Karan Johar not in Saat Khoon Maaf

Now KJO as a wife-beating sex maniac in Saat Khoon Maaf was an inspired choice and would have been great piece of casting. I am sure it would have earned Karan Johar a zillion brownie points and weirdly would have dampened the whispers about his 'leanings'.

Of course, Karan Johar can't even fathom the concept of such characters, forget embodying them. The guy thinks "My Name is Khan" was a massive creative leap for him! The frog in the gilded well is now a Director in Bollywood.

Kaam Ka Plot: a made for TV flick with a bit of Vishal

Vishal's friend and Mid-day film critic Minty Tejpal wrote and directed "Kaam Ka Plot" a tepid thriller featuring Ranvir Shorey, Sandhya Mridul, and Vinay Pathak, which appeared on TV a couple of weeks ago. Promoted as having music by Vishal, it had one song, which, truth to be told, was largely uninspired and unnecessary. Lyrics by Munna Dhiman and sung by Vishal himself.

Saath Khoon Maaf's music: Suresh Wadkar

Given the film's January release date, the music of Vishal's next release "Saath Khoon Maaf" should hopefully be in the pipeline. Veteran singer Suresh Wadkar was interviewed for the Marathi TV channel "IBN Lokmat" during the Ganesh festival, where he spoke about how Vishal has probably experimented the most with Wadkar's voice. He also mentioned that he's sung a song for 7KM (if I can take the liberty), which came out well.

Wadkar's last Vishal appearance was in Kaminey where he lights up "Raat ke Dhaai Baje".

Dream Sequence: title, casting, story

It seems that "Dream Sequence" is what it's being called. Vishal's film for Ektaa Kapoor's production house has seen a spate of news about its casting muddles. Fortunately (IMO), one established fact is that Deepika Padukone will not be one of the two leading ladies thanks to scheduling problems. So it's just Priyanka Chopra for now.

Speculation is also rife about the leading man: first it was Saif Ali Khan, who later moved out because he wanted Vishal to do a film for him in return (which Vishal declined). Apparently, Abhay Deol was to replace him, but now SAK is back. It's borderline gossip, so just read this news item instead.

The film is slated to be a smaller, more experimental film. Here's an interview with art director Samir Chanda on some of the pre-production work happening in Kolkata. Incidentally, he says the story has been written by Mukul Sharma. If I'm not mistaken, this is the same MS who writes for the Times of India on topics such as science and spirituality, used to run the popular Mindsport column during the bearable days of the TOI, and is the father of Konkona Sen Sharma (who, but for her pregnancy, should have been a shoo-in for the 2nd lead's role).

Milte hai Sur Yahaa

Vishal Bhardwaj has been signed up to compose music for Meghna Gulzar's next, 'Milte Hai'.
According to India Today,

Producer-director Sanjay Gupta has managed to get the golden duo of Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar as composer-lyricist for his upcoming Vidya Balan starrer Milte Hain.The film, to go on floors early next year, will be directed by Gulzar's daughter Meghna and it is after a long time that Vishal has agreed to compose for a movie, which is not being directed by him.

Of course, Meghna Gulzar, Sanjay Gupta is not a new combination. She has directed ek kahani titled Pooranmasi in the film, "Dus Kahaniyan".

Here's hoping Vishal and Gulzar duo add something special to a Sanjay Gupta Production.

"K-k-k-k-k-k-kaminey!"

A report in Glamsham says that SRK's signed up Vishal for his next home production, supposedly set in a small town.

Right now, I'm curious to see whether Vishal can stop SRK from doing that arms-spread-out-three-quarters-view-with-cheeky-grin pose of his.

vishal nuggets from a strange place

In a post over at PFC dedicated to Sushil Rajpal, the director of the National Award-winning Antardwand, Hansal Mehta looks like Forrest Gump as he drops one destined-to-be-famous name after another. A very interesting nugget surfaces when he writes about Amrita, a short film he had made in 1995. It turns out that the music director was none other than Vishal Bhardwaj. Hansal Mehta offers nothing more except But that is another story, another fond relationship and maybe another emotional blog. One awaits that post eagerly.