By SHEELA NARAYANAN
SIX years ago, Sonam Kapoor was an overweight teenager living in Singapore, clubbing with her fellow United World College classmates at Mohd Sultan Road and hanging out at Holland Village, having "Chinese fried rice and kailan with oyster sauce" at the hawker centre.
Now the 24-year-old offspring of actor-producer Anil Kapoor is a confident, svelte young actress - she lost over 30kg for her 2006 Sawaariya debut - and on her way to becoming a bona fide star and a stylish one to boot.


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Her appearances on the three green carpets at the recent International Indian Film Academy awards (Iifa) - the show's cause of the moment is the environment - in bold outfits that screamed budding fashionista.
Speaking to reporters at Iifa, which was held at The Venetian-Macao- Resort-Hotel in Macau, Sonam confessed that she was still not used to dressing up every day to meet the cameras.
"All this is still brand new for me," she said with a laugh, even as her manager Monika kept adjusting her hair and outfit as the cameras clicked away.
Sonam made her debut international performance at Iifa, dancing to the hit soundtrack of Delhi-6 which will be aired over Star Plus (Starhub Ch 42) on July 5.
But what isn't brand new to her is being Anil Kapoor's daughter.
When asked what it was like having a star dad, she said: "I don't know anything else. I don't know what it is to be a banker's or a policeman's daughter. It's not a novelty for me, so I can't tell you what's it like."
She is working on her next movie which is an adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. "I want to work in any film... as long as it's a good script and my role has meat in it," she said.
Pretty much like the "makan" she's heading for the next time she's in Singapore.

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Mumbai, July 03: In the delicate world of Bollywood, where words like ‘friendship’ and ‘love’ are mere lip service, Sonam Kapoor and Amrita Rao are two lucky actresses who have found a charming friend in each other’s company!
News has it that Anil Kapoor, the producer of ‘Shortkut’ has left no stone unturned to ensure ‘Ayesha’ and ‘Shortkut’ get personal attention. Well, the versatile actor recently treated Sonam and Amrita to a lavish dinner as both the actresses adore him as a fatherly figure. Sonam insisted dad Anil to consider a project with both actresses as Sonam is keen to work with Amrita. According to latest buzz, both Sonam and Amrita are great friends and love hanging out together. Recently, when an ailing Amrita was unable to attend Sonam’s birthday bash, the lissome actress sent a cake to Sonam. Well, another common factor that binds both the actresses is designer Manish Malhotra, the stylist for ‘Shortkut’. Both actresses recently went on a shopping spree and ended up shelling a huge moolah on designer accessories! Well, here are two B-town chicks who are thick friends!

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Bollywood actress Celina Jaitley posing for the shutterbugs at a press meet where she spoke about “Anti Gay Rights”.

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Elesh Parujanwala, a 30-year-old Gujarati NRI, is one among the thousands bidding to marry item girl Rakhi Sawant through the reality show “Rakhi Ka Swayamvar”.
Parujanwala came from Toronto after leaving his family business to start a new venture in India sometime back and felt the need for a partner. And with Rakhi looking for a groom through a reality show, he felt he had a good chance too, a source from the show’s sets told IANS.
“He loves Rakhi’s desi jhatkas and is totally impressed with her frank and honest nature. If things work out between him and Rakhi, he is willing to leave Canada for good and settle in Mumbai,” said the source.
Parujanwala is a graduate in acting and loves movies, cars, reading, and dancing and will be seen on “Rakhi Ka Swayamvar” to be aired on NDTV Imagine starting June 29 every Monday-Friday at 9 p.m. Rakhi will choose a groom for herself with the help of the viewers through the show.

