Sohail walked into the party and saw Vivek sipping a drink in a corner. He then went on further in the hall where most of the people were and he saw Vivek standing alone in a corner. Sohail suddenly called out, “Oye Vivek!” Vivek quickly turned to see who had called him. Sohail cheekily looked at a waiter, calling him Vivek and beckoning to him. Vivek was dismayed to see that Sohail had insulted him. He quietly walked away from where Sohail was standing. Sources have confirmed the incident. Now why was Vivek controlling his anger? Is it because Salman was expected to make an appearance at the event soon? We Khan-not be sure…

Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Genelia D Souza, Tabu, Minisha Lamba, Sameera Reddy, Fardeen Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Jeetendra, Kiran Juneja, Ramesh Sippy, Vivek Oberoi, Dino Morea, Rajneesh Duggal, Ruslaan, Arjan Bajwa, Raveena Tandon, Farhan Akhtar, Vidya Balan, Govind Namdeo, Manoj Bohra, Teejay Sidhu, Tapur Chatterjee, Nishka Lulla, Poonam Dhillon, Imran Khan, Kunal Kohli, Mohit Suri, Kunal Khemu, Vashu and Jackie Bhagnani, Pritam Chakraborty, Aashish Chaudhary, Alka Yagnik, Celina Jaitley, Karan Johar, Sanjay Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Sammir Dattani, Ayub Khan, Niharika Khan  at Ramesh Taurani_s 25th Wedding Anniversary Celebrations on 11th Aug 2009.

Vivek Oberoi kicks off No Tabacco cmapaign in Bombay Central, Mumbai on 31st May 2009.

When asked that for how long was he in talks with Ramu for the project, Vivek replies, “Honestly, a mere 7 seconds. That’s because 7 seconds into our conversation and I knew that this was one conversation that I had been waiting the last 7 years.”

But over the last few months, wasn’t he tempted to throw some hints around his BIG project coming in?

“Not really actually”, he says after a brief pause, “The person that I have become today, I had rather work than talk. I am excited and eager to grow with Ravi under the master’s guidance.”

He is unable to conceal his excitement about working in the project though. “I can’t begin to express how excited I am about transforming into Ravi. At most times actors make characters but sometimes a character can make an actor. Paritala Ravi is one such rare opportunity”, he gushes.

Ever since he started his career in Bollywood, Vivek has delivered a commercial/critical success practically every single year. ‘Shoot Out At Lokhandwala’ [2007], ‘Omkara’ [2006], ‘Kaal’ [2005], ‘Yuva’ [2004], ‘Masti’ [2004], ‘Dum’ [2003], ‘Saathiya’ [2002], ‘Road’ [2002] and ‘Company’ [2001] are case in point.

During 2008 though, he had taken a conscious break from movies (with ‘Mission Istanbul’ being his sole release) in order to get some re-prioritization in place. Why didn’t he make much noise about his ‘introspection period’ rather than letting media have a field day and question his absence?

“See, one of the things that I learned during my introspection was – ‘Why make noise when you can make music (winks)?’ Why shout and scream in meaningless clarifications when you can just let your work speak volumes instead? I guess that’s the approach which is working best for me”, says Vivek who would now be seen in an altogether different in ‘Rakta Charitra’.

Reveals our source who managed to watch the show reel, “Vivek has performed some dare devil stunts himself that include jumping off a running plane. Most of the film has been shot in the picturesque South Africa as the film is set in Durban and is supposed to be revolving around the search for a rare gold coin. While Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions’ Jehaad starring Vivek may come in at end of November 2009, Prince will arrive much before that and catapult Vivek back to stardom for sure.”

This is the name of the film I am intending to make as my next after India 24/7. It’s inspired by the story of Paritala Ravi from Andhra Pradesh who got assassinated in January 2005. Even though the actual incidents of the story happened and the related characters existed in south India, I decided to make it in Hindi because I strongly felt that the sheer uniqueness of the story deserves to be told to a much wider audience.

Paritala Ravi was arguably the most feared individual ever in the history of the blood-ridden faction politics of South India. He was a prime accused in innumerable murder cases and also survived numerous assassination attempts, the most brutal of which happened on a quiet Friday afternoon in November 1997 when a road near Rama Naidu Studio in Hyderabad was turned into a death field by a bomb which killed 26 people but failed to get its intended target Ravi.

I, in the course of my life have read biographies of various people and have also come to know through various sources the life stories of many highly dangerous men including that of Velupalli Prabhakaran the LTTE Chief to Pablo Escobar the Columbian drug lord to our very own Dawood Ibrahim but all those stories pale in comparison to Ravi’s life story.

How Ravi, a soft-spoken shy guy under a force of certain circumstances retreated into the jungles, became a rebel and how he mounted a volcano of violence to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths and how in time he became a folklore legend and eventually a minister in N.T.Ramarao’s Cabinet reads more grippingly than any fiction writer anywhere in the world can ever imagine.

Ravi’s name sent shivers up the spines of not only his rivals but even the law enforcement agencies. He was a rebel, a feudal lord, a robin hood, a killer of hundreds and saviour of thousands till the day he was gunned down by a death squad allegedly put together by his arch rival Suri who wanted to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths, in a bizarre déjà vu.

I have been following Ravi’s rise to power since long, but I first heard of Suri only after the bomb explosion at Rama Naidu Studios. I was both amazed and chilled to see that even after being confined to a prison cell, how the fire of Suri’s vengeance continued to burn unabated for 7 long years till he finally succeeded, armed with nothing but a severe desire to kill Ravi as his one and only weapon.

In my research for the film I have met various associates of Paritala Ravi and Suri and also their family members. I have also met Suri who is presently lodged in Anantpur jail on trial for the killing of Ravi and what I finally managed to piece together from all the various police records and eye witness accounts is the most fascinating story I have ever heard or could hope to hear in my life. This is the story of a man’s phenomenal rise to power and a story of the most intense blood curdling conflict ever heard of between 2 individuals and it is also the ultimate statement on the oft heard disastrous consequences of a fatal mixture of caste, crime, family feuds and politics.

I decided to film this story at one stretch and release it in 2 parts about 3 months from each other, a first of its kind ever attempted in the history of Indian cinema. I want to call the films Rakta Charitra- I and Rakta Charitra-II. Why I want to make it in 2 parts is because, the sheer drama and content the story possesses is so incredibly rich and of such high magnitude that it is not possible to do justice to do it in a film which is lesser than 5 hours. Also Ravi’s life can be broadly divided into 2 parts from the time how circumstances created his rise to how he created circumstances that felled him.

I believe that Rakta Charitra is going to be the most defining film of my career not because of how well I will make it but sheerly because of the material I have at my hand. To put it simply I don’t have to work hard to make it well but I have to work hard to spoil it.

The search for Paritala Ravi
After thinking hard on every actor both known and unknown I have finally zeroed in on Vivek Oberoi as the most ideal choice to play Paritala Ravi. He has remarkable intensity in his eyes which I noticed in the making of Company, a voice which commands attention, an arrogance in his demeanour, an enormous power in his stance, and also a certain vulnerability which makes one instantly warm up to him, which is what is needed to fit in a role of Paritala Ravi’s profile.

After a rough look-test done and when I saw the approximation of how Vivek could look like in different phases of Ravi’s life, from being a rebel in the jungles to a political strong-arm man, I was absolutely convinced that my search ended.

Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra, Shamita Shetty, Hrithik Roshan, Suzanne Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Sunita Menon, Nisha Jamwal, Queenie Dhody, Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder, Ronit Roy, Rohit Roy, Manasi Joshi Roy, Anand RAj Anand, Anu Ranjan, Sashi Ranjan, Aarti Surendranath, Ila Arun, Monica Bedi, Kabir Bedi, Pooja Bedi, Shiney Ahuja, Suresh Menon, Suchitra Pillai, Neeta Lulla at Shilpa Shetty_s Rajasthan Royals bash in Grand Hyatt on 10th March 2009.

Priyanka Chopra, Mugdha Godse, Preity Zinta, Asin Thottumkal, Genelia D Souza, Sushmita Sen, Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Kareena KApoor, Saif Ali Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Arjan Bajwa, Madhur Bhandarkar, Kunal Khemu, Kunal Kapoor, Divya Khosla, Bhushan Kumar, Anushka Sharma, Shahrukh Khan, Prem Chopra, shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, FArhan Akhtar, Riya Sen, Raima Sen, Koena mitra, Abbas Tyrewala, Vishal Bharadwaj, Payal Rohatgi, TAnay Chheda, Darsheel Safary, Kiran Juneja, Poonam Dhillon, Shreya Saran, Shreya Ghoshal, Abbas MAstan, Salim Sulaiman Merchant, Alka Yagnik, Padmini Kolhapure, Jagmohan Mundhra, Ramesh Taurani, Mukesh Bhatt, Zoya Akhtar, Vivek Oberoi, Ritesh Deshmukh, TAbu, Irrfan Khan, Neil Mukesh, John Abraham, Adah Sharma, Atul Kulkarni, Purab Kohli, Ashutosh and Sunita Gowariker at 54th Idea Filmfare Awards 2008 on 28th Feb 2009.

