How did the king of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and his family travel from Mumbai to Austria for their vacation? By private jet of course.

Shah Rukh Khan, his wife Gauri and their children Aryan and Suhana missed their scheduled flight from Mumbai to Vienna, Austria at the start of their holiday. Whilst most of us ordinary travellers would have to wait for the next available flight, Khan was offered the private jet of Mukesh Ambani, the head of India’s largest company Reliance Industries and the world’s 14th richest man, in order to complete his journey.

The Khans were happy to accept the offer and were joined by former actress Juhi Chawla, her industrialist husband Jay Mehta and their children. The Khans were not the only Bollywood elite in Austria as Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Karan Johar and Rahul Khanna were all rumoured to be enjoying a break in the land of The Sound of Music.

Does this mean that Khan has fallen out of love with his beloved London? “I want to show the kids snow,” explained Khan. After our wintry Easter weekend in the UK, let’s hope he’s not regretting his decision. King Khan can be seen strutting his stuff as a dance ‘item’ boy in Krazzy 4, out on April 11.

Racing ahead

“We are not ruling out the possibility of a sequel,” stated Abbas Alibhai Burmawalla, the director of last week’s big film release Race. The racy but superficial thriller has been a stupendous hit in India and abroad. It has stormed the UK Top 10, with a higher per screen average than Hollywood films such as Horton Hears a Who! and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

A Bollywood night at the opera

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is on an operatic high. The Devdas director returned from Paris to Mumbai earlier this week clearly pleased with the response to his staging of Padmavati at Paris’s second largest opera house the Theatre du Chatelet. According to my source the audience gave the final production of the Hindu opera-ballet based on a Rajasthani folk tale a fifteen minute standing ovation. “All my pain over Saawariya was washed away,” Bhansali beamed, “I never knew there was an operatic influence within me but now I’m hungry for more.” The Indo-opera moves to Italy in June.

A little respect

“I was listening to myself being described in the most colourful language,” actress Celina Jaitley fumed last Sunday when she alleged that members of the Pakistani cricket team abused her after her performance at a cricket match between India and Pakistan. The petite starlet, most famous for emerging from the sea in a bikini and playing a violin in her debut movie Janasheen, wants respect: “They say I am just another Bollywood actress. Does that mean I don’t even command the respect that other women get?”

Missing in London

Where is Konkona Sen Sharma? The actress was supposed to be the chief guest at last night’s closing gala of the 10th annual Tongues on Fire Film Festival in London but she failed to show. The director of the festival that celebrates the achievements of Asian women in cinema cited “film commitments” as the reason for her absence at the screening of Sen’s film Dosar.

Eating out at Shilpa

After an unauthorised biography, a non-alcoholic cocktail, a CD, her own perfume, a yoga DVD and a dance musical, here comes Shilpa the curry house. However, I was disappointed to find out that this new south Indian restaurant in London’s Hammersmith bears no relation to Shetty’s much publicised but yet to materialise promise of a chain of UK restaurants. A spokesperson from the restaurant told me: “The name refers to a Hindu goddess but we would welcome Shilpa Shetty if she came to eat here.”

Not blood brothers

Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan are certainly not brothers, so apologies to readers for the typo in last week’s column which was not in my original copy. In response to the barrage of complaints as to my perceived ignorance, here is a mini-quiz for you dear readers. Can you name the film which features both Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan?

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