Lollywood Lights

A new face
Saima has won applause for her role in the Sarmad Sultan Khoosat-directed television series Piya Naam Ka Diya. The actress showed a new, sensitive side that her fans were not aware of. Meanwhile Khalilur Rehman Qamar has signed her for his next TV series Tere Shehr Mein.

The right steps
Megha is working overtime for her next film release Murshid Badshah. The film starring Haider Sultan in the lead role is eagerly awaited by fans as the actress has trained a lot for some much-talked-about classical dance sequences in the film.

Spend right
Sangeeta is hurt after critics wrote about her spending millions of rupees to shoot for her film Tarap in India. The director convened a protest meeting in Karachi where she snubbed her detractors. Sangeeta had used failed Indian actress Sheeba Bagri in the lead and also got a host of Indian singers to sing the songs. Critics feel she would have aided the industry if she had spent the money to make the film by hiring her lead cast and the musicians from Pakistan.

More confrontations
The success of Humayyun Saeed and Babar Ali's confrontational scenes in a television series has encouraged other actors to get in to similar vocal slug fests onscreen. The latest is Momy Rana and Shabbir Jan who will face each other in the popular television series Suhana. Rana says that he would love doing such scenes if they helped the TRP ratings of the serial to rise even higher.

Facing criticism
Meera's act in the new television series Anarkali is being ridiculed as critics feel a fresh face should have been chosen to play the title role of the courtesan. Viewers use Indian actress Madhubala's role in the Indian classic Mughal-e-Azam as a yardstick and feel Meera is miles away from the freshness that Madhubala epitomised. Comparisons are also being made between Meera and Noor Jahan to thrash Meera's performance. Jahan played the same role in a Pakistani version of Mughal-e-Azam titled Anarkali in the 1950s.