ASH IS THE BEST
They don’t have to ask the mirror. We have got the answer from our readers. In the new poll on the prettiest star wife in Bollywood, Aishwarya Rai has emerged the winner.

Star wives are a curious lot. Never to be really sidelined by the attention their hubbies hog, they indeed get as much strobe-lights flickering with their beauty, charm and persona. In a chat show recently, Hrithik Roshan frankly admitted that his wife Sussanne Roshan gets hit on more at parties than he. Shahrukh Khan’s wife Gauri Khan has been described as ‘stunningly beautiful’ by filmmaker Mira Nair. Likewise Kajol, now a mother of two, can still make heads turn at a do. Not to forget Twinkle Khanna who can leave the guys weak at the knees.

But it’s Aishwarya Rai, once named the ninth most beautiful woman in the world, who has been voted the prettiest star wife with 39 percent ayes of the total 1830 votes the poll got.

Who else got how many votes? Read on ahead…

In an online survey, actor Aishwarya Rai was voted as the Best Actress of 2010 for her performance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish.

Aishwarya plays Hrithik Roshan’s nurse in the film. Out of 10,867 votes cast, Ash got 77% of the votes, more than the likes of Kajol (My Name
is Khan), Katrina Kaif (Raajneeti) and Vidya Balan (Ishqiya).

Kajol was the runners up with 17 per cent votes while Katrina Kaif bagged 3 per cent of the total votes. Vidya Balan, too, got 3 per cent.

In an online popularity contest conducted by Desifans.com, Aishwarya Rai defeated Shah Rukh Khan by a huge margin to win the title of the Most loved Desi Celeb. While Khan got a 32.2 per cent share of votes, Rai won 67.8 per cent. Not only Khan, Rai also nudged Katrina

Kaif.

In another online survey, Rai has also been voted as the Best Actress of 2010 for her performance in Guzaarish. Out of 10,867 votes cast, Aishwarya won 77 per cent.

This time, she was competing against the likes of Kajol (My Name is Khan), Katrina Kaif (Raajneeti) and Vidya Balan (Ishqiya). While Kajol was the runners up with 17 per cent votes, Katrina Kaif bagged 3 per cent of the total votes. Vidya Balan, on the other hand, barely managed 3 per cent of the total votes.

Katrina Kaif may be the cream of the season what with her item song ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’ being played in every discotheque but if we talk of the numero uno actress then the Barbie Doll of Bollywood has still a lot of catching to do to match with the mantle of Aishwarya Rai.
In an online survey, former Miss World Aishwarya Rai has been voted as the Best Actress of 2010 for her stellar performance in the film ‘Guzaarish.’ Even though the film didn’t make a mark at the box office, the performances were hailed by the critics and certainly Aishwarya looked sublime in her role of Sophia.

Aishwarya plays a nurse in the film who is the walking stick of wheelchair bound quadriplegic patient Hrithik Roshan. Out of 10,867 votes cast, Aishwarya won a decisive 77 percent and thus claimed the trophy to best actress.
In the process, she nudged past the likes of Kajol (My Name is Khan), Katrina Kaif (Rajneeti) and Vidya Balan (Ishqiya). Kajol was the runners up with 17 percent votes while Katrina Kaif bagged 3 percent of the total votes. Vidya Balan, too, barely managed 3 percent which is surprising since she had won numerous trophies for Paa the previous season.
So, for the moment it’s advantage Aishwarya Rai. You can move over the likes of Kareena, Priyanka and Deepika. The veteran Aish is here to stay.

Close to two decades of constant media attention, yet she remains a glittering icon, more symbol than real, defined almost entirely by how she looks.

Aishwarya Rai has an ‘adjective’ problem. She is reportedly the highest paid actress in Indian cinema with her pick of the best roles, banners and directors. Each of her movies in 2010 — Raavan, Robot, the recently released Action Replayy, and soon to premiere Guzaarish — is a five-star production that most actresses can only dream about. This is the face that has launched a thousand magazine articles, and yet not one word in them reveals the woman behind that immaculate visage. Nearly two decades of constant media attention later, she remains a glittering icon, more symbolic than real, defined entirely by how she looks. “I don’t know of anyone who is crazy about Aishwarya,” says filmmaker and critic Paromita Vohra. “[Hers] is a sort of empirical or quantitative success, by virtue of ticking off all the correct surface qualities.” And that perfect ‘surface’ is all that everyone talks about.

