AlIA Bhatt’s first film ‘Student of the Year’ had her tread on familiar ground. The teen romance was tailor-made for the 20-year-old debutante, who looked at ease in her trendy togs. A far cry from Highway, in which director-writer Imtiaz Ali has literally plucked the hothouse bloom from her designer universe and flung her on the dirt track.

The film stars Alia with Randeep Hooda and the gruelling 42-day first schedule started on March 1. The team has been on the road since then, exploring the country from Delhi and Gurgaon to Faridabad, Jaipur, Bikaner, Faridkot and parts of Punjab, before heading to Himachal Pradesh, where they are stationed right now. Incidentally, the crew is predominantly male, and Alia has just two other girls for company as she takes public transport, shoots at real locations, and gets a taste of the ‘other India’.

A source close to Alia told TOI, “The crew has been extremely protective of the girls, especially Alia, who was in for a bit of a culture shock at the kind of things she witnessed first-hand.” Added her friend, “It has been a rough and exhausting schedule, but Alia is all wide-eyed at the world that has been opening up for her.” Time to grow up?

NEW Delhi: Ekta Kapoor’s supernatural thriller ‘EK Thi Daayan’ – which has been making headlines for its issues with the National Commission for Women – is apparently the first horror movie to get a U/A rating from the Central Board of Film Certification.

While rumours were rife that the multi-starrer would likely be limited to an adult audience, the Censor Board`s decision has established the fact that the thriller-horror genre is popular with youngsters as well.

Directed by Kannan Iyer, ‘Ek Thi Daayan’ – which stars Emraan Hashmi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin and Huma Qureshi – narrates the story of a magician whose life falls apart because of his persistent hallucinations. He is put through regression hypnosis to put an end to his troubles but a frightening story of a daayan, who destroyed his family from his childhood, returns to haunt him.

“While we have the advantage of the film being children-friendly, it also has all the commercial masala that the audience expects from an Emraan Hashmi film. Young couples, who want to cuddle up during the spooks and scares, have found their film to do so,” a leading daily quoted Ekta as saying.

Produced by Alt Entertainment and Vishal Bhardwaj Pictures, ‘Ek Thi Daayan’ is all set to hit theatres on April 19.

New Delhi: Kangna Ranaut, who is working with Karan Johar for the first time in ‘Ungli’, is reportedly throwing her weight around. She apparently demanded a luxurious room in a plush hotel recently. According to a tabloid, the 26-year-old actress had to keep awake all night as her scenes were being filmed in the dark. She was unable to get sound sleep in her house during the day because of the surrounding noise. And thus she asked the production team to book a suite in a hotel near the shooting spot. However, the production team refused to entertain Kangna’s starry demands, which supposedly left her angry. “Kangna is extremely displeased with it and has been voicing her complains quite openly. She is cribbing aloud to people who have been meeting her these days. Since the shoot was going on in the nights, she found it difficult to sleep in her home during the day, as it is quite noisy outside. She asked to be allotted a suite in a luxury hotel through her sister and manager Rangoli but the production house turned her request down,” the source said. The source further asserted that the Himachali beauty was also heard narrating to her friend at a restaurant about her dilemma.

Delhi: when the seemingly unknown Canadian porn star Sunny Leone entered Indian TV show ‘Bigg Boss’, nobody could have thought what trajectory the coming years would provide her with. But just a few years down the line from that stint of hers, Leone is now a name to reckon with as far as the Hindi film industry is concerned. From ad shoots to item numbers to full-fledged feature films, the magic of Sunny Leone just doesn’t seem to fade. And now that the actress has turned all desi for her item song in ‘Shootout At wadala’ – ‘Laila’ – the temperatures have been constantly on the rise yet again! within a mere span of two days after the video of ‘Laila’ was released on Youtube, it managed to get more than 5 lakh hits. In the song that has been sung by Mika, Sunny is seen shaking a leg with John Abraham and Tusshar Kapoor. In a bra top and ghagra, Leone seduces the men in the song. Directed by Sanjay Gupta, ‘Shootout At wadala’ is a documentation of a real-life shootout that had shaken Bombay back in the 1980s. Apart from John Abraham who plays gangster Manya Surve, the film stars Anil Kapoor, Manoj Bajpayee, Sonu Sood, Kangna Ranaut and Tusshar Kapoor in major roles. The film is produced under ekta Kapoor’s Balaji banner and hits theatres on May 1, 2013.

