"There was an initial communication problem and I was sometimes exasperated by the French language. What we say in three words in Hindi takes three sentences in French," Bhansali told IANS in an interview. "Sometimes at the start I felt like saying, 'Can we get along with the show?' We soon got comfortable with one another. It became a wonderful exchange of ideas," he added.

Bhansali, who had four performances of the 1923 opera ballet "Padmavati", written by Albert Rousselan, admits his movies are theatrical.

"The director of the Theatre du Chatelet, Jean-Luc Chopin, told me there's a lot of opera in 'Devdas', 'Black' and 'Saawariya'. I can understand the whole operatic tradition of singing emotions.

"In that sense V. Shantaram has always been a huge influence right from 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'. Even 'Black' was in the same league as Shantaramji's cinema. I love his colours, vibrancy and theatricality. My cinema is also a little theatrical."

Excerpts from an interview:

Q: How did it feel to represent India on a stage as prestigious as the Theatre du Chatelet?

A: It still hasn't sunk in fully. But, yes, I've been able to put on stage whatever I had visualised. I was working with an international cast and team from different countries. And I got their full cooperation. I had my own wonderful team from India - Tanushree Shankar's choreography, Rajesh Pratap Singh's costumes and Omang Kumar's art design. I feel the level of commitment that I found in my team in Paris was exemplary.

I was completely bowled over by the experience. I felt so proud to stand over there representing the country and the film industry in such an unusual capacity. Not once did those seasoned opera artistes make me feel I was new to the vocation.

Yes, there was an initial communication problem and I was sometimes exasperated by the French language. What we say in three words in Hindi takes three sentences in French. Sometimes at the start I felt like saying, 'Can we get along with the show?' We soon got comfortable with one another. It became a wonderful exchange of ideas.

Q: Strangely you had never been to an opera before?

A: Yes, that is right. But I feel you need to connect instinctively with music to understand the opera. For me, the starting point for all my creativity is music. Even after doing 'Padmavati', I don't fully understand the opera. I got the actors to use the space on stage and to perform the way I intuitively thought right.

I didn't need to be a maestro and know the ins and outs of the opera. As long as I understood the soul of 'Padmavati', I was happy. My music conductor, Lawrence Foster, told me I was able to express dramatically the feeling in the music. All the movements just fell into place. This is my only work where I feel no changes can be made.

Q; Don't you feel the same about your films?

A: Of course, I'm much closer to filmmaking, but I always feel there is room to improve in my cinema. I was seduced by the thought of doing an opera. I'm told my films are operatic in mood. I do what comes spontaneously to my heart.

The director of the Theatre du Chatelet, Jean-Luc Chopin, told me there's a lot of opera in "Devdas", "Black" and "Saawariya". I can understand the whole operatic tradition of singing emotions. In that sense, V. Shantaram has always been a huge influence right from "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam". Even "Black" was in the same league as Shantaramji's cinema. I love his colours, vibrancy and theatricality. My cinema is also a little theatrical.

Q: The reviews for "Padmavati" in the international press have been glowing.

A: More than the reviews I feel gratified by the connection I made with the local people. I feel there's a close connection between France and me. "Devdas" is a cult film in Paris.

During the opera I one day went to buy bread. The lady at the counter asked me if I was Indian and if I had seen "Devdas". She called it a very good film. That felt good. My French assistant was amazed. So many people told me in Paris "Saawariya" was so beautiful. I think the French understand my style. French audiences are very hard to please. They can boo you off stage if they don't like your work. But here at the opera they stood and clapped and shouted, 'Bravo, Encore!' I think I'm specially connected with France.

Q: The Theatre du Chatelet wants you back?

A: Yes, I'm seduced by the idea of performing for a live audience. That excitement of getting all the energies right, the stress and tension of going live is intoxicating. And when it works out right the satisfaction is immense.

Though still running in cinemas, the poor show of the two films has already caused a combined loss of approximately Rs.400 million to the industry. The loss includes the money forfeited by Yash Raj Films after multiplexes refused to show "Tashan" for the entire first week of its release following disputes over the percentage of their revenue share of box-office earnings.

