I kind of miss Sunny Leone

HITA
Celebration
time!
Pg 4
BACK BEAT
Bips wants
to do Beedi
Jalaile
again
Pg 16
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LAST
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Komaram Bheem Hindi remake
pits Narendra Modi against KCR
he face that can cause a
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BVS Prakash
Shruti Haasan
Rakul Preet Singh
Kajal Aggarwal
Tejaswi Madivada
Tamannaah
Anasuya
I kind of miss
Sunny Leone
Russell
Peters
Charu.Sharma2@timesgroup.com
hether talking about
racism or his strict father, 44-year-old IndoCanadian stand-up act Russell
Peters has a funny line on
everything. He gets talking
about his ex-flame Sunny
Leone, his humour and more,
ahead of his first performance
in Hyderabad. Excerpts…
W
have time to see movies that I
want to see, let alone movies I
don’t want to see.
So are you ready with your
jokes on Hyderabadis?
(Laughs) I’ve been doing my
homework, don’t worry! I’m
looking forward to coming to
Hyderabad. I’ve had a lot of requests to come there over the
years, so I’m really excited that
it’s finally happening. I love the
biryani and will definitely be
having some when I get there.
Your ex-girlfriend Sunny
Leone recently debuted in Your jokes are certainly not
Tollywood. Did you watch any for the thin-skinned, are they?
of her films?
Every comic act has a style. I
Is it? She’s a great girl, but we
lost touch. I kind of miss her. I
have not seen her work. I don’t
go out of my way to avoid them,
but Bollywood flicks are just not
something I grew up with or
ever watched. In all fairness,
I’ve been so busy I don’t even
A still from
Komaram
Bheem
was really affected by racism
when I was a kid. It affected me
and I wanted to understand it.
I looked for the humour in our
differences and that’s part of
what I explore in my act.
CONTINUED ON PAGE
10
Pooja Hegde
Anushka Shetty
Shriya Saran
Samantha
he 1990 Telugu film
Komaram Bheem seems
to have kick-started an
unlikely game of one-upmanship between Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Telangana
Chief
Minister
K
Chandrasekhar Rao. It has
emerged that Modi and KCR are
vying to nab credit for remaking
Komaram Bheem in Hindi.
It all started when the PM got to
know about the film — based on
Telangana tribal icon Komaram
Bheem — from Governor of Goa
Mridula Sinha, who attended the
death anniversary celebrations of
Komaram Bheem held in
Hyderabad in October, 2014.
“The PM asked Mridula Sinha
to source stills of the film from
it’s director Allani Sreedhar and
promised to help take the story to
the rest of the country,” says a
source in the government.
Recently, Union Minister
Bandaru Dattatreya also reiterated the central government’s
support for Hindi remake. “The
government would be funding `8
to 10 crores for remaking the
film. The script for Hindi version
T
would be submitted to PM very
soon. Search for a suitable hero
to play the legend onscreen is
also on,” adds the source.
Meanwhile, Telangana Chief
Minister KCR who got the wind of
the developments jumped into the
scene and called on producer-director Allani Sreedhar to stress on
the importance of taking the story of Telangana icon to an international audience. “KCR is determined to support the project since
Komaram Bheem is his favourite
Telangana legend,” adds a source
in the Chief Minister’s office.
Allani Sreedhar who directed
and produced the film is only too
happy about the political patronage being showered on his film.
“It’s true that Governor and
Union Minister assured support
to remake the film in Hindi,” admits Sreedhar adding, “The success of bio-pics like Mary Kom,
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Paan
Singh Tomar has proved the
commercial viability of such
films. This will be the first
Hindi biopic on a tribal warrior
and with the right casting and
screenplay, the film can work at
the national and international
level as well.”
Narendra Modi
K Chandrasekhar Rao
WHO IS KOMARAM BHEEM?
tribal leader from Adilabad,
Komaram Bheem fought
against the Asaf Jahi Dynasty for the
liberation of Hyderabad in the pre-independence era. His heroics against
the then ruling Nizam government
made him an icon and after years of
guerrilla warfare, during which he
lived in the forest in Adilabad, he became a martyr in 1940.
A