Latest news with #AakhreeRaasta
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
‘King' Dilip Kumar was served tea in a silver kettle, ate lunch, took a nap and left: Anupam Kher recalls shooting first film with ‘Tragedy King'
No one can forget the iconic moment from Subhash Ghai's Karma, when Dilip Kumar's character slaps Anupam Kher's Dr Dang, prompting him to deliver the legendary line: 'Iss thappad ki goonj ab tumhe sunai degi' (The echo of this slap will now ring in your ears). Reflecting on the unforgettable sequence in a recent interview, Anupam Kher shared his memories of shooting the scene and working alongside the legendary Dilip Kumar in Karma. Calling him a 'king', Anupam shared that Dilip worked at his leisurely pace and people around him, never seemed to feel bad even when he decided to take off without giving a single shot. 'He was like a king,' Anupam recalled in a chat with Filmfare. 'On the first day of shooting Karma, I was ready by 7 am even though I had been filming for Arjun till 5 that morning. I told them I needed to be out by 7, and they kept delaying, pulling my leg. But I showed up fully prepared, beard on, in character as Dr Dang. It was my first day on set.' Anupam further painted a vivid picture of Dilip Kumar's grand entrance later that morning. He shared that the actor stepped out of a luxury car, was served tea in silver uensils, took a nap and decided to take off without shooting anything. 'At around 11 a.m., a white Mercedes arrived. One foot stepped out, wearing white trousers, then he emerged, just like a king. He said, 'Bring me tea,' and they served it in a silver kettle with biscuits. By the time he finished, it was lunchtime,' he said. All the while, Anupam was waiting in full costume, rehearsing intensely. 'I was eager to make an impression. After lunch, he said, 'I'd like to take a nap,' and I said, 'Of course, sir.' We shot a few other scenes in the meantime. Around 3:30, he said, 'Let's leave it for today. We'll do it tomorrow.' And I again said, 'Yes sir, absolutely.' He had a way of saying things that made it impossible to refuse. That's why he did only about 60 films over a 50-year career. I've done 545 films in 40 years. But he, he was a king.' Also Read | Anupam Kher asked Dilip Kumar to slap him hard on Karma set, actor replied: 'This is a Pathaan's hand, your whole face will…' Anupam also spoke about his first experience working with another legend, Amitabh Bachchan, during the shooting of the revenge drama Aakhree Raasta. He admitted that when he met Amitabh for the first time, he himself was 'arrogant.' 'I thought I had already done a lot of films,' Anupam said. 'We were shooting in Chennai, it was extremely hot, and there was no air conditioning on set. I was complaining to the production manager, saying, 'Where's my AC?' He said, 'Sir…' and then I asked him who I had the scene with. He told me I had a scene with Amitabh Bachchan, who was already ready at 9 o'clock.' He admitted to reacting sharply: 'I said, 'Okay, okay… don't teach me professionalism now.'' Then came the moment he first saw Amitabh on set. 'There he was, with fake beard, moustache, wig, sitting quietly, wrapped in a wool blanket, reading a book in that sweltering heat,' Anupam said. Awestruck, he approached the superstar and introduced himself. 'He replied, 'Yeah, yeah, I've seen Saaransh. Very good. Sit down, sit down.'' Curious and baffled, Anupam asked how Amitabh could endure such heat while wearing so much. The answer, he said, became a life lesson. 'I asked him, 'Aren't you feeling hot?' And he said, completely straight-faced, 'If I think of heat, I feel it. If I don't think about it, I don't feel it.' I was stunned. That moment taught me so much. From that day, I've never complained about the heat again. That's why he's a legend. That was one of the biggest lessons of my life, and I've carried it with me ever since.'