With recovery from multiplexes amounting to almost more than 50 percent of the total box-office collections of a movie, "Tashan" bore the brunt most during the crucial week after its release.

Directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, "Tashan" had Bollywood's most saleable actor Akshay Kumar along with most sought after pair Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, but still failed to lure the audiences.

Not only did "Tashan" open with a dismal initial collection of 52 percent, its second week's box-office collections further crashed to 35 percent, despite multiplexes running the movie after settling their dispute with Yash Raj Films.

This may not be so much a financial blow to Yash Raj Films as a blot to its credibility, more so because the banner's three previous films "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom", "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag" and "Aaja Nachle" had also turned out to be damp squibs.

The last hit the banner saw was Shah Rukh Khan starrer "Chak De! India".

Nobody from Yash Raj Films is willing to speak on the subject. "The reasons are being looked into" is all the PR department of the production company said Monday.

The banner has four biggies lined up for release this year. It is being hoped that "Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic", "Bachna Ae Haseeno", animation film "Roadside Romeo" and Aditya Chopra's third directorial venture "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" will turn the tide.

Filmkraft's "Krazzy 4", which opened comparatively better, could not, however, sustain its box-office performance as the audience found the comic caper a crazy ride leading to nowhere.

Starring a host of comic actors, Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon and Irrfan Khan, the film failed for want of a good script.

Ironically, most viewers found Hrithik Roshan's item song - that not only caused a controversy but also put a big hole in producer Rakesh Roshan's pocket - to be the main redeeming feature of the otherwise stale fare.

Its second week's box-office collections stand at 42 percent.

All eyes are now on Filmkraft's next venture "Kites", starring Hrithik, the US-based Spanish model Barbara Mori and Kangana Ranaut. The film, directed by Anurag Basu, will begin shooting soon.

Other cast and credits are still being finalised.

"I knew her for quite some time. We used to stay at Mahim. She was also staying in the same society and we were good friends. When I proposed the first time, she rejected me," Abhijeet told IANS.

However, when he signed up for "Indian Idol", Shilpa started showing special interest in him.

"She would always be there to boost my morale and sit for long hours during the rehearsals and practice. It was during that time we got closer. After winning 'Indian Idol', I proposed to her again. She gracefully agreed and we married within a year."

The 27-year-old became a rage amongst youngsters after winning the first Indian Idol title in 2005. Abhijeet's fan following has not changed after his marriage.

"Truly speaking, I was a little worried before marriage, but after more than five months I am satisfied that everything is all right. I still get calls from quite a number of people and even girls. They still love me."

Talking about changes in life after marriage, he said: "It hasn't changed so much. The only difference is that now she is staying with my parents and me. Otherwise, we are still more like friends than husband and wife. Our parents are also happy."

Abhijeet is set to debut as an actor in "Lottery", which is a musical thriller. He is playing an accountant in the film.

Talking about his acting, he said: "A singing career is not time-bound but acting is; therefore I accepted the offer. I thought I should make use of the opportunity."

"Britain is seen as the world's number one market for Bollywood productions outside India. With Britain-India film co-production agreement, the opportunities for Indo-British partnerships in the film industry are sure to increase," said Creon Butler, British Deputy High Commissioner, in a press statement.

The treaty will also contribute significantly to the strengthening of the skills base in India and Britain.

In 2005 more than 2.5 million watched Hindi films in Britain and Indian films accounted for over 16 percent of all British releases.

Andy Burnham, the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said: "India and Britain both have vibrant film industries and bringing them together in this way opens the door to some exciting new collaborations. Our countries have close cultural and historical connections and it is great that our film industries will be able to work more closely together to develop this further."

Negotiations on the detailed annex to this agreement have now been completed. Once constitutional procedures have been completed in both countries, the agreement will come into force.

This treaty with India is Britain's seventh bi-lateral co-production treaties.

"The cast of the film includes Fardeen Khan, Aftab Shivdasani, Irrfan Khan, Dino Morea, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa and Gulshan Grover. The female lead is yet to be decided. I cannot name anyone now," Gupta said at the launch function Sunday.

On being asked about the inclusion of Bipasha Basu in the cast, Gupta said: "Nothing is finalised yet. I will let you know at the appropriate time."

