Great to have Ash around: Abhishek

How does it feel to be married?
It feels wonderful. I'm back to work. Nothing has changed drastically. But it's a wonderful feeling to be married to one's best friend.

I thought your dad was your best friend?
Can't I have two best friends? I'm a very friendly person.

Is it possible to be best friends with your wife?
I don't know about others. But I am. I guess I'm lucky.

Your marriage was the most talked about event in recent time...
Was it? I was so much in the thick of the wedding and its preparations that I wasn't really paying any attention to what was happening outside . Admittedly, the whole process of getting married and the rituals were unique to me. I couldn't be looking at what was happening in the big wide world outside.

But you couldn't be impervious to the constant attention that the wedding attracted across the world?
I was! I got to know about it only after the wedding. Obviously we knew my wedding would attract some amount of attention. But this? We aren't that important.

Obviously the media didn't think so.
It was their choice to cover the wedding so extensively. If they thought so, I respect that. I've always said that the media is the conscience of the nation. So why not let them do their job?

Some of the attention was excessive and offensive.
If you allowed untoward incidents to take away from the happiness of the moment then you're weak and you don't deserve that happiness. You should know your priorities. We didn't allow lies to impinge on our moment of happiness.

Some of your close friends thought that there was no need to be so secretive?
I don't think we were being secretive. We were just keeping my wedding private. I think we had the right to do that. People seem to forget my family decided to keep my wedding a small affair because I've an ailing grandmother in the hospital. Would I've called everyone if I could? Why wouldn't I want all my friends in my moment of happiness? And I'd have wanted them to be there with us. I can't complain and cannot make people understand. If some people think our conduct wasn't good enough I'm very sorry, there's nothing I can do about it.

The past months have been a whirlwind for you...
I look back very fondly on the entire experience.

How does it feel to have a new member in the household?
Aishwarya is a new and very important member of the family. And she fits in wonderfully. It's so wonderful just to have her around the house. The house starts glowing when she's around and things look dull when she's out. My parents are just so happy to have another daughter-figure in the house.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Review

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (romance)
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta
Direction: Shaad Ali Sahgal

Bunty isn’t bubbly at all. As for bubbly, she’s lost her zing too. With both Abhishek and Preity, the quintessential Ms Bubbly, creating zero masti on screen, it’s left to the next best bakras to juggle up the requisite bedlam that usually forms the bedrock of Shaad Ali’s entertainers. Can Punjabi puttar Bobby Deol and Southall’s sharp-tongued slut, Lara Dutta save the day for our high-profile film production house? Nah! Even Amitabh Bachchan’s attempts to recreate the kaala jadu of ‘Kajra re’ with his Jack Sparrow-meets-desi gypsy jigs fails to give Yash Raj films its next big hit. There simply is no spin in the tale. End result? The bechara viewer keeps waiting — and waiting — to jhoom. To no avail.

So what’s the problem with the film? The confusion primarily springs from the director’s attempts to be oversmart and give a new take to Bollywood romance. One where the story unfolds more through the dialogues than through episodes. But unfortunately, the conversation between the Pakistani girl (Preity) and the chokra from Bhatinda (Abhishek) as they wait for their respective ‘fiancees’ on a crowded London station is mostly inaudible, inarticulate and a load of gobbledygook.

They both talk a lot, yet the talkathon — and their endless tales — fail to make you laugh, even though there is an attempt to create a series of bizarre situations. Zinta tells the story of her romance with the super-rich Deol who saved her from a crumbling Superman and Abhishek weaves a fable about a French kiss with Lara Dutta. But really, the stories aren’t funny at all.

Secondly, there is the hangover of Bunty aur Babli all through the film. Everybody seems to be a con artist here and the truth lies somewhere in between the seen and the heard. But unlike the earlier film which became a metaphor for small-town dreams and success stories, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom shows a great disconnect, both with the cosmopolitan viewer and the mofussil dreamer.

Even the romance seems unreal, minus an emotional core and leaves you cold. While Preity is too plastic as the Paki-Brit girl, Abhishek is absolutely awkward as the downmarket Brit from Bhatinda. Bobby and Lara have little to do while Mr Bachchan gets repetitive as the street singer who sings the same song and dances the same steps, again and again. The only thing that works is the music, another foot-thumping score from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
Despair. This one might just end up as the great summer let-down.