~* All about CHAITANYA CHAUDHARY *~ - Page 6

TV queen Ekta Kapoor's much awaited bash at Krishna bungalow was a blast. Apparently, a belated birthday celebration it had all the hotties from TV in

attendance. Ekta true to herself made an entrance at about 1:30 am. And the place just sizzled after that, as she went around with her cocktail test tubes and forced them down her cast's and friends' throats.

Until she arrived brother Tusshar made up for her absence, looking smart and clean, standing close to the bar, giving the likes of Ken Ghosh, Manish Malhotra, Urmila Matondkar, Issha Kopikar, Neelam Kothari, and Goldie Behl company.

Hiten Tejwani came flexing his hairy biceps and with wife Gauri looking slim as a reed and headed straight for the drinks counter. Shabbir Ahluwalia looked sharp with his hair tucked into a peak cap (which later Ekta pulled off and tried for a moment before flopping it back on to his head). All the other Ekta regulars were in attendance: Yash and Gauri Tonk, Chaitanya Choudhary, Eijaz Khan, Anita Hassanandani, Reva Babbar (she needs to lose a few pounds), Narayani Shastri, (making a fashion statement by wearing a dress which displayed her broad hips), Ali Hassan (why has he disappeared from the screen), Manasi Verma (the graceful dancer is gradually gaining weight), Bobby Darling (she went into a clinch with Shabbir as soon as she entered Krishna), Roshni Chopra, Sanjeeda, Rakshanda Khan (she hung around with Anita, Ken, Salil Chaturvedi and a young kid who is being touted as the next biggest thing to hit film after Jaaved Akhtar), Ali Asgar (he is awaiting the release of his films), Gaurav Gera (he spent time with the affable Sony programming head Anupama Mandloi).
Kiran Karmakar and his wife Rinku, Chetan Hansraj and his wife Lavina, Pawan Shankar and his gorgeous wife Yukti, Rajeev and Raakesh Paul, the prodigal Prabhat Bhattacharyya, sweet Nikhil Aryya, the chocolate pin up Naman Shah, Urvashi Dholakia, Jennifer Winget, Preeta Puri, Mushtaq, Anupam Verma, Suneeta Menon, Amit Tandon, Vikas Sethi, Sanjit Bedi, Kushal Punjabi, Aamir Ali, Hiten Paintal and Kishwar, Anoop Soni and his wife, creative director Nivedita Basu, The channels too were represented: Aparna Pandey from Zoom, Sony's Gursheel Walia, and as mentioned earlier the likeable Anupama Mondloi. Shockingly, no one senior from Star or Zee was visible to the Tellychakkar team.

The senior crowd was represented Deepak Parasher, Kailash and Aarti Surendranath, Madhuri Bhatia, Dolly Thakore, Bharati Acherakar, Sushmita Mukherji, Mita Vashist, Vikram Kapadia, and singer Sapna Mukherji.

The highlight of the evening was when one of the older totally sloshed TV actresses and pulled yesteryear film heroine friend's hair and asked her who she was. The film actress turned around and told her she was sick and frustrated. The altercation went on for a while close to the elevator before the older actress was sent packing home. Ekta too joined in the fun later with the film heroine and she indulged in some boisterous girlie banter.

The party continued till the wee hours of the morning and when the Tellychkkar.com team left it looked like it had a lot of life in it. Ekta, you rock! Keep going!

Girls are better cooks, but most chefs are men. Men are physically stronger but girls are more capable of getting what they want. So who is the better, the stronger, the more powerful of the two? The battle of the sexes has raged since Adam and Eve, but no one has ever been able to pronounce a verdict.

But that is exactly what STAR One is aiming to do with Zara Nachke Dikha ' a dance reality show that pits boys against girls in a bid to gauge who is better, at least when it comes to having the better pair of dancing feet.

Launched at the ITC Grand Central Mumbai on Monday evening, Zara Nachke Dikha will have eight boys and an equal number of girls trying to outdo each other on a dance stage over 11 weeks. "In a complete departure from the other dance reality shows seen on Indian television so far, Zara Nachke Dikha introduces the unique concept of pitting the men against the women, a format that is sure to capture the imagination of the audience," said Ravi Menon, EVP-GM, STAR One.

What will also set apart Zara Nachke Dikha from its predecessors is the novel process of elimination that STAR One and

producers SOL have hit upon. "The eight girls and eight boys will compete as two teams. Unlike other shows, there will be no elimination process every week. The weakest participant is penalised, but not eliminated, and the team will have to work doubly hard to get him or her back into the team," explained Menon.

The audience will have no say in terms of public voting with all the power vested in the hands of the judges till they come up with a final winner, or rather a winning team. Due to air sometime in mid July, the show producers are yet to decide on the host and the judges, but promise that they will be "the best in the business".

While Zara Nachke Dikha may boast of some uniqueness in its format, the participants are all familiar faces on television, many of whom have already tried their luck in one reality show or the other. The boys' team comprises Manish Goel, Chaitanya Choudhury, Gaurav Chopra, Amit Tandon, Vikas Sethi, Ali Asgar, Bakhtiyaar Iraani and child actor Amey Pandya. The girls in the battlefield will be Karishma Tanna, Maninee De, Rupali Ganguli, Jennifer Winget, Narayani Shastri, Mouni Roy, Delnaaz Paul and Swini Khara (little 'Sexy' of Cheeni Kum).

And they all have their reasons to participate in Zara Nachke Dikha. "This is my first reality show and there couldn't have been a

better debut for me than Zara Nachke Dikha," said Balaji man Chaitanya, while for television host and actor Maninee, the chance to rub shoulders with "some wonderful dancers and even better co-actors" was the reason.

But the clincher lay in the concept. "It's time we decided who is better between the girls and the boys," said one and all.