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New Delhi, She was rumoured to be dating Shahid Kapoor and then Hurman Baweja. But there is no one “special” in her life right now and she won’t think about marriage for the next 10 years, says actress Amrita Rao, who is all set to don a glamorous avatar in “Short Kut”.
“I’m not getting married for the next 10 years. I don’t have anyone special in my life at the moment and my complete focus is on my work,” Amrita told IANS over phone from Mumbai.
The 28-year-old entered the Hindi film industry seven years ago with “Ab Ke Baras”. She then featured in college love story “Ishq Vishk”, sex comedy “Masti”, shared screen space with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan in potboiler “Main Hoon Na” and social drama “Vivah”. She was also appreciated for her performance in Shyam Benegal’s non-commercial “Welcome To Sajjanpur”.
Now the actress is all set for her first release of the year, “Short Kut - The Con Is On”, in which she has teamed up with Akshaye Khanna and Arshad Warsi.
Set in Bollywood, the film is about two strugglers - one who makes it big as a superstar (Arshad) after stealing a script and the other (Akshaye) who continues to struggle as a director after his script gets stolen.
“I am playing an actress in the film. Neeraj Vora wanted to highlight the personal life of an actress through my character,” Amrita said.
The actress said that her bold avatar in the film was not a conscious decision.
“Everyone has been asking me whether I made a conscious decision to change my look. This is not the case. I haven’t sat and decided that I’m bored with one kind of role so give me something else. It’s just that I have got an opportunity to do different roles and I have moulded myself to suit the character,” she said.
“The same is the case with my character in this film. I wanted to do something different with the styling of this character and so the new look. Nothing more,” Amrita added.
Fashion designer Manish Malhotra is the one who has styled Amrita’s new look.
Produced by Anil Kapoor, “Short Kut…” is scheduled for a July 10 release. Amrita says she was thrilled to work with the actor-producer who used to give her pep talks during the shoot.
“Many times he used to give me pep talks, encouraging and motivating me. The whole energy and aura about him is great. He is an incredibly positive personality,” the actress said.
Talking about the two male actors in the film, Amrita said: “Akshaye is an actor who comes completely prepared and is a ‘one take’ actor so you also feel you should give your best.
“Arshad comes up with these impromptu additions to the dialogues which are just so funny. So matching that becomes a little difficult.”

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The best of Katrina KaifAll about Salman KhanSpecial: New YorkRumours of tensions between Salman Khan and girlfriend Katrina Kaif are just not dying down.Recent reports claim that Salman Khan has refused to watch Katrina's latest film New York.There are a variety of assumptions regarding why Salman has taken such a decision. First, some say that Salman can't stand to see Katrina being intimate with another man, even if it is just for a movie, and New York has a kiss and some intimate scene between Katrina and John Abraham.Speaking of John Abraham, the other possible reason why Salman has refused to watch New York is perhaps John Abraham. The two Bollywood hunks have had a long history of rivalry and it is possible that Salman doesn't want to watch a film with his arch-enemy in it.What makes this decision more hurtful for Katrina is that while Salman was ominously missing from the celebrations, John's girlfriend Bipasha Basu reportedly took time off from her shooting in Goa to be with John for the premiere of this film.Moreover, Katrina says she is astounded at her performance as she never believed any director could extract such a performance from her. She said she was deeply moved by the film and in fact, had tears in her eyes after it was over.It is unfortunate that Salman has refused to be part of Katrina's special moment.

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According to film trade analysts, New York will gross around Rs.30 crore in its opening week (it was released on June 26), beating Hollywood flicks Terminator Salvation and X-Men which are expected to gross around Rs.18-20 crore by next Friday.
Thanks to New York, the analyst said, the average occupancy in multiplexes for the weekend stood at around 80-85 percent, a rare event unless the movie does extremely well.
What is also heartening is the film is doing well not just in big metros but also in small town multiplexes and trade pundits are already speculating the film to do an overall net business of Rs.50 crore.
"This is significant for both Bollywood and the 250-plus multiplexes in India, as they saw the monthly box office collections plummet to around Rs.10-15 crore, especially for April and May when the long-standing row between multiplex operators and Bollywood producers over revenue sharing reached a peak," the analyst said.
The standoff came to an end earlier this month as the two parties reached a consensus over the rationalization of revenue sharing for forthcoming films but when the first Bollywood movie to hit multiplexes Kal Kisne Dekha turned out to be a damp squib, everyone became jittery whether tinsel town has been hit by economic slowdown. Drag comedy Paying Guest too was nothing much to brag about, raking in only Rs.6.5 crore in its first week of run even as Tulip Joshi-starrer Runway turned out to be a washout with just a zero to five percent occupancy during its opening weekend.
However, New York has swept all worries away.
"We were waiting for such a film for the past six months. With New York and Terminator, the gross collections for exhibitors were higher this weekend than in any other previous month this year," said Devang Sampat, senior vice-president, Cinemax India, a leading multiplex chain that is showing New York on 74 screens across the country.
Agrees Roopesh Shah, marketing head for specialized movie-ticket booking website Bookmyshow.com. "The traffic on our website in the past four days has been extremely high, compared to recent months. The tickets for New York were sold out for the weekends and the bookings are on a higher side for the current week, especially for the evening shows," Shah said.
And, if current trend continues, industry sources feel Akshay Kumar-Kareena Kapoor starrer Kambhakt Ishq, which releases nationwide on July 3, would fare even better.
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