of the show,” says Pooja.

Who is the biggest khiladi?
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fter making noise for weeks now, Colors finally launched its mega show – Khatron Ke Khiladi Level 2. The show returns in adventurous Cape Town, South Africa, with death defying dares, 13 determined girls and of course the original khiladi, Akshay Kumar. The hotties who’ve taken up the challenge this time comprise Bruna Abdalah, Sushma Reddy, Carol Gracias, Jesse Randhawa, Mandira Bedi, Nauheed Cyrusi, Rosa Catalano, Rupali Ganguly, Sonika Kaliraman, Shonali Nagrani, Pia Trivedi, Shveta Salve and Anushkha Manchanda. Unfortunately the show is not a live one and is shot in totality before going on air. Which effectively means that rumours of the winner have already started doing the rounds. And the name that is currently being circulated is that of VJ-singer Anushkha Manchanda. While everybody related to the show is obviously keeping mum, going by last year’s experience of the rumoured winner – Nethra Raghuraman, actually turning out to be true, Anushkha could well walk away with the grand prize this year!

Star player
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tar India Network’s online video destination, Star Player, is fast becoming a rage with netizens. India’s first online television product, Star Player is the online video destination for premium copyrighted content. In simple terms, it is a site where you can watch your favourite Star shows online, and that too for free! There were other players who started their own version of a similar destination long back. There was another player who tried to use the You-Tube strategy. But none sustained. However, Star also plans to monetize this site via ads like pre-roll, post-roll, overlay and in-banner video advertising. If that’s not enough, it showed its seriousness about the venture by showing two new television series online before being aired on television. These were Aap Ki Kachehri (Season 2) anchored by Dr Kiran Bedi and family drama, Sajan Ghar Jaana Hai. More recently, Farah Khan’s celebrity chat show – Tere Mere Beach Mein, was also put up on the site two days before it went on air. Now we don’t know how successful this site will eventually turn out to be, but for now, television addicts like us are certainly not complaining!