SRK unveils Kolkata team

The Badshah of Bollywood -- Shahrukh Khan -- unveiled his team -- KNIGHT RIDERS -- just before the second round of the Indian Premier League auction on Tuesday (March 11). Shahrukh Khan's team's colour is that of black and gold. Shahrukh Khan said that black being the colour of goddess Kali, who symbolises power, and gold being the mark of voctory. SRK reasoned out gold being the other colour and said, "We can never win silver, We can only lose Gold". The logo of the team was also unveiled and the mascot of a royal bengal tiger was put presented in the event.

The Knight Riders have their team anthem as 'Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo' which means that the team will do it, fight the battle and eventually emerge as winners. Shahrukh Khan said that the team will perform on the maxim and the idea behind naming the team Kolkata -- Knight Riders -- is the need to attract to the youth of the country.

Shahrukh Khan's Knight Riders' team have their outfit designed by Manish Malhotra. He also added that he will sport the outfit during the matches and help the players with water in the field whenever required. Khan also revealed that a 'Knight Rider' album was on theanvil with several singers and music composers including Usha Uthup and Bappi Lahiri being involved.

Present at the event was team captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Buchanan. The duo spoke on the occasion and shared their dreams about the team. Sourav said, "It gives me immense pleasure to be a part of this IPL Kolkata team and the captain of the team. It is also going to be a good opportunity to a lot of players including me. A lot of young players who will be a part of the IPL side will get a chance to make a mark for themselves, which will probably help them to go forward in their international careers."

Buchanan said that the Indian Premier League will help Indian cricket overall and provide wonderful opportunities to players in the nation to rub shoulders with international cricketer who have earned a lot of experience in their careers. Sourav Ganguly, John Buchanan, CAB Chief Prasun Mukherjee were presented 'golden' helmets at the event along with four state cricketers -- Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Wriddhiman Saha, Sourasis Lahiri and Rohan Banerjee.

Photo: TOI | Source: Times Now TV

Buy King Khan!

In one of the biggest online art auctions of Indian contemporary art, 140 works by 55 artists will go under the hammer on March 12 and 13 on the Saffron Art website (www.saffronart.com). According to Minal Vazirani, co-founder and director of Saffron Art, the auction is worth between $ 5-7 million.

The auction house last held a similar sale in September 2007, where 115 works of 43 artists worth $ 3.6 million were showcased. Minal says, “Contemporary Indian art has moved up the global ladder simultaneously as India began to be recognised as an emerging economic power. We have so far tapped only a small portion of the worldwide appetite for such kind of art.”

The works on display, for this particular auction, are by well-known artists including Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Baiju Parthan and Sudarshan Shetty among others. One of the most interesting aspects of the auction is a photographic montage portraying actor Shah Rukh Khan created by Rashid Rana from Pakistan. SRK’s image is formed out of a collage of faces of common people with visible cracks between each. Rana attempts ‘a shift in perspective from the macro to the micro, the global to the local’.

Some time ago, Rana had said, “Shah Rukh Khan is very popular in Pakistan. His hoardings are put up at many places. In fact, people aspire to visit his house in Lahore.” Minal believes this work, estimated to go under the hammer for Rs 6 lakh, will do well in the auction.

The works that are vying for the top three spots in the auction are Atul Dodiya’s Vansha Vriksha—a watercolor, acrylic and marble dust on paper, estimated to go for Rs 68, 40,000; the second place has a tie between Surendra Nair’s Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis) and Shibu Natesan’s Each One Teach One, both estimated to go for Rs 65,00,000. Subodh Gupta’s untitled work is expected to bag the third position.

Riddhi Doshi, DNA India

SRK wants to delay Paanchvi Paas

Shah Rukh Khan is in a dilemma and he is trying his best to sort it out. His next quiz show on Star Plus, Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai? will be aired April 18 onwards, coinciding with the launch of the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament wherein SRK owns the Kolkata franchise.

Time trouble

It is reliably learnt that the actor is trying his best to postpone the telecast date of Paanchvi Pass as he can’t postpone the IPL matches.