Like his previous films "Kaante" and "Musaafir", this one too is a thriller.

"The film is a thriller with loads of action where the identity of every character is kept secret and every character is suspicious of the other," said Gupta.

The film, which goes on floors from May 19, is being produced by Gupta's White Feather Films. Suparn Verma, who made his directorial debut with "Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena", will be at the helm of the project.

Verma feels White Feather Films is the banner to produce this kind of story.

He said: "The subject appealed to me as well as Gupta. It is the right type of film house to be associated with. We both agreed to the style and hence it goes. Acid factory is a place where the film revolves. It won't be wrong if I say that 'Acid Factory' is a character among all other actors."

About the shooting locations, the director said: "In India, we will shoot in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad and all the outdoors will be canned in Cape Town in South Africa. We will shoot songs in Mumbai."

Tinnu Verma has been signed as the action director and says he has the most challenging job. "Since action plays a pivotal role in the film, I have the most challenging job to perform. A car chase in Cape Town will be one of the action scenes worth watching. We will be using techniques that have never been used before."

Even "Gauri - The Unborn", the last movie heavily promoted as a horror flick by Bollywood, is also more of a social documentary than spooky fare.

Interestingly, the trend seems to be global. The Hollywood offering "The Devil's Rejects" was a blockbuster, but it found no mention in any of the important award ceremonies.

Film observers feel that the horror genre seems to have got so eroded that it is not taken seriously any more. At the most they are seen as a novelty, but never get the respect that they deserve.

A typical horror film is ignored by most critics and hence never considered as anything more than a one-off. The fault, however, lies with the makers of spine-chillers. The trend and abundance of horror movies and their sequels have caused the overall lack of recognition and quality of the horror genre.

Scenes of a lady wearing a white sari, carrying a candle, with open hair, singing 'Gumnaam hai koi...' and walking aimlessly are images that used to send a chill down one's spine decades ago. But the concept was repeated so often that these images are now staple scenes for making mockery of Bollywood's bygone era.

Ramsay brothers, who were famous for both horror movies and serials, reigned supreme as the masters of this genre for a long time in the Hindi film industry with their low-budget movies filled with a lot of bloodshed and creatures without hands and heads. The formula worked initially, but then subsequent sequels failed to click at the box-office.

Not only Bollywood, the horror genre internationally has suffered from the tendency to repeat itself till audiences become tired of the same thing. Horror films featuring larger-than-life villains are among the earliest motion pictures made. The silent vampire horror, "Nosferatu", in 1922 was copied many times over.

Then came a string of Frankenstein films. The character of Frankenstein alone saw many sequels including, "Bride of Frankenstein", "Son of Frankenstein", "Frankenstein Meets Wolfman", and the list goes on. Overexposure of the originally creepy character made his legacy fade and had the audience wanting more.

In the next phase, films were based on the psychologically-misfits that relied less on monsters and special effects and more on human struggles and emotion. They are considered some of the best movies of the horror genre and many people say that this genre started with Alfred Hitchcock's landmark film "Psycho" that brought out the fear that normal people can do such gruesome things.

To up the fear quotient, filmmakers decided to infuse blood and gore in films featuring socio-paths who had no regrets in their killing ways. Thus came about the slayer genre. One of the first big movies was John Carpenter's "Halloween". Though everybody likes a good fright once in a while, these movies lost credibility due to the assault of sequels.

In between, were some good horror films like the "Silence of the Lambs" starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. But very soon, Hollywood went back to slayer days with success of "Scream" leading to more clones than one can care to count. The situation is such that now both serious cinemagoers and the critics ignore even good horror movies.

In India, Ram Gopal Verma is the true inheritor from Ramsay brothers. He first spooked us in "Darna Mana Hai" and then followed up with "Bhoot", which were both commercially successful and have bagged awards in categories like background score and acting. But even he has since come out with sub-par remakes, leaving one wondering whether the genre is all but dead in Bollywood.

"Do you think I'm a rejected man?" - the villain asks repeatedly after his true intentions are exposed at the end of this tediously assembled pastiche of bad and ugly.

Don't know about the poor battered psycho who contorts his face like his pants were just bitten off by a colony of ants. But this film sure looks like a collage of rejected footage from a series of canned films that filmmakers made and forgot to go back to.