Jiah Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Suzanne Khan, Fardeen Khan, Natasha, Zayed Khan, Madhavan, Boney Kapoor, Sridevi, Abhishek Bachchan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Reva Babber, Vivek Oberoi, Suresh Oberoi, Shakti Kapoor, Shivangi Kolhapure, Smita Thackeray, Karan Johar, Subhash Ghai, Manish Malhotra, Dev Anand, Raveena Kapoor, Anil Thadani, Salim Merchant, Bhagyashree at at Raman and Ambika Hinduja wedding on 12th Feb 2009.

The World Joins NDTV and Toyota’s ‘The Greenathon’ Over Rs 2.4 crores raised for TERI’s ‘Lighting a Billion Lives’ Money raised will light up 67 villages and 4000 households. Mumbai, February 09, 2009: NDTV and Toyota’s Greenathon saw many environmentally conscious people from across the globe come forward to take the green pledge and adopt villages by donating for TERI’s ‘Lighting a Billion Lives’ project that aims at solar powering villages across the country.

This 24-hour nonstop effort for the environment received an overwhelming response by country’s leading corporates, top Bollywood stars, musicians, environmentalists, NGOs and educational institutions and generated over Rs 2.4 crores. Some of the generous donors for the campaign were Shilpa Shetty; Shahrukh Khan and Billu team; Lalit Modi; Yuvraj Singh; Sanjay Dutt and family; Preity Zinta, Nokia; Coca-Cola and, Aarav, son of actor Akshay Kumar.

Actor Shilpa Shetty adopted 4 villages and set the momentum to be the first highest donor soon followed by Shahrukh Khan and Billu Team who adopted 5 villages. Akshay Kumar’s son- Aarav became the youngest donor of the campaign by adopting a village. IPL’s Lalit Modi adopted the largest village without lights while actor Vivek Oberoi who also sponsored one village, pledged to continue the good deed every year. Also stepping forward were Sanjay Dutt and family who adopted 2 villages; cricketer Yuvraj Singh; campaign ambassador Preity Zinta; Preity’s mother; actor Arjun Rampal and Nina Pillai, amongst others.

Some leading corporates also showed their solidarity towards the cause, the highest donors being Coca-Cola and Nokia who sponsored 4 and 3 villages respectively; S Kumar’s Nitin Kasliwal adopted two villages and Bombay Dyeing’s Ness Wadia adopted one village. Other corporate who donated to the cause were: Toyota Kirloskar Motors; ARM Embedded Technologies; SRF; Rexfam Hindustan Tin Works; Ozone Group; Wizcraft; Qualcomm; Dentsu India; Luthra & Luthra; Namita Gautam, Director, Sheela Group and Asian Roots Spa’s Kamyani Kanwar, amongst others.

Bollywood stars like Bipasha Basu, Celina Jaitley, Nagesh Kukunoor, Aftab Shivdasani, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Madhuri Dixit, Kailash Kher, Farah Khan, Diya Mirza, Kunal Kapoor, Tushar Kapoor, Shaan, Govinda, Sunidhi Chauhan, Raageshwari and Shilpa Rao and Sukhwinder Singh lent support to this campaign by signing solar lanterns which would be auctioned at a later stage.

Actor, model and ‘Marathon Man’ Milind Soman ran for 24 hours at a stretch, covering 60kms, to raise funds for the campaign. He started from Yashraj Studios, covering prominent places like Juhu Beach, Bandra Reclamation, Haji Ali and Trident Hotel and returned the same way.

The Greenathon, a 24-hour programming initiative dedicated to create environmental awareness, which commenced on Saturday 7th Feb 09 at 7pm was inaugurated by Dr. Prannoy Roy and Dr. R K Pachauri. The Greenathon was hosted by Vikram Chandra and Preity Zinta while Cyrus Broacha kept the viewers entertained for 24 hrs with his witty humour. Simultaneous relay cleanup activities were conducted in Delhi and Mumbai as part of the campaign.

The clean-up drive at Qudesia Ghat, Yamuna in Delhi organized by NGO- Swecha involved several activities like music concerts by bands- Advaita, Parikrama, Mrigya, Menwhopause; canvas painting by artist Anjolie Ela Menon; monument building using waste paper and a graffiti canvas to express one’s thoughts on the polluted Yamuna. Attending the event were renowned politicians, celebrities and environmentalist like Sandeep Dixit, Naveen Jindal, Rina Dhaka, Nafisa Ali, Daler Mahendi, Shibani Kashyap and Mike Pandey. Many excited school children and university students thronged the venue in large numbers to participate in the relay clean-up of the river bank.