Says a source, “The IPL’s 44-day cricket bonanza begins on April 18 and will have a total of 59 T20 matches.

His TV show begins on the same date and will be telecast 8 pm onwards on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, clashing with the IPL telecast on Max on weekends, 8 pm onwards. Shah Rukh is extremely worried about the timings.”

Conflict of interest

But that’s not the only reason. The source adds, “Star Plus has signed up Airtel as the presenting sponsor for Paanchvi Pass while Airtel’s competitor Vodafone has signed up as the presenting sponsor for the IPL on Sony. This has kicked off a battle of sponsorships between the broadcasters as SRK endorses Airtel.

Siddharth Basu of Synergy Communications, which is producing Paanchvi Pass, says, “The time and date of telecast of the show will be announced shortly.”

Shah Rukh was unavailable for comment.

Author: Upala KBR | Source: Mid-Day

Blaster and Badshah

If Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar were asked what’s common between them, they would probably say cricket, considering SRK’s recent investment in the Indian Premier League’s Kolkata team.

But surprisingly, there’s much more than cricket between them and the two icons are like kindred souls, as BT found out while tracking down their lives.

To begin with, their initials — while Shah Rukh Khan is SRK, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is SRT. The two made their respective debuts in the same year — Sachin played his first Test match (against Karachi) in 1989, the same year SRK featured in his first television film, In Which Annie Gives it...written by Arundhati Roy.

The two grew by leaps and bounds in their respective fields and rightly earned the titles of Master Blaster and the Badshah of Bollywood, respectively. Worldwide, Sachin went on to become the face of Indian cricket and SRK, the ultimate romantic hero of Bollywood. With titles came brand endorsements, the two superstars hogging every available space on hoardings, print media and television, while advertising pundits evaluated their market value which till today remains unshakable!

That’s not all, the similarities extend into their personal lives as well, and both have homes in Bandra. They have two children each, a girl and boy — with the same initials; Sachin’s kids are Sara and Arjun and SRK’s, Suhana and Aryan. Both men’s elder children, Sara and Aryan, were born in the same year — 1997.

But hold on, the similarities don’t end there. Ace photographer Atul Kasbekar, who has done most ad campaigns featuring Sachin and SRK and both together as well, adds, “They are extremely focussed. Once you get into their comfort zone, they give you as much freedom as you need. You can be assured that you can always count on them. That apart, the two are crazy about playstations. They both hate to lose a game. Once a guy on the set scored some 15,000-odd points while playing the Snake on his mobile phone. Though Sachin had never played the game before, he challenged him that he would break his record, and by afternoon he actually did that.”

Talking about games, the common factor between the two legends is being taken a step further by their sons. Both Aryan and Arjun are football players and take part in inter-school matches. So while the fathers are stuck on cricket, the sons are having a field day playing football. “Aryan is a huge fan of Sachin just the way Shah Rukh is,” says adman Prahlad Kakar, who like Kasbekar has worked on several ad films with the two. “They both come from relatively unknown backgrounds. In one of my ads, I made SRK wear a curly wig and he looked so much like Sachin. I think physically they look relatively alike too,” adds Prahlad.

The lovely and homely wives of these two superstars might admit there is much in common between Sachin and Shah Rukh... only the last similarity between the batting maestro and great actor is to do with their respective wives, Anjali and Gauri — both keep their private lives very guarded.

Sharin Wader, TNN

Has SRK found his match?

The drama queen of Bollywood, Rakhi Sawant is back in news again. And this time she has taken on the king of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan.

The supreme item girl Rakhi Sawant believes that her item song is better than SRK's item number in Rakesh Roshan's Krazzy 4.

After appearing in their respective item songs for Rakesh Roshan's Krazzy 4, it looks like Rakhi Sawant is making sure that she is not left out of the spotlight. She is claiming that while the Badshah of Bollywood may be getting rave reviews for his nimble footwork in the title track, he's got some stiff competition from Rakhi.

