What up to all the ladies in Mumbai…

Thanks to the New York Times for bringing Bollywood’s upcoming blockbuster to my attention. A tale of Happy Singh’s journey from village idiot to ruler of the Punjabi mafia in Australia, Singh is Kinng is attracting international attention because of American hip hop guruji Snoop Dogg’s East-West collaboration on the title song. Here’s a preview:

While the track does boast some promisingly poetic lyrics (‘Ferraris, Bugattis, and Maseratis/Snoop D-O-Double G the life of the party’), my only hesitation about the film stems from writer and director Anees Bazmee’s track record. I saw his last smash hit, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (Will You Marry Me), in the Metro theater shortly after arriving in Bombay in 2004. The film starred oaf-like and short-tempered Salman Khan as Sunny, who moves to Goa and falls in love with his next door neighbor Rani. If i remember correctly it also contains a gratuitous and unnecessary death-in-car-accident plot twist, but I could be confusing the ending with another Salman Khan atrocity. The title song from Mujhse Shaadi Karogi:

Basically Salman should pack up and go home. In the words of one Bollywood legend, “There are only two Khans…Genghis Khan and Shahrukh Khan.” Unfortunately when he made that comment, Shahrukh forgot about the glorious Saif Ali Khan, who starred in one of my all-time favorite films Omkara, Vishal Bharadwaj’ take on Othello.

My friend Aparna recently told me that she snagged a gig as the official still photographer on Bharadwaj’s upcoming,  “crazy caper film” called Kaminey (or Rascals in English). Congrats to Apu – one of the kickassest ladies I know in all of Mumbai.