Bollywood Blietzkrieg by Subhash K Jha

Love can wait...Work comes first....I remember Bipasha Basu looking like a million bucks on the sets of Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate. Dressed as a hot-shot executive she looked ...hot and ready to be shot!

"Isn't she just right for the part of a hard-nailed entrepreneur?" Madhur's gaze followed her professionally. Sammir Dattani who played a part in the Corporate set-up, joined the director. "I worked with Dimple Kapadia in my last film and I'm working with Bipasha. These ladies are so much in-charge....There's so much to learn from them."

But Bipasha has no patience with compliments. She is a bit flurried at the moment. Anyone could see, she was giving a hundred percent of herself to the power-packed shots of entrepreneurial doings. "So I can give more of myself to the shots after lunch." Nothing stands between Bipasha and her career. Not even John. The man in her life knows he can't call her on her cell-phone when she's working.

Quite a contrast to the screen queens of yester-years. When it came to that man-woman thing their theme song was "Sarey rishte-naate tod ke ke gayee/ Le main tere vaaste sab chod ke aa gayi." Thank God there were no cell phones back then. Not a single film starring Meena Kumari or Rekha would've been completed on time.

There are countless legends about the lengths that the older screen queens went to for love. If Meena Kumari recommended her young brawny garam friend to every filmmaker who would listen to her Zeenat Aman almost gave up her entire career and wealth for a certain Mr Khan.

And what did these two divas finally have to show for their passionate devotion to that achy-breaky feeling called love ? Broken hearts and dreams, not to mention a fatally damaged liver for Meena K and a permanently damaged eye for Zeenat A.

Today's average diva is no fool for love. Shooting down rumors of an involvement with Harman Baweja, Priyanka Chopra told me, "I can't get into a situation where I've to be constantly answerable to anyone....Where are you? What are you doing?....Please! I'm too free-spirited to get tied down. Right now I want to focus only on my work, and whatever free time I've, I want to spend with my parents and kid brother." Work first, then family....the rest can wait ....

The girls in filmdom today know their fundas only to well. Jaya Bhaduri was the reigning queen of Hindi cinema when she gave it all up for love and marriage. Today a Rani Mukherjee or a Preity Zinta wouldn't want to give up their blossoming careers for love and/or marriage. At the same time they know exactly when to pull out for optimum pleasure.

Raveena, blissfully cocooned in domesticity advises her colleague Urmila Matondkar to settle down fast. "She's a wonderful girl and will make a wonderful wife. The time to get married is now." I convey the well-intended message to Urmila. "Sweet of her. But koi hona bhi to chahiye. I can't marry the first man who proposes to me just because this is the right time to do so."

Bipasha is lucky. She knows when to pull the plug on her career tie the knot, and with whom. There are so many screen divas who waited too long, allowed love to slip out of the window. That's why I worry for Manisha Koirala. Silly girl, she has to let go of 'true love' (whatever that might be) repeatedly. I've seen how devoted and attentive her last boyfriend was. At lunch at my place Cecil looked on lovingly as Manisha spoke into the phone, held on to her purse when she went to the rest-room and earnestly discussed plans he had for managing her money. Yup, this was the true thing.

"Ah, now if I were to get a man as devoted as that I'd kick my career in the pants and run to the mandap," a very successful diva tells me. That's what must have run through Zeenat Aman's mind when she ran after love ...and fell on her face. Today she's happy. But what about Meena Kumari who died of a broken heart?

Chalte chalte yuhin koi phisal gaya tha....