The characters don't talk in "Jimmy", they scream dialogues and matching their screechy decibel of dialogue is the sound of cars skidding, screeching and groaning in and out of the frames.

"Jimmy" takes us into the kingdom of the dangerously damned. And none as damned as the audience, which sits to the end to watch Mithun Chakraborty's son Mimoh dance on glass, in a manner of slipping.

Mimoh doesn't dance; he glides! He doesn't moonwalk, he trapezes through a field of corrupted corn planted by a screenwriter whose mind seems to have stopped working two decades ago.

How else do we explain the crass and clamorous crowd of crippling clichis, like the over-painted weepy mother, the over-painted giggly girlfriend, her over-panting suitor, the hero's rich friend (Zulfi Zayed in the think-less part), the gaggles of villains and good Samaritans - all crammed in one line of strained vision, which recalls the worst moments of television from the time when Doordarshan ruled the roost.

Mimoh gets a nightmare launch worthy of being canned for good. What were the people behind this film thinking when they decided to put together a film so tacky and tattered at the edges it makes a mockery of poor Mimoh's star aspirations?

Director Raj N. Sippy made some engaging wannabe Hollywood flicks in the 1970s and 80s, all cleverly adapted from American films, but never slipshod.

Ironically, "Jimmy" rips off Hindi films from the 1970s including Mithun's gyratory Jimmy-hijinks like "Disco Dancer" and the Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Majboor".

All in vain. The plot is propelled by gallery of grotesque caricatures.

This is cinema at its worst. Gimmicky and overblown with no hope for escape because you want to watch Mithun's boy trying to make his way out of this film with no exits.

Only Rahul Dev seems to be blessed with a twist of sobriety in the film.

"Fabulous!" is how Gauri, who plays Nandini in "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi", describes her experience of being with King Khan.

Parul Chauhan and Sarah Khan of "Sapna Babul Ka...Bidaai" also took part in the same episode, which will be telecast on STAR Plus Sunday. Both said they had goose bumps after seeing him.

"He (Shah Rukh) made us so comfortable on the sets. He even arranged a mock shoot for us so that we would be able to shoot for the show conveniently," Gauri told IANS on phone from Mumbai.

"Shah Rukh is very enthusiastic and energetic and he is so friendly that we didn't even feel that we were shooting with a star like him," she said.

The programme, formatted on the US game show "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader", features adult contestants facing questions picked directly from school textbooks.

Parul, who plays Ragini in "Sapna Baabul Ka…", gushed with excitement when asked about her stint on the show. She is an ardent fan of the superstar and admits having seen all his movies.

"When I saw Shah Rukh, it seemed that my life had stopped for a split second. I kept looking at him until he came and hugged us (Sarah and me)," she said.

She went on to explain how Shah Rukh humbly allowed Sarah and herself to kiss "the cute dimples on his cheeks". "We danced with him on 'Mahi Ve' and he also let us sing the title track of our show. It was the most memorable day of my life," Parul said.

Sarah, who plays Parul's sister on their serial, said: "It was a very nice experience meeting him. We chatted a lot together."

Gauri's husband Hiten, also of "Kyunkii..." fame, says they were slightly sceptical about being on the show earlier.

"I really enjoyed myself on the show but the fact that we would be facing questions that we studied almost 25-30 years ago made us a little unsure about being there," he said.

He said the five kids on the show are really smart and helpful. About the show, he said: "One might be knowing all the answers. But when you face the camera, you tend to forget."

But Hiten was happy that he and Gauri could answer most questions posed to them.

According to sources at the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, the singer came to the hospital earlier this week with chest pain. “He has undergone surgery and is recovering fast,” a senior doctor said.

Doctors declined to divulge details.

The 66-year-old singer, who has been ailing on and off for a few months, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Bombay Hospital in Mumbai in October.

Singh, one of the best known ghazal singers in the country, has a number of albums to his name. He has also sung for scores of Hindi films.

Some of his memorable ghazals are "Hontho se chhoo lo tum, mera geet amar kar do", "Jhuki jhuki si nazar", "Tumko dekha to" and "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho".