Katrina and Akshay in Amritsar

It's pretty hard to find a pic of Katrina Kaif looking anything but glamorous, but photographers caught a few of her as she accompanied Akshay Kumar to the Golden Temple in Amritsar.  The two were in town to promote Tees Maar Khan and stopped to pay their respects (or further promote their film, who knows at this point) at the temple.

I'm going to assume this was taken fairly early in the morning and I get that it was chilly but Katrina's looking pretty rough here.  Minimal makeup, totally fine.  Bulky jacket, probably necessary.  But what on earth is on her head?  I'm sure it's meant to be a scarf but it looks like a beaten up do-rag that you'd wear when you were fourteen and on a basketball team and trying to look cool but you weren't quite pulling it off.  She's got a team of six trillion stylists and assistants traveling with her--couldn't they have come up with something better than this?  (Also what's going on with her lips...has she had them done again?)

My Minor Encounter With the Stars

I was cleaning up some of my picture files tonight and found this--it's from SALTAF 2008 in Washington DC (and not the greatest quality, mostly because I was too excited to take a non-shaky picture).

I'd been planning on going to SALTAF (the South Asian Literature and Theatre Arts Festival) for months prior to the actual weekend of the event, but I got a bit of a late start that morning and that combined with some nasty weather made me more inclined to want to just stay in my nice warm bed rather than trudge downtown to the Smithsonian.  In a bit of an effort to motivate myself to wake up I checked the website for the event again, as a sort of "Melissa!  Get off your ass and get out the door!" gesture.  And it's a damn good thing I did, because they'd updated their guest list overnight with some last-minute arrivals.  The first was Sooni Taraporevala, who is one of my all-time favorite screenwriters and who would be there to premiere her new film "Little Zizou."

The second was Boman Irani.  Boman Freaking Irani!  I don't have words to express how much I love that man.  Love love love.  He was flying in with Sooni to take questions about the film (which he starred in).

If there's anything that'll get me out of bed, showered, dressed, and onto a packed metro train at 7am, it's the prospect of meeting Boman Irani.  So off I went--and here he is, looking dapper and awesome in the only picture I took that came even remotely close to being decent.

Boman Irani, center, and Sooni Taraporevala, left.

Song of the Day--Zara Jhoom Jhoom (Tom Dick and Harry)

It's, uh, been about a month since I posted here.  I've got a ton of half-written posts lingering on my dashboard that I'm not quite ready to finish yet, so this post is mostly just me sending up an "I'm still alive!" flare from my island of unproductiveness.  (Shut up Firefox and your little squiggly red lines, "unproductiveness" is totally a word.)

I think this post is as good a time as any to insert an important caveat about my Song of the Day posts:  just because I call something my Song of the Day does not mean I think it's good.  I mean obviously I find the songs tolerable or I wouldn't have taken the time to seek out a decent vid of them, but this song is case in point.  Four or five years ago I thought this song was, like, totally badass.  "Look at those dancers!  They're wearing leather!  There are girls.  On motorcycles.  This is soooo MTV.  I am cool by virtue of listening to this song.  Himesh just really likes hats guys--I'm sure he has a full head of hair under there.  He just wears hats for street cred.  DUH."

Now I watch this video and sort of cringe a bit.  You probably do to.

But let's not lie:  in secret we're all totally jamming to this song.  ;)

Conan O'Brien Does India

This is pretty much my new favorite thing.  It's an extended version of Conan's Amex ad, shot in India and it's beautiful.  I think I've watched it about twenty times tonight and still crack up when he starts gossiping with the women doing their laundry.  Check it out.

Sridevi--My Top 5

Another belated Sridevipalooza post!  I amassed a pretty decent number of vids during Sridevi Week and thought I'd organize a few and do my own little Sridevi countdown.  What would your top 5 Sridevi videos be?  Here are mine...

(A drumroll would be appropriate here I think...)

#5

Dhak Dhak Jiya Kare (Joshilay)

#4

Tandav Dance (Chandni)

#3

Main Tere Dushman (Nagina)

#2
Morni Baagha Maa (Lamhe)

#1

Mere Hatoon Mein (Chandni)