Mumbai sea front clean-up activities saw the presence of Bollywoood stars like Preity Zinta, Raveena Tandon, Sonali Kulkarni, Prasoon Joshi, Luke Kenny, cast and crew of TV show Jasuben Jayantilal Joshi Ki Joint Family and BMC Commissioner Jairaj Pathak.

The supporting sponsor for ‘The Greenathon’ was Vodafone. The lines for donation are still open and donations can be made through Mchek and demand draft.

For Mchek: SMS “[donate] [space] [amount]” to 56388
For users in India only. Standard VAS charges apply.
Cheque/DD: Send in favour of ‘The Energy and Resources Institute’ payable at New Delhi, mail to Greenathon, NDTV, Archana Complex, GK 1, New Delhi-110 048.

Sunil Shetty, Vivek Oberoi at Dilip Chabbria’s art event in Taj Hotel on 30th Jan 2009.

Vivek Oberoi, Neeru Bajwa, Ramesh Sippy at director Arif Sheikh_s wedding in Lokhandwala on 26th Jan 2009.

He also inaugurated the function of health insurance card distribution to 100 children. Since 1989 he is arriving Kerala during the period of Makarasankranthi to watch the Makaravilakku at Sabarimala. He has tied his `Pallikettu’ (Offerings for Ayyappa) at the Ayappa Swami Temple of Thycaud in Trivandrum.
South Indian actor Jaya Ram was also at Sabarimala to watch Makaravilakku. Latest films of Jayaram in Tamil and in Malayalam were super hits.

Blast from the past: When Vivek and Ash were in love – year 2003

“He’s done parkour stunts in this one,” informs his publicist Dale Bhagwagar. “We’ve seen these kind of stunts in international films like ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ and the James Bond thriller ‘Casino Royale’. But they are new to Bollywood. Vivek has been receiving special training for these from action experts Dean from UK and David from Thiland.”

So, what actually, are ‘parkour stunts’? “They’re about jumping freestyle and clinging to the next thing in sight. They’re meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment, from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls. Remember that famous chase sequence in the beginning of ‘Casino Royale’, where Daniel Craig and a black guy jump on under-construction buildings. That’s parkour,” Bhagwagar tells us.

“It’s not easy to perform and requires solid body-discipline and training too. One little slip and the actor can end up breaking his bones,” he adds. The film is directed by Kookie V. Gulati and will star three heroines opposite Vivek.

This month, the actor is also set to fly to New York to begin shooting for the Karan Johar production directed by Rensil D’Silva. Vivek co-stars with Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor in this one.

Mission Istanbul has some superbly skilful editing. The editor’s scissors snip through the material on international terrorism demonstrating a tailor’s tight command over size and measurement. In fact, editor Rajesh Singh’s work is so exemplary in the first half, you sort of brace yourself for something grander in the second.

Film: Mission Istanbul
Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Zayed Khan, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Nikitin Dheer, Shriya Sharan, Shweta Bhardwaj
Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Rating: 2.5/5

Alas, the pace and sheer velocity of the first half slackens. Post-intermission the plot becomes just another ‘two heroes fighting the baddies’ film that we have been watching from the time when villains were smugglers and then gangsters. Now they are tycoons in Saville Row suits!

Terrorism goes international with a screenplay that’s blessedly free of the amateurism that we have come to associate with cinema on terrorism in our country. Lakhia and his co-writer Suresh Nair get the politics of terrorism dead-on. And the virility of the Turkish outdoors lends credence to the volatile goings-on.

Ironically, the hub of terrorist activities in “Mission Istanbul” is a news channel whose head, played by Nikitin Dheer, hobnobs with a bearded terrorist (Shabbir Ahluwalia). Zayed Khan, a journalist, and Vivek Oberoi take on the maddened media baron and the timorous terrorist. What emerges is a part-fascinating tale of terrorism during times of stressful satire.

There are also flashes of humour in the story, miraculously woven into the stern fabric of terrorism. The dialogues between ‘George Bush’ (played by an impersonator) and his aide are really funny. But some portions go over the top. Like when Shriya Sharan, who plays Zayed’s journalist wife, is shown interviewing Omar Abdullah, her cellphone keeps ringing, until the politician politely asks her to take it.

