Shiney Ahuja gets judicial custody till July 2

In a relief of sorts for Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja who is facing a rape charge, a Mumbai court Thursday did not extend his police custody and sent him to judicial custody till July 2.
Shiney was arrested Sunday after his teenaged housemaid complained to police that he had raped her. His police custody ended Thursday.

Making a plea for extending his police custody, the police lawyer said it was necessary to carry out further investigations and to prevent the accused from tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses.

However, Shiney's lawyer Shrikant Shivade argued that since the investigations were almost completed, there was no need for his further police custody.

Accepting the defendant's contention, the magistrate of the Andheri court sent him to judicial custody.

Shivade later told mediapersons that he would appeal against the court order and seek bail for the accused actor.

The lawyer clarified that Shiney has not made any confession of rape as speculated in a section of the media.

The actor's wife Anupam, who was present in the court, expressed her satisfaction with the court ruling and said: 'Shiney's one step closer home.'

Anupam had put up a spirited defence of her husband Wednesday, telling the media that Shiney was being framed in the rape case as he is a celebrity and a soft target. She, however, declined to name who was behind the frame-up.

Under judicial custody, the actor will be lodged in the high-security Arthur Road Jail in south Mumbai.

The jail also houses Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir alias Kasab and the Special Court where the Mumbai terror attacks trial is being held by Special Judge M.L. Tahilyani.

The Oshiwara police late Sunday picked up Shiney from his Versova home after his maid lodged the rape complaint.

Later, the investigators searched Shiney's house and sent him and the victim for medical and DNA tests.

The complainant-victim hails from Kokbaan village in the coastal Konkan region of western Maharashtra, and lived in Vasai suburb of neighbouring Thane district. She commuted daily by train from Vasai to Andheri to work at Shiney's residence for the past one year.

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Deepika sizzles on ramp

It’s a model arrangement – with so many models making the jump to films,the Bollywood showstopper at designers’ shows already knows the ropes.

And Deepika Padukone, who walked the ramp for Tarun Tahiliani at the Delhi fashion Week, was in her element. The looker was a natural on the ramp, and she felt at home on it, too. “Delhi is the hub of fashion and where I started modelling,” she said.

So, has a lot changed since her days as a model? “The scene backstage was almost the same. The only new thing was the many international faces, which is encouraging,” she says.

Deepika is now based in Mumbai, but she’s all for Delhi designers. “The clothes that they make are wearable and very creative,” she says. Maybe that’s why she’s coming back to walk the ramp again this week – at the Wills Lifestyle India fashion Week, for Ranna Gill and Rina Dhaka, and she says she’s going to catch up with friends in Delhi.

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Movie Review : Billu

Film: Billu (Drama)
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Shah Rukh Khan (cameo)
Direction: Priyadarshan
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes 
Critic’s rating: 

You cast Irrfan Khan in your film and you have half your work already done. The actor takes a role and interprets it in a way that is purely his own. So much so, you begin to wonder where does Irrfan end and Billu begin. Or maybe still, perhaps, there never was a duality between the two. Perhaps Irrfan and Maqbool, Irrfan and Ashoke (The Namesake), Irrfan and Monty (Life in a Metro) are one and same: the actor and the character being perfectly in sync with each other. And no, Irrfan doesn't play it the same always. With his mercurial craft, he has the ability to pitch it high, low, hysterical, restrained, violent, genteel...any which way the script demands.

Here, he plays Billu, the barber (hair dresser, hair stylist or what you will) with an easy charm and an exquisite finesse. As the archetypal Sudama (poor friend), he brings to life a throbbing picture of dignity and restraint, as he tries to cope with his abject poverty on one end and the arrival of his flashy superstar friend, Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) on the other. Sahir is his childhood buddy, going back to those carefree days when the two shared their deprivation with brotherly warmth and care. Billu, the marginally better-off buddy, not only shared his tiffin but also sold his gold ear rings to send showman Sahir to Mumbai for a career in films. And once their paths diverged, he quietly crept back into the shadows with his crumbling barber's shop and his frugal family life, while Sahir got cloistered in his ivory tower that results from too much fame and glamour.

Now that Sahir's back in the picturesque village for a corny film shoot, life doesn't remain the same for laid-back Billu. Everyone gets a whiff of their legendary friendship and wants a slice of the Sahir pie. Everyone, except Billu who doesn't want to embarrass his friend with his decrepit state, despite the fact that the village almost threatens to boycott him and his broken barber's chair.

The film may not have done well in its Tamil version (Kuselan), but Priyadarshan has suitably peppered it with some heart-tugging moments to make it a moving ode to friendship and ordinariness. Of course, Irrfan manages to invest the ordinary with kingly glow, even as Shah Rukh lends the glamour quotient with his filmy naach-gaana. Surprisingly, Lara Dutta too manages to fit in with her deglamourised avtar as the lowly barber's better-half, in crumpled cottons and low-back cholis.

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