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OID‰‰†KOID‰‰†OID‰‰†MOID‰‰†C INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA New Delhi, January 18, 2004 13 Hyphenated videshi emerges as Bollywood Star hatever the weather, it will atre and the comedy of life: Film di- first, homegrown Bollywood Star ai, i.e. sweet-and-creamy girls, but be a beautiful Sunday for rectors are persons engaged by the because they will have a role in a Friday nights mean solitude at W six young people scattered management to conceal the fact Mahesh Bhatt film. home with a “bag of mixed pako- across Britain. Rather amusingly that the players cannot act. The show’s producers describe it ras”. McKerrow believes his own as it turns out, these will be the The six embody that hybrid beast as a “journey of self- discovery”. Bollywood Star would be shocked Maurice Muraris and Maureen Mu- homing in on India, the hyphenated Richard McKerrow, Bollywood by the sex and sizzle in Bollywood. raris of the future. Next month, the videshi trying to reclaim his popu- Star’s executive producer and the Britain’s contribution to Bolly- six will leave cold England to learn lar heritage, i.e. Bollywood. These man who dreamt up the idea, tells wood is supposed to be a cultural os- how to be heroes in six Muraris are Bri- me it might possibly help return mosis with a difference -- conser- Mumbai. This will tish and Indian, no- Bollywood to its “original values”. vatism flowing west to east. Alas, call into play Film EURO tionally enculturat- Surprised? Don’t be. Britain’s In- cultural osmosis is not a blood City’s own particu- ed here but nour- dians are a lot more square than In- transfusion. Were it so easy, there lar genius and its ished by faraway dia’s cool dudes and rocking chicks. must be some tissue-matching. The own breed of acting VISION dreams. They will with a twist, Channel 4 television’s Remember the loveable BBC series youth of 21st century UK are not coach. We shall see owe their presence Bollywood Star,the western world’s Goodness Gracious Me and those nourished on Shakespeare, else the what they make of Rashmee Z Ahmed in Mumbai to UK’s very first search for a Hindi film bhangramuffins shouting “kiss my sextet might declaim on arrival in the Birmingham appetite for manu- star from within the 22-million chuddies”? That’s generally the ex- Film City: “But to my mind though I lasses and Bradford lads aching to factured pop idols, instant boy strong diaspora. One of the Mu- tent of British India’s youthful am native here / And to the manner dazzle Bollywood’s clapperboys. bands and ready-mix girl groups. fling. The young British Indian born, it is a custom / More honourd T’was well said by one critic of the- But this one is a talent contest raris will become a hero. Soon, In- dia will see quite a lot of Britain’s male may fantasize about rasmall- in the breach than the observance”. Most attractive woman 2003 In a poll conducted by hellomagazine.com, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai was voted the most attractive woman of 2003. The 30-year-old green-eyed beauty, popularly known as Ash, received some 33% of the votes. Upcoming British actress Keira Knightley, came a close second ASH Keira 2Knightley Nicole 3Kidman Catherine 4Zeta-Jones Kate 5Winslet Angelina 6Jolie 7 Shakira Queen 8Rania Gwyenth 9Paltrow Cindy 10Crawford Graphic: Nirmal Israeli envoy kicked out of Swedish museum Stockholm: Israel’s ambassador an insult to the families of the to Sweden was kicked out of victims. As ambassador to Israel Stockholm’s Museum of Nation- I could not remain indifferent to al Antiquities after he destroyed such an obscene misrepresenta- an artwork featuring a picture of tion of reality,”Mazel said. a Palestinian suicide bomber, According to museum director news reports said Saturday. Kristian Berg, the ambassador The incident occurred at the went berserk when he saw the opening on Friday of the “Mak- piece. ing Differences” exhibit, part of “He pulled out the plugs and an upcoming international con- threw one of the spotlights into ference on genocide hosted by the the fountain which caused the en- Swedish government and in tire installation to short-circuit which Israel is scheduled to par- and made it totally life- threaten- ticipate. ing,” he told TT. “I was really looking forward One of the two artists who cre- to seeing what the artists had ated the work, Dror Feiler, was to done. Instead, I was met by a pic- perform a piece of music but re- ture of a smiling suicide bomber, fused to do so as long as the am- the woman who killed 21 people bassador remained at the scene. in Haifa a few months ago,” am- “Ultimately we had to escort bassador Zvi Mazel told Swedish the ambassador out of the muse- news agency TT. um,” Berg said, adding that he The art installation featured a did not consider the artwork to be fountain filled with red water, de- a provocation. signed to look like blood. “It is rather an invitation to A sailboat with the name Snow think about why such things hap- White floated on the water, and pen in the Israeli-Palestinian on it was a photo of a smiling conflict,” he said. Hanadi Jaradat, the female The museum’s artistic director, lawyer who blew herself up in Thomas Nordanstad, said he had the Haifa suicide bombing attack given the artists the go-ahead to in October which killed 21 Is- create the artwork, and had raelis. “hoped it would lead to an artistic “For me it was intolerable and dialogue”. AFP Muslims march against French headscarf ban Paris: Shouting “the veil is my keep them secular and avoid reli- choice,” hundreds of people gious strife.But, many Islamic lead- marched in Paris on Saturday as ers say the law will stigmatise part of protests around the world France’s estimated 5 million Mus- against the French government’s lims, who make up 8 per cent of the plan to ban Muslim headscarves in population. schools. In London, several hundred peo- Women in headscarves and men, ple demonstrated across from the often bearded and wearing robes, French embassy in the upscale joined the Paris rally, which police Knightsbridge area, waving plac- said was expected to draw at least ards and chanting: “If this is 10,000 people. Muslims travelled democracy,we say: ‘No, merci!’” from across the country to join the Hundreds of people rallied in protest. Lebanon, Jordan and the West “We’re here for our liberty,”said Bank in solidarity with the demon- Fatiha Hossol, from the southeast- stration in Paris. Some 1,000 Sunni ern city of Lyon. “It’s our religious Muslim teenage girls wearing the obligation to honor our God.” Islamic hijab, or headscarf, demon- From London to Baghdad, pro- strated outside the French embassy testers around the world took to the in Lebanon in a protest called for streets Saturday to show opposi- by Jamaa Islamiya, a group linked tion to the proposal to ban religious to the Muslim Brotherhood. attire, including the headscarf, in In Amman, Jordanian women, French public schools. led by Islamist member of parlia- The government, worried about ment Hayat al-Massimi, staged a the rise of Islamic fundamental- sit-in in front of the French em- ism, intends to enact the law for the bassy in the suburbs of the Jordan- start of the 2004-2005 school year in ian capital. “Hijab respects the September. It says Muslim scarves rights of women and their free- and other obvious religious sym- dom”, and “Hijab is our identity” bols must be kept out of schools to read some of the banners. Agencies TOID180104/CR1/13/M/1TOID180104/CR1/13/C/1TOID180104/CR1/13/K/1TOID180104/CR1/13/Y/1 CMYK.