oberoi khan spat: a followup {a followup to Bollywood extra}

Vivek Oberoi's press conference, although badly planned and managed, was a decent step forward to tackle the messy issue of the spoilt Khan. A commendable measure despite Oberoi's lack of maturity in handling the whole affair -- he even came off as a Salman Khan in the making. The whole thing ultimately disintegrated into a little backyard spat. Even more surprising was the response of the Bollywood industry to this event, conferring it the status of a flop show, while Salman Khan headed London-ward. To have deemed Vivek as immature seems to have been a premature move --- the respondents to the event seem to be competing to break all records that he had set. And when the general public responded, things got even worse. The quality of the sample set of readers who responded is of course debatable ("who would want to waste time even responding to this piece of news" versus "vivek oberoi deserves to know that this was a bad move").

On a related note, while Aishwarya Rai (the bone of contention in the above skirmish) was injured in an accident while shooting for Khakee. While her fans (and the filmmakers) are predictably praying for her speedy recovery, there is talk of her being the next Bond girl (convincing Pierce Brosnan that this is a good time to jump ship is going to tough, though, considering how little about Bollywood the outside world really understands). The international agency coordinating negotiations for the Bond role have gone off to Shirdi to pray for her recovery. {link courtesy: PMA} [Update on April 18, 2003: The Big B is more candid than usual as he shares his thoughts on the tragedy]

On a positive note, Shekhar Suman (he of the mixed career in film and television, last seen hosting a desi hybrid version of Jay Leno and David Letterman) talks about Mumbai, the "city that made his dreams come true": I was a mover and shaker even before I came to Mumbai. But this city does bring movers and shakers into prominence. Like a bottling plant, it gives the final seal of approval to a person's talent.