ReNoWNeD singer Atif Aslam would tie the knot with his longtime girlfriend Sara Bharwana in Lahore. Atif and Sara’s mehendi ceremony singer was held in Lahore on Wednesday. Atif’s family, relatives and celebs from the world of music attended the wedding ceremony. Atif Aslam, who has a huge fan following in India, took to his Facebook account on Tuesday and informed the fans first hand about his wedding.

According to reports, Atif and Sara have known each other over seven years. After the wedding the couple will also throw a Daavat-e-Valima on March 29. Atif has sung hit Hindi songs like Tu Jaane Na, Bakhuda Tumhi Ho to name a few from his long list.

Los Angeles: Singer Selena Gomez has released an eleven-second teaser clip of her upcoming single `Come & Get It` before the release of the album. The 20-year-old `Naturally` hitmaker features in the video with a huge red headgear, reported Hollywood Life.

The short-video clip is aimed to attract the audiences before the release of the new album, which will be released on April 8. The album also has a Bhangra beat and a chant. Gomez is the founder and lead singer of the pop band `Selena Gomez & the Scene`. Some of the band`s best-selling singles are `Naturally`, `Who Says`, and `Love You Like a Love Song`.

London: Peter Crouch` wife Abbey Clancy was reportedly spotted enjoying a night out at a swanky hotel in Dubai – looking painfully thin in a skin-tight grey dress. The 27-year-old wAG teamed up the scoop-necked knee-length gown with strappy sandals for the world Cup Party at Dubai`s Grosvenor House Hotel, according to the Sun.

She completed her look by leaving her long blonde hair flowing over her shoulder. But the mum-of-one looked like she was in need of the slap-up dinner being served up in-side, the paper reported.

Mumbai: Actress Shilpa Shetty, who has seen ups and downs in her acting career, says success means keeping oneself grounded. The 37-year-old, who made Bollywood debut with 1993 movie ‘Baazigar’, has done many successful projects like ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari’, ‘Dhadkan’, ‘Life In A…Metro’ and ‘Apne’. In 2007, she also won Britain`s reality show ‘Big Brother’.

She shared her thoughts in a Twitter post and wrote: “Only touching the sky doesn`t define your success. The real success story will be if you don`t take your feet off the ground while touching the sky.”

MUMBAI: If you were wondering that it might have been easy for Sunny Leone to create a niche for herself in the Hindi film industry then you are wrong. The actor has had to work extremely hard to befit the Indian audiences` perceptions and cater to their ideology. Leone’s desi avatar in ‘Shootout At Wadala’s’ item number ‘Laila Teri Le Legi’ has impressed many of her followers and she is trying to put her best foot forward to connect with her Indian fans. And hence she communicated in Hindi while addressing reporters at a press conference.

However, she was extremely paranoid speaking in the language for she isn’t fluent at it. But she succeeded in her attempt to speak in Hindi as her co-star Tusshar Kapoor lent her moral support. Kapoor stood by Sunny and helped her tactfully answer the questions pertaining to the number (which has lyrics with sexual undercurrent) that were being hurled at her. That’s like a good colleague Tusshar!

New Delhi: Actor Hrithik Roshan has decided to stay away from Holi celebrations in view of the prevailing water shortage in Maharashtra. The 39-year-old will not waste water by being part of the Holi celebrations. “Hrithik won`t be celebrating Holi as a mark of solidarity with those who are suffering from acute water shortage in Maharashtra. Instead, he will only use only a small amount of gulaal to apply a shagun tika as part of the traditional ritual,” a source said. The actor is also said to have decided not to play with too much of dry gulaal, as washing it off requires a lot of water. “Like Hrithik, even the other members of the Roshan family will keep the celebrations low-key. They will take part in the morning puja and then spend some quiet time together,” the source said.