Bollywood Wave

Indian superstar John Abraham has joined Habitat for Humanity in a campaign to end poverty housing in India and around the world. Through a public awareness and volunteer program titled John’s Brigade, the movie star and youth icon is encouraging Indian residents and non-resident Indians around the world to support Habitat for Humanity’s indiaBUILDS campaign. The goal of the five-year indiaBUILDS campaign is to put more than 250,000 low-income people in India into safe, decent and affordable homes and to inspire others to champion innovative solutions for the estimated 315 million Indians who lack a decent place to call home. The program also aims to mobilize 1 million volunteers from India and beyond and raise US$100 million to build affordable housing in India long into the future.

Through public service announcements, Abraham is asking his fans and supporters to join John’s Brigade by volunteering their time to build homes and lend their financial support to meet the indiaBUILDS goal.

Each year indiaBUILDS will feature a headline event to focus attention on poverty housing. This year’s event will be Habitat for Humanity’s international annual Jimmy Carter Work Project. For one week in October, thousands of volunteers from India and around the world will join former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn in a village in Lonavala, Maharashtra, to build houses with local families in need of decent, affordable housing. Some of the more than 2,000 volunteers that week will be members of John’s Brigade.

The dashing John Abraham says that he doesn’t regret not being part of Dhoom 2 – the sequel of Dhoom , which capitulated him to fame.John played the bad man in ‘Dhoom’ but its sequel will have Hrithik Roshan donning the bad man’s robe along with the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai . The film will also star Abhishek Bachchan , Bipasha Basu and Uday Chopra.

But John doesn’t have any regret for not being in the sequel. “I can either be grateful that the prequel was offered to me or crib about the latter. I choose to be thankful,” John told a leading news agency.

On Indian cinema and actors are making a dent abroad, John would rather stay put in Bollywood and have Indian cinema go global in terms of production value and craft.

“I don’t want to sound like a marketing agent for Rang De Basanti but I think it’s the finest example of global piece of Indian cinema,” said the star of films like Jism , Garam Masala , Taxi Number 9211 and Zinda .

John is soaking up the rave reviews for Water which has been received well in Canada, US, Australia and even in neighbouring Sri Lanka, where it is running to packed houses.

“It’s an Indian subject and it’s a pity that the release of the film has been delayed in India. But it will be released here shortly.” he said.

Another film that’s expected to hit the theatres at the end of September or beginning of October is Kabul Express . As a part of his homework , John read Khalid Hosseni’s ‘Kite Runner’ and saw ‘Osama ‘ directed by Siddiq Barmak .

A comedy, where he plays a scribe on an assignment to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime, John said that the film was an eye-opener in ways more than one.

This was the period when Karzai had just come to power. The Talibans were kept locked in Afghani backyards and foreign correspondents would pay up 200 dollars a piece to interview them, he said.

“America has lot of press and PR but’ it’s India that’s doing a whole lot of development work,” stated the 34-year-old talking about the warmth exuded by Afghanis during the shoot.

On the remake mania gripping the film industry, John said, “I think it’s a great trend. It’s raking in the moolah for the industry.”

John added that amongst action, comedy and a romantic lead, he is most comfortable with action. “I think action requires the least bit of acting because that’s really being yourself on screen. Comedy is a bit of work and I admit I made mistakes in ‘Garam Masala’.” he added modestly.

On his favourite director, John said that he’d “give his right arm for Mahesh Bhatt . He is a legend.”

apunkachoice.com

Deepa Mehta’s Water has received a great response abroad. And after much hue and cry, the film will finally hit the screens in India after Diwali. The Censor Board has passed the film with a ‘U’ certificate. Apparently, filmmaker Ravi Chopra will be releasing the film in India. If you are wondering how Chopra got involved, here’s the answer. Lead actor John Abraham is currently working with Chopra for Baabul and he persuaded the director to watch the film. Chopra liked the movie so much that he decided on marketing the movie in India. Water is not usual Bollywood cinema and has to be marketed accordingly and we are sure Chopra can do it.

b4utv.com