Her leading men tend to be oddly laconic in their compliments. Take, for example, Hrithik Roshan, an actor with whom the reigning Bollywood queen shares true celluloid chemistry. Earlier this year, Roshan described the lowly Kangana Ranaut as “an incredible actor” with “no ego” whose “spirit and enthusiasm is infectious”. Yet in a recent interview promoting Guzaarish, Hrithik Roshan was more reserved: “She is one of my favourite co-actors. Ash and I have proven to be a 100 per cent success.” Her Action Replayy co-star, Akshay Kumar, worked just as hard at saying very little. Describing the experience as “interesting”, he added, “it’s also refreshing to work with someone with whom I have not worked with for a while.” Rai’s staunchest admirers tend to damn her with impersonal praise. Directors and dance choreographers rave about her “work ethic”, while fans laud her “dignity” and “poise”. The most her own husband can do is describe her as “a true professional”. At best, she’s a perfect looking, perfectly behaved actress, a model of good behaviour than a flesh-and-blood woman of substance. “Perfection can be its own curse; it may be admirable but not appealing,” says author Sanjay Suri.

Ash’s critics, on the other hand, have no problem in getting specific and personal — accusing her of being all ‘surface’, all the time. She’s been attacked as “fake”, “manipulative”, and “self-obsessed”; a “cosmetic wonder” with an “impeccable hype record”. In comparison, her most vigorous defenders only get personal when they attack her attackers. “Throughout her career, the media has painted Aishwarya as ‘plastic’, an ‘ice-maiden’, ‘wooden’, ‘artificial’ and a ‘non-actress’. This, despite the fact that she has acted in more than 40 films … entered the industry as an outsider, without a godfather. Today her face is more recognised globally than any other Indian actor,” rants author Chetan Bhagat, accusing her critics of “Ash envy”. Not that we are envious, but she is merely successful, a descriptor devoid of any emotive attribute. No one defends Aishwarya as funny, kind, goofy, or sweet (or even temperamental and complicated) — except for Rai herself, who has long fronted a giggly, nice girl persona in all her interviews, perhaps in compensation for this lingering silence.

Yet the actress’s best efforts to convince us otherwise have come to nigh, and for good reason. Even the most unfair criticism is bolstered by a very real lacuna of personality that has come to define Rai’s movie career. Her screen presence seems to lack a certain human essence, a signature quality that a great star brings to each of her roles. Rekha, for example, exudes a tempestuous sensuality, whether playing a courtesan, housewife, or matriarch, as opposed to Madhuri Dixit’s effervescent sex appeal, Kajol’s spunky independence or Rani Mukherjee’s girl-next-door sincerity. This unique quality gives nuance, depth, and texture to each of their roles. It makes us, the viewers, both love the character on the screen and the person who makes her real.

“Movies are powerful because they create a sense of intimacy. In the dark confines of the theatre, the viewer feels connected to the actor, begins to feel like he knows him or her,” says film historian Theodore Bhaskaran. With Rai, no such connection is possible because she emits nothing. In each of her films, she is a blank cipher wreathed in perfect clothes and lighting, without the tell-tale, ragged edges of the human presence behind the mask. As Gertrude Stein said famously of the city of Oakland, “There’s no there there.” A reason why one BBC reviewer notes, “the incandescent beauty and artistry of Aishwarya does indeed keep the audience watching, though not necessarily emotionally engaged”. In the place of self is static which she flails to disguise by over-acting. As she rightly boasts, Rai favours character-driven roles, lavish period productions, and talented directors, but more so in the hope that they may help camouflage that lack of affect. Much of the invective hurled at her acting — plastic, robotic, wooden — is but a futile attempt to explain that puzzling absence.

Whether she’s playing a Rajput princess or holding a press conference, Rai’s public avatar is a gleaming, polished surface that deflects all attempts at intimacy. All we’re left with is her undeniable physical perfection, which however eye-popping does not elicit frail, mortal desire. “She’s someone you’d want to behold, not hold. She is like crystal, the finest piece you might find at Swarovski,” says Suri. “But she is all appearance, and the appearance itself overwhelms her and those who look at her so very much that she cannot be allowed to be anything but her appearance.” Yet it’s that flawless, upmarket ‘appearance’ that reflects the true aspiration of new India: to be beheld in speechless admiration. As long as Rai remains picture-perfect, we’ll never tire of looking at her. She is, after all, the prettiest trophy mounted on the walls of our rising, shining India.

For the past couple of days, rumours have been doing the rounds that actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai has been roped in by French diary brand Danone to endorse its products.
Kajol, B-town’s dusky and powerful actress, is already a campaigner for Danone and reports were fluttering in that Ash, too, has boarded the Danone wagon. However, the spokesperson of Ash has dismissed these rumours shrugging them off as merely trash gossip.
In fact, questions are being raised on the professionalism of Danon which, perhaps, initially spawned these untrue reports. Aishwarya’s publicist states, “Media reportage on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan signed on as the brand ambassador for Danone products is entirely untrue. This kind of vicarious publicity shows unprofessionalism on part of the brand and their agency. We would again like to reiterate that there is no truth to these rumours and would request the media in future to cross-check facts with us before reporting such false and untrue stories.”

