Talk Of The Town

By K. Kannan

Bollywood hero Ajay Devgan seems to have hit a bad patch. No, there is no dearth of good roles coming his way, but ever since he tried his hand at making a film, his luck seems to have run out.

The role of ``Raju Chacha'' has not augured well for him and after it failed at the box office, Ajay seems to be failing repeatedly, though he has not stopped taking up challenging roles. His two earlier releases this year -- ``Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke'' and ``Lajja'' -- are proof enough of the range of acting capabilities that he possesses. ``Sometimes, even good films fail,'' he philosophises.

By his own admission, he was not very confident with ``Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke''. But he describes ``Lajja'' as one of the best releases of the year. ``The role of Bulwa is among the hard- hitting roles I have done,'' he says. Incidentally, it was Sunny who was first offered the role before it fell to his lot.

Now that ``Lajja'' too has bombed at the box-office, Ajay is doing some serious re-thinking. As of now, he is banking on Mahesh Manjrekar's ``Tera Mera Saath Rahe'' -- a remake of the Hollywood hit ``Rain Man'' -- involving two brothers, one of whom is a spastic. ``It is a soft, emotional role,'' confesses Ajay.

Caught between the ``action hero'' and the ``romantic boy'' image, Ajay finds himself at the crossroads. ``I am being selective and accepting roles that are quite different from one another,'' he says, pointing out that ``Tera Mera Saath Rahe'' has a deep touch of pathos.

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By Lalit K. Jha

Terrorism cannot be tackled by a soft-pedal approach, says supercop K.P.S. Gill who finds the suggestion given by some politicians to have the United Nations mediate on the current world crisis quite amusing.

``All these years, I was under the misconception that a politician in India is a realist,'' said Mr. Gill at a function in Delhi the other day. ``If we take the debate to the UN, we will only be discussing it for the next 50 years.''

The supercop, who tackled terrorism with an iron hand in Punjab, however felt though the response to terror cannot be terror, there was need for using violence to some extent. ``I am a Sikh and I confronted Sikh terrorism in Punjab. There were thousands of people who condemned terrorism and lost their lives.''

Alluding to double standards in tackling terrorism, Mr. Gill cited the example of the Kanishka bombing in which the human rights of the person who master-minded the attack was given more importance in comparison to the rights of people who perished in the Air India crash. ``The victory of terrorism anywhere is the victory of terrorism everywhere,'' he cautioned.

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By Sandeep Joshi

Dealing with high-profile politicians is always a tough task. And things get more serious when the person in question happens to be the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani.

In an interesting turn of events at the 30th Annual Training Conference of the BSF in the Capital earlier this week, Mr. Advani, who was all set to leave the venue after addressing BSF top brass, chose to stay on for a few more minutes much to everybody's surprise.

It happened like this. After the inaugural function, Mr. Advani was getting ready to leave for his next engagement -- an all- party meeting to discuss terrorist attacks in the U.S.) when suddenly his personal secretary whispered something into his ear which led to a brief consultation between the two as senior BSF officers looked on, their anxiety palpable.

The next moment, Mr. Advani, followed by the Union Home Secretary, Mr. Kamal Pande, walked away from the car towards the lounge where tea and snacks were being served. Senior BSF officials including the Director-General, Mr. Gurbachan Jagat, rushed towards the Home Minister wondering what had brought him back.

Meanwhile, Mr. Advani started having breakfast and could be seen having serious consultations with the BSF DG and Mr. Pande. After some time he left for Parliament House for the scheduled meeting.

To the surprise and amusement of those gathered, it was revealed that Mr. Advani had come back to the lounge as he had time to spare. Since the inaugural function got over a little too soon and there was still time for the all-party meeting to start, he had no other option but to linger on there. This was the best -- read, only -- option for him because of a fixed schedule and concerns for security which explained all the deliberations that went on!

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