Deccan Herald
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Deccan Herald
Films led me to atheism
Films have played a huge part in the way I think – Amitabh Bachchan was my childhood hero. It was sometime in 1987 that as an eight-year-old, on a summer vacation at cousins' in Madras, I went to watch a Hindi remake of a superhit Tamil film. Big B was in a double role, Sridevi and Jayaprada were in it, and all were at the peak of their stardoms. In Aakhree Raasta (The Last Option), Bachchan reprised in Hindi what Kamal Haasan essayed in Oru Kaidhiyan Diary (A Prisoner's Diary) from 1985. As an adult, now I wonder how on earth I was allowed to watch such a film in the cinema hall. I had watched Sholay earlier, and what happened to the upright cop played by Sanjeev Kumar haunted Aakhree Raasta, Bachchan plays David, a poor, trusting party worker to a good-seeming but ultimately vile politician who rapes David's wife (Jayaprada). She hangs herself, leaving a note of what happened, and leaves behind their little son. When he seeks justice, the politician, the police, and the lawyers ensure evidence is burned, and Bachchan is framed and jailed for 20 years. In jail, he asks his best friend (Anupam Kher) to ensure that his son grows up to become the most evil person in the world and take revenge for what happened to his mother. To my child's imagination, that first half of Aakhree Raasta did enough damage along with Sholay that there existed any god. The 1980s are generally considered to be the nadir of Bollywood. Even then, they made commercial hits that could shake you up like Aakhree Raasta. Still a child, I knew I wasn't watching just a film, but seeing discomfiting reflections of reality that surround a teenager, I devoured the NFDC films that ripped through the humbug of Indian society. Film after film, story after story, gave me a sense of India, and the world, being a hostile, unfriendly place, with occasional moments of tenderness and beauty, where differently subjugated peoples rebelled at great cost or fought tooth and nail to retain the little they had..I remember watching Ketan Mehta's Mirch Masala on a Sunday afternoon on Doordarshan, neighbours and family crowding my family's poky third-floor northern Bombay suburban flat, since we were perhaps the earliest to get a colour television yet. Almost 15 people were in our hall, many sitting on the floor, and the main door was open for the others to stand and watch. In the morning, they had wept tears over some moment in the televised Ramayana, and bowed to a wooden but beaming Arun Govil playing the god they returned and were fuming over the menacing subedar in Mirch Masala played by Naseeruddin Shah. They cheered Smita Patil and her female supporters as they blinded him with red chilli powder in rural, colonial Rajasthan, shocked into stillness at Shah's screams that concluded the the general picture I received almost everywhere was that god exists, god is kind, god hears you, god provides succour to the suffering. Over time, at home and outside, it caused grief that I took to serious reading critiquing faith, and fell out with notions of an almighty. To some degree, I felt the idea of god made humans avoid accountability. I provided some films as proof of god's non-existence. Relationships frayed. I still often hear that the ails of life and age shall cause a softening towards the idea of god inside me. With the world burning each day, I find my irreligiosity even more resolute than ever and wonder how the faithful continue to believe in any almighty.
News18
25-04-2025
- Business
- News18
Akshaya Tritiya 2025: Why Gold's Shine Shouldn't Overshadow Diversification
Last Updated: Gold prices have surged 47% over the past year, making it an attractive investment. However, investors should maintain a balanced portfolio. Akshaya Tritiya 2025: As we approach Akshaya Tritiya, the call-to-gold has never been stronger. And for obvious reasons: over the past year, gold's spot price has surged 47%, climbing from $2,285 in April 2024 to $3,371 in April 2025. Back home, India saw intraday spot rates touch Rs 99,000, a near doubling since mid-2022. At first glance, it appears gold is the obvious winner. But as investors, we must look beyond headline numbers and resist the urge to think in binaries. Gold has always played a critical role as a stabiliser in portfolios, especially during times of economic uncertainty and monetary overreach. But abandoning equities in its favour would be short-sighted. Instead, it's important to stay balanced. A strategic allocation—say, 5–15% in gold, a similar slice in short-term bonds, and the remainder in domestic and international equities—offers diversification while positioning investors to weather market fluctuations. Why invest in gold? Gold just had its best opening to the year since 1986. For context, Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister of India, Ronald Reagan was the president of the United States and pulpy movies like Nagina, Main Balwaan and Aakhree Raasta were on our silver screens to entertain us. Returning to gold's recent powerful performance, in the January to March quarter, the yellow metal's spot prices in Delhi rose 16.7%. In comparison, the Sensex fell around 1.3% during the same period. Second, China's retail gold market has rebounded post-pandemic. Third, western investors have also reversed a multi-year trend of ETF outflows, marking the first significant inflows since 2020. Fourth, a perfect storm is brewing in the US: rising inflation, potential tariffs and a looming debt refinancing cliff. If $28 trillion in US debt is to be rolled over at double or even triple the earlier interest rates, the ripple effects across risk assets could be severe. In this scenario, gold becomes not just a hedge, but a refuge. Fifth, central banks worldwide have been stockpiling gold due to geopolitical risks. Last year, global central bank gold purchases exceeded 1,000 tonnes for the third consecutive year, suggesting weakening confidence in dollar reserves following the freezing of Russian assets. And then there's the S&P 500-to-gold ratio, a metric that tells you how many ounces of gold it would take to buy the S&P 500. This ratio has dropped to its lowest post-pandemic levels, a strong signal that investors are shifting their risk perception. What's worse is that it has broken its 10-year moving average