In a candid chat with TIMES NOW Rakhi said:" SRK may be SRK, but I am no less. Sharukh has not shown his abs this time. This time, I am showing my abs."

Rakhi Sawant features in a scintillating item number 'Dekha hai tu kya', directed by Jaideep Sen. Rakesh Roshan's Krazzy 4 - a slapstick comedy -- starring Irfan Khan, Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon and Juhi Chawla is releasing on April 11, 2008.

Times Now TV

After Madame Tussauds, Shah Rukh’s wax statue in Paris

Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan has more reason to smile - he will have a second wax look alike coming up in the West, this time in France. Barely a year after his wax statue was unveiled at Madame Tussauds, London, Paris’s Grevin wax museum will present King Khan’s wax statue next month.

This will make Shah Rukh the second Indian celebrity after Mahatma Gandhi to have a wax statue in Grevin and the first Bollywood star to have two wax statues in the two most prestigious wax museums worldwide.

Stating this in Mumbai Friday, Grevin’s marketing director Frederic Gouguidis said that this was the outcome of its exclusive partnership with the travel major, Cox and Kings, in the Indian market.

Khan is extremely popular in France with a huge fan following and the wax statue would give Indians another reason to travel to that country, he added.

Paris Convention & Visitors Bureau managing director Paul Roll said that Paris is a hot destination among Indian tourists. “Last year, over 300,000 Indians visited France, the second largest number after China,” Roll said.

A 19th century French journalist Arthur Meyer conceived Grevin’s wax museum. He collaborated with Alfred Grevin, a cartoonist, sculptor and costume designer to work on the project.

When the wax museum doors were finally thrown open to the public in June 1882, it was a grand success.

Some of the wax statues in the Grevin collection include Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Pope John Paul-II, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.

IANS

SRK to select Rani Mukherji or Vidya Balan

It's a tough fight between Rani Mukherji and Vidya Balan, and a tough call for Shah Rukh Khan. A few days back we had reported that SRK and Priyadarshan will work together on a film where SRK will play himself. It is for this film that SRK is finalising his leading lady and he has to choose between the two, Rani Mukherji and Vidya Balan.

It is going to be exciting to see who finally bags the project. Rani and SRK have appeared together in numerous films and share a wonderful chemistry, whereas Vidya Balan, in turn, has worked with director Priyadarshan in Bhool Bhulaiya and shares a great rapport with him. SRK is playing himself in the feature. In a love story to be produced by his banner, Red Chillies Entertainment and directed by the King of comedies, the project will also see these two talents collaborate for the first time.

Meanwhile, Irrfan Khan has already been signed in to play a pivotal role in the film. While SRK is in the process of finalising his lead actress, he is also scouting for two actresses to play important characters in the film.

The film is scheduled to go on the floors in April and will be complete by August 2008. Priyadarshan had told us earlier, "I am looking forward to the film and working with SRK.

I'm excited about this film and am looking forward to working with Shah Rukh. I'm completing Mere Baap Pehele Aap with Akshaye Khanna."

SRK and Priyadarshan will come together for the first time to create a laugh riot along with Irrfan Khan and, er, Rani or Vidya. It won't be very funny for the one who doesn't bag it though. We'll keep you posted.

Mumbai Mirror

Can Shah Rukh save Sarabjit Singh?

Shaken by reports of mercy petition of her brother Sarabjit Singh, who is facing gallows in Pakistan, being rejected by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Dalbir Kaur is now looking for other options to bail her brother out.

Kaur, who is camping in the Holy City since last night, has been looking for actor’s address and telephone number and other ways to approach him. Her niece Swapandeep, Sarabjit’s daughter, too has been trying to locate Khan’s address on the internet, but to no avail. “It is a tough job, but we will try to contact him. He can help us to save papa,” she said.

Kaur said the release of Kashmir Singh had rekindled her hopes, but they have now been dashed. She criticised the Indian government for failing to pursue her brother’s case effectively. “Khan enjoys a huge fan following in India as well as Pakistan and he can motivate people in both the countries to work towards Sarabjit’s release,” said Kaur.