In this current era of high tech gadgets, reports run so fast that one feels, at times, news is created even before the incident happens; stretcher is ready even be

Beauty queen-turned-actress Aishwarya Rai has denied being the brand ambassador for French dairy brand Danone – as has been reported in the media.

Danone has a joint venture (JV) with Yakult in India, for which Kajol is the brand ambassador. Rumours were rife that besides the JV, Danone was also planning to go independent and Aishwarya was roped in as the face for it. The actress’ publicist has denied the reports.

“Media reportage on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan signed on as the brand ambassador for Danone products is entirely untrue. This kind of vicarious publicity shows unprofessionalism on part of the brand and their agency,” said a statement from her publicist.

“We would again like to reiterate that there is no truth to these rumours and would request the media in future to cross-check facts with us before reporting such false and untrue stories,” it further read.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer ‘Endhiran’, and Kareena Kapoor starrer ‘We are family’, is soon going to be locking horns at the box office on the 3rd of September!
The two flicks, which are touted as being two of the greatest releases in the second half of this year will surely have a tough time in competing with each other, as both have a very powerful star cast with an equally powerful subject, and even more powerful directors backing them up!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has managed to raise the female stars benchmark with this film ‘Endhiran’, has reportedly been paid a whopping sum of Rs. 6 crores, the highest ever paid to a female star in B- Town.
This robotic sci- fi lick has been made with a grand budget touching a mind blowing Rs. 200 crores and also stars one of the most popular southern super stars Rajnikanth.The director Shankar, well known down south for his great film making strategies, has left no stone unturned in making this grandest of the grand flick, and a real humdrum is already doing the rounds, as the release of the film is awaited, almost impatiently!
On the other hand, the Siddharth Malhotra directed flick- ‘We Are Family’, made under the Dharma Productions banner, owned by Karan Johar, boasts of a very powerful star cast, like Arjun Rampal, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor.
Kareena Kapoor, who has an equal number of fan following like Aishwarya, will still have to face stiff competition with the exquisite beauty. Reportedly, Kareena has done awe some job in the flick, and everyone from the film unit is raving about her amazing performance.
Thus, the locking of horns at the box office on the 3rd of September is unavoidable, and it is just a matter of a few days, before we get to see who is more popular, Aishwarya or Kareena!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer ‘Endhiran’, and Kareena Kapoor starrer ‘We are family’, is soon going to be locking horns at the box office on the 3rd of September!
The two flicks, which are touted as being two of the greatest releases in the second half of this year will surely have a tough time in competing with each other, as both have a very powerful star cast with an equally powerful subject, and even more powerful directors backing them up!
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has managed to raise the female stars benchmark with this film ‘Endhiran’, has reportedly been paid a whopping sum of Rs. 6 crores, the highest ever paid to a female star in B- Town.
This robotic sci- fi lick has been made with a grand budget touching a mind blowing Rs. 200 crores and also stars one of the most popular southern super stars Rajnikanth.The director Shankar, well known down south for his great film making strategies, has left no stone unturned in making this grandest of the grand flick, and a real humdrum is already doing the rounds, as the release of the film is awaited, almost impatiently!
On the other hand, the Siddharth Malhotra directed flick- ‘We Are Family’, made under the Dharma Productions banner, owned by Karan Johar, boasts of a very powerful star cast, like Arjun Rampal, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor.

Kareena Kapoor, who has an equal number of fan following like Aishwarya, will still have to face stiff competition with the exquisite beauty. Reportedly, Kareena has done awe some job in the flick, and everyone from the film unit is raving about her amazing performance.
Thus, the locking of horns at the box office on the 3rd of September is unavoidable, and it is just a matter of a few days, before we get to see who is more popular, Aishwarya or Kareena!

There were hundreds of stories floating on how cinematographer-cum-filmmaker Rajeev Menon, who made Kandukondein Kandukondein with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Tabu, and Sapne with Kajol, was supposedly doing an Abhimaan kind of a flick with Ash and hubby Abhishek.

It is now being rumoured that though Rajeev was in queue before filmmaker Mani Ratnam, who used the Ash-Abhi combo for Raavan, the superstar couple gave Mani preference over Rajeev.

But now it’s said that after the debacle of Raavan, the Rajeev film may not take off because the trade would much rather see Aishwarya romance other heroes, and Abhishek serenade Katrina or Kareena.