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Shahid, Shehnaz start Ishq Vishk with showbiz
KEN Ghosh (of popular videos Made In India, Dil Dhadke, Deewane To Deewane Hain) has his debut as a feature Film director with Tips films’ Ishq Vishk. This frothy campus romance is a Kumar and Ramesh Taurani production and stars debutants Shahid Kapur and Shehnaz Treasurywala with Amrita Rao (of Ab Ke Baras and The Legend of Bhagat Singh fame). We meet up with the debuting duo, Shahid and Shehnaz. His name, Shahid Kapur, is as interesting as his pedigree. Son of actor Pankaj Kapur and actress-cum-Kathak exponent Neelima Azim, Shahid, further honed his acting skills with ace actor and family friend Naseeruddin Shah. On the other hand, the effervescent MTV VJ, globetrotter Shehnaz Treasurywala, decided to stop at destination Bollywood. Reason, she caught the fancy of Ken Ghosh who was scouting for a fresh face for his directorial debut Ishq Vishk. One look at the pretty Shehnaz sitting quietly at Velocity, an upmarket Mumbai pub, and Ghosh had found his Alisha Sahay (the name of Shehnaz’s character in the film). The Shahid-Shehnaz combo Shahid, who plays Rajiv
Mathur in the film, says, ‘It deals with the mistakes that Rajiv makes
in his life, and how he goes about correcting them.’ |
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His heroine, Shehnaz as Alisha Sahai, very much like her off-screen persona, is, ‘bubbly, vivacious, has an energetic spark with all boys and girls wanting to be her friends. She lights-up the screen and situation. Shehnaz adds, ‘Being a Cancerian, I am moody and short-tempered at times. So I enjoyed doing those scenes where I had to show anger.’ The pretty Parsi does confess having problems with Hindi, but tuitions helped her perfect the job. She proves her point by saying, ‘Meri Hindi kaafi achchi hai (My Hindi is quite good)!’ She mocks, ‘Only the tenses and genders are a problem. Sometimes I mistake uski (hers) for uska (his)’. Their stopovers Kapur recollects that his first guru was father Pankaj Kapur, ‘I picked up what cinema is all about from him. I have also imbibed a kind of obsession for work, his approach and philosophy.’ Shahid’s passion for dance, something he shares with mother Neelima, made him join the Shiamak Davar dance troupe. In a contest organised by the group, Shahid was judged ‘Best Dancer’ amongst 1,300 contestants. Kapur even taught dance to Davar’s students. This was followed by the Pepsi commercial (with Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukherjee), and commercials for Kit Kat, Onida and Fuji Film. Shahid eventually chucked it all up to concentrate on films. Shehnaz’s love for acting and adventure can be traced to her childhood, her mother being a drama teacher and her father, a captain. As a teenager she worked behind the camera first (styled host Malaika Arora’s dresses for a TV show), before she turned MTV VJ and a model. She later padded her bio-data by doing a Film and Mass Communication course from Singapore, scriptwriting from New York University and acting from Lees Strasburg, New York. Both Shahid and Shehnaz agree, ‘Ishq Vishk is all about fun...fun...fun.’ Shehnaz adds, ‘It’s a fresh and colourful film, something which youngsters would identify with and elders would reminisce about.’ LMN |
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