But one surely can’t take such silly liberties in a film that seems to have researched international terrorism with some attention before plunging into the project. Lakhia knows how to handle vast crowds caught in terrifying insurgent violence. The canvas though crammed with exploding guns and ricocheting power games never loses its vision, momentum and humour.

In a bizarre sequence of comic violence, Vivek Oberoi wrenches off a victim’s hands and uses them for hand-print entry into a forbidden area of the terrorist headquarters – the TV channel. Zayed Khan as a newsreader clearly gets to cross all boundaries of duty. He tackles terrorists and alongside makes room to shake a leg on the dance floor.

The attempt to bring in conventional song-and-dance into a rigorous film on Islamic terrorism is not quite misplaced. Lakhia pulls off the coup with energy and elan. Full credit goes to the film’s super action sequences orchestrated by Javed and Aejaz. Amar Mohile’s over-emphatic background score slams in the mood of danger and intrigue.

“Mission Istanbul” works big time as an action thriller. The director creates a mood that swings dangerously between a Hardy Boys adventure and a ‘Barkha Dutt in the war zone’ kind of news story. That Lakhia pulls it off with a near-effortless outflow of energy is a miracle of sorts.

There is nothing dreamy about this mission. But the subplot about the estranged journalist couple with a romantic song thrown in is as convincing as a devotional song in a beer bar. There’s a time and place for everything and “Mission Istanbul” gets it right most of the time. The boys are all fully clued into the mood.

Zayed Khan shows remarkable restrain in the most outrageous of situations like the one where Viveik and he share colas and kisses with a ‘desi’ Lara Croft who may or may not be from the enemy camp. Vivek Oberoi, with his flowing hair and full-on body language, proves himself a pro at the pyrotechnics. He has a real blast.

Not for the squeamish and certainly not for lovelorn dreamers, “Mission Istanbul” is a rollercoaster of action, terrorism and revenge that seldom pauses for breath.

– By Subhash K. Jha

Directed by Apoorva Lakhia, “Mission Istanbul” that also stars Zayed Khan and Suniel Shetty, opened Friday.”Apoorva had shown me parts of the film. I had heard such great things about the film and my work,” he added.

But wasn’t Vivek supposed to be in Mumbai for the “Mission Istanbul” press conference?

“Yes, I couldn’t make it on July 19th. I was shooting in South Africa. You see ‘Mission Istanbul’ was supposed to be released two weeks earlier. I was going all-out promoting it for two months. I kept myself completely free for the promotions till the 11th.

“But when the film got postponed to July 25, I had no option but to join my unit in South Africa. I’m really excited by my character in ‘Mission Istanbul’.”

Vivek is currently shooting a hush-hush project for Tips Films. It features Vivek with Sanjay Kapoor. Vivek has three leading ladies opposite him. But Viviek isn’t allowed to talk about it.

“Kumar Taurani (of Tips Films) has been treating me really well. I’m shooting for his film in South Africa. It’s an action thriller directed by a guy called Kuki Gulati. He is actually a fantastic video director doing his first feature film. I loved the script. Beyond that I’m not allowed to say anything about the film.”

Vivek has completely changed his look and hair for the Tips film.”Since I’ve to keep my look under wraps I’ve to wear a cap all the time. I joked with my producer Kumar Taurani. ‘Normally actor producer ko topi pehnate hai. This time it’s the other way around.’”

Shriya Saran, Vivek Oberoi, Sunil Shetty, Apoorva Lakhia, Nikitin Dheer, Shabbir Ahluwalia and others at Mid-Day anniversary bash in Blue Sea on July 2nd 2008.

Sonal Chauhan, Kangana Ranaut, Adhyayan Suman, Vivek Oberoi, Upen Patel, Gajendra Chauhan, Vivek Shauq, Divya Khosla, Bhushan Kumar, Mahima Chaudhary, Divya Dutta, Himani Shivpuri, Aditya Narayan, Deepshikha, Raza Murad, Ramesh S. Taurani, Munisha Khatwani, Raghav Sachar, Kumar Mangat and many others at the premiere of HAAL-E-DILL in Cinemax on 19th June 2008.

Both Vivek and Abhishek had refused to share screen space in Lakhia’s last film Shoot Out at Lokhandwala. Vivek was hooked with Mrs. Abhishek Bachchan before she decided to marry Abby Baby. Sources close to both say things have become normal between the two now a days. Vivek attended the funeral of Abhishek’s grandmother, Teji Bachchan. In fact Abby Baby himself messaged and complimented Vivek’s performance at the IIFA awards, Bangkok.

Seems like friendship day is approaching as Abhishek & Vivek prepare to dance together!