If the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was really a hotel in Rajasthan, I think I’d like to spend a few weeks there for there’s just such a kookie charm about the going-to-seed establishment and the young manager Sonny Kapoor, played by Dev Patel with maniac energy and chutzpah, is such an exuberant, happy host.

Indeed ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ gives outsourcing a whole new dimension. What if old age could be outsourced – to India? The film follows a group of British retirees who decide to move to India to get more bang for their buck – and discover a whole new world at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ‘for the elderly and beautiful’. Recently the stars of the film were in New York and weighed in on their experiences in India.

Who are Shah Rukh Khan fans? No anthropological thesis this, but anecdotal evidence and what my eyes saw at the recent Yale event where the Bollywood Badshah was honored with the Chubb Fellowship, I would have to say SRK fans are an ageless lot, going all the way from babyhood to Golden Oldies.

Actually maybe it starts even earlier with Shah Rukh-mad moms watching his movies during their pregnancies, giving their unborn babies a taste of Chammak Challo while still in the womb!

When Carlton Kitto was just a teenager many decades ago in Calcutta, he had a love, and its name was jazz. At first, it was an innocent attraction, but the notes kept calling him, taunting him. It became an obsession and soon the yearning was too great. He had to make a choice between staying back and fulfilling expectations, or leaving to chase jazz where it took him. Fifty years later he’s still playing for crowds in the new documentary that bears his name, “Finding Carlton: Uncovering the story of jazz in India.”
It will be screened at the U.N. on April 30 as part of Indian Mission’s programming for the first International Jazz Day.

For all those who’ve watched King Khan, the Badshah of Bollywood, dance and sing and romance over the years, Shah Rukh Khan’s talk at Yale was one of a kind, a look at the real man, rather than the reel man.

Un-awed by the pomp and ceremony of being honored with the prestigious Chubb Fellowship, he was down-to-earth and funny, talking one on one to Yale students, as someone human and humane, a striver, a dreamer and a parent.
Here, Shah Rukh Khan, in his own words….

This has been quite a year for noted actor and activist Shabana Azmi who was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. She’s just finished Deepa Mehta’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ based on Salman Rushdie’s novel and is currently making a film with Vishal Bharadwaj. She has been chosen by TIME Magazine as 1 of 25 Asian heroes and is the only woman amongst 4 Indians on the list.

Now comes her New York minute! Shabana Azmi was presented a proclamation by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development for her commitment to the arts and contributions to New York City’s film industry.

Shah Rukh Khan fans – the King of Bollywood is coming to Yale University! This is a brand new real life role for SRK, who is being recognized as a Chubb Fellow at the prestigious university on April 12.

Shah Rukh Khan is in extremely good company: Former fellows include President George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, authors Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes and Toni Morrison; filmmaker Sofia Coppola; architect Frank Gehry; choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov and journalist Walter Cronkite.
And yes, there’s actually a chance to see SRK!

For people from South Asia, especially Pakistan, it was a big moment when Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won the Oscar for Best Documentary for ‘Saving Face’.

It was a triumph for the Pakistani filmmaker and her co-director Daniel Junge, a triumph for Pakistan bringing home Oscar gold for the first time – but most of all, it was a triumph for the women who have been victimized with acid attacks – the most incomprehensible mode of revenge by angry men – jilted lovers and disgruntled spouses.

Love is the four-letter word most used today on Valentine’s Day and who knows how to use it better than A.R. Rahman.? On this day of love and one-ness, listen to the Maestro’s new song. It covers all the shades of joy and sorrow, togetherness and separation, wanting and denial which make up the high drama of love.

Zenobia Shroff, the talented actress who starred in Sooni Taraporevala’s splendid ‘Little Zizou’ is back on the big screen, this time in a real, dyed in glitz, Bollywood super-starrer ‘Ek Main aur Ekk Tu’ starring Bollywood royalty Kareena Kapoor and Imran Khan and produced by none other than Karan Johar. The film has a great ensemble cast and New York based Zenobia gets to play Kareena Kapoor’s mother, a fun, cool mom to be sure!

Here she talks about ‘Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu’ and the hilarious, catchy item number ‘Auntyji’ which seems to be dominating the air waves and Youtube videos.

It’s that time of the year again when the annual Sikh International Film Festival takes place – and this year one of the guests is film-maker Gurinder Chadha who is a panelist at the inaugural Leadership Summit and is being honored with an Arts award. at the Sikh Heritage Gala on October 15 at Cipriani.

Lassi with Lavina caught up with the hugely popular director in London to get a heads-up on the Sikh International Film Festival which starts tomorrow. Here’s Gurinder Chadha on her award, the Sikh International Film Festival, the changing face of Southall and – ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ – the Musical.