She claimed that earlier too, Shah Rukh had evinced interest in her brother’s campaign. “Khan had promised to come over to Bhikhiwind with his colleagues to greet Sarabjit when he returns home from Pakistan, which shows that he regards our struggle and might come forward to help secure his release,” she said. Meanwhile, Kaur plans to leave for Delhi tonight to meet Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and other senior leaders in yet another bid to save her brother. “I will submit the appeal and give all proofs of his identity. My brother is innocent and I will continue to fight for him,” she said in a choked voice.

Express India

SRK wants to shake a Leg Before Wicket

Though everything is hush-hush, it is now known that Ganesh Hegde will choreograph the music video to promote Shah Rukh Khan’s Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team.
It is learnt that the video is being shot in Mumbai with a bunch of youngsters. Shah Rukh is also likely to feature in it.

Avoiding copycats

No one associated with the project is willing to talk for now as SRK wants to keep it a secret. The actor-producer does not want other IPL franchises to follow suit and copy the idea of making a music video for the promotion of their teams as well.

Says an insider, “SRK is totally involved with his Kolkata franchise. He’s determined to make it the best and unique. And in true King Khan style, he wants everything associated with the team to be done lavishly.

For the past few days, casting was on for the video and SRK’s favourite choreographer Ganesh Hegde was pencilled in for it.” Vishal and Shekhar have composed the theme song for the video featuring Shah Rukh’s team.

Later date

Adds the insider, “Portions of the video have already been shot. Ganesh has been in constant touch with SRK. Over the next few days, the shoot will be completed and Shah Rukh will unveil the video at a later date.”

Incidentally, Hegde had also conceptualised and directed the album Shah Rukh Khan Kar Le Kar Le Koi Dhamaal last year as part of his Kaun Banega Crorepati promotions.

SRK has bought the Kolkata franchise for $75.09 million and his player line-up includes Sourav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting, Ishant Sharma and Shoaib Akhtar.

Author: Shaheen Parkar | Source: Mid-Day

SRK wants to own the prints of all his films

Shah Rukh Khan wants to own all his films. The actor has been approaching the producers of his earlier films to buy the negative rights.

Says a producer, “Shah Rukh is very emotional about all his earlier films and has been wanting to build a library of his films and house them in Mannat. SRK knows his market value and wants to gather all his films and sell them in bulk to the biggest bidder.

SRK has been in touch with all his producers and is in talks with them for the rights. Some he’s bought directly and others, like close friend Karan Johar, are giving him the rights for emotional reasons.”

Another rumour is that SRK plans to launch his own channel some day and wants to show all his films on his own TV channel.

Pehle aap

The producer of Chaahat, Robin Bhatt, confirms that Shah Rukh has approached him to buy the rights of the film.

He adds, “Shah Rukh had approached me to buy the negative rights of Chaahat three years ago and we are still negotiating, though Shah Rukh has already paid me a token amount.

Shah Rukh shares a very good relationship with my brother Mahesh and me and because of this we haven’t been able to fix a price. Chaahat is 12 years old and it’s difficult naming a price as both Shah Rukh and I are going ‘pehle aap’. It’s as much my need as his.”

Only with SRK

Robin Bhatt had sold the telecast rights of Chaahat to Zee TV for a certain period of time. “When the period expires, I get the rights back but if I sell the entire negative rights to Shah Rukh, then it won’t belong to me anymore.

Shah Rukh hasn’t discussed the reason but I know that he’s very sentimental about all his earlier films and might be putting it together for his own personal library.

If I do sell the rights, I will sell it only to Shah Rukh. He has spoiled me as a producer. He’s a fantastic actor to work with. That is why Chaahat was my first and last production. Now I will only produce a film if Shah Rukh acts in it.”

Karan Johar, whose father produced Duplicate says, “Shah Rukh doesn’t need to approach me for the negative rights as the film is as good as his. There is no difference between my production company, Dharma and SRK’s (Red Chillies). I own Om Shanti Om as much as he owns Duplicate.”

Author: Upala KBR | Source: Mid-Day