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The eternal ice maiden of Hindi cinema, gorgeous, talented, beautiful Meenakshi Sheshadri , when one thinks of her it’s her ice cold Meenu Mausi image that pops up instantly, but she did have an unusually untapped Indian sex appeal which impressed a certain fan base and film makers such as Raj Kumar Santoshi. Looking back at five roles that Meenu almost missed playing, trivia provided;  She was crowned Miss India in 1981 at age 21 and became a top league star in the 80s Bollywood. Her first major movie with the reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan was Tinnu Anand’s Shahenshah (1988) but she was not the first or even second choice for the role. Sridevi was being desperately pursued for the role, she declined as she wanted a role parallel to Bachchan’s. Second choice Dimple happily signed the movie but was dropped for unknown reasons, it is alleged she did not even return the fifty thousand worth signing amount. So Meenu Mausi was the third and final choice for this role. Tinnu Anand...

Who’s the greatest superstar of them all? Though the answer is debatable there are a millions who swear by their loyal dedication to Amitabh Bachchan, a mega star of the millennium. Whatever his greatness maybe but one can’t deny he had his preferred camps be it directors, production houses, playback singers or his leading ladies. It was a dream for any female actor during Bachchan’s peak (1973-1992) to be cast opposite him, so here’s a wish-list of prominent leading ladies during that peak period who were never romantically paired with him, wonder why?  Shabana Azmi  I know I know they did a movie called Main Azaad Hoon(1989) but not too sure if there was a romantic angle between their roles in that movie. Basically the supremely talented Shabana wasn’t cast as Bachchan’s love interest though they worked in blockbusters like Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), wouldn’t it have been a really intellectual pair had they played a romantic couple in a movie?  Reena Roy  A big my...

Ideally in our movie industry it’s a straight case of out of sight out of mind, we’ve had several big and not so big stars who took a break (sometimes on their own or otherwise due to some unavoidable circumstance) and couldn’t comeback successfully, they were outright rejected by the audience. Times change, the audience taste differs and sometimes it’s just sheer luck. Looking at some stars who were on a sabbatical and made successful comebacks.  VINOD KHANNA: a major star of the 70s who quit Bollywood at his peak period in 1979, when he was pitted against the reigning superstar Amitabh. Khanna gave it all up for sanyas. Highly influenced by the teachings of spiritual guru Osho Rajneesh, Khanna sacrificed his family and acting career to follow the sambhog se sanyas tak path at Osho ashram. Six years later spiritually uplifted and full of ambition Khanna quit the ashram and made a bombastic comeback to Bollywood at 41 with the box office hit Insaaf(1987), followed by Satyamev Jayat...