Greetings, and roundup

My apologies for the unannounced hiatus, folks - a month has gotten away from me as I have been focused on projects unrelated to Hindi films (one of which, sadly, is my job). But I'm not happy with those priorities and don't want to let that happen again.

In the meantime, Shabana Azmi has been as busy as I have and so there is a lot of news to catch up on. Here's a roundup of some of the news from the last month.

• Not much news on the possibility of a Benazir Bhutto biopic -TimesNow reports that there is something in the works, but Shabana ji won't talk about it.
  

• There are some vague reports, though, like this one from the Press Trust of India, that Shabana ji is involved in a film about the founding of Bangladesh, to be directed by Shyam Benegal, in English. I'll keep an eye out for more on this interesting-sounding project.
  

• There was news some time back that Shabana ji was involved in a project with director Rituparno Ghosh. But this report by Subhash K. Jha says that Ghosh has decided to make the film in Bengali instead and dropped the Hindi cast. I can't say I'm unhappy about this development - I don't much like the Rituparno Ghosh films I've seen, and the idea of remaking Kaagaz ke phool strikes me as daft, to say the least. I'd be excited for any new film with Shabana ji, but I'm just as happy for this not to be one of them.

• Onir's comedy Sorry Bhai, starring Shabana ji, Boman Irani, Chitraganda Singh, and Sharman Joshi, is in post-production, and expected to be ready by the end of June. We should start seeing a release date and promotion soon. This is definitely one to look forward to, folks - it will be great.

• In her activist avatar, Shabana ji spoke movingly last month at a conference of NGOs dedicated to issues of women's health. "It is sad that on one hand our country is emerging as a global power and on the other the health issues of women in rural areas go unnoticed. Even if it is not an institutional delivery, it is the right of every human being to give birth without any crisis," she said. You can read some of her other comments here.

I've got some more posts lined up for the future so I promise I won't vanish for a month again. But here's what you can do to help me out: write a guest post! Write something about Shabana Azmi - a film review, a list of your favorite movies, a paean extolling her virtues, or even a critique - and email it to me. I'll post with or without your name as you prefer. SLP is yours - please consider submitting a guest post.


The gorgeous sure didn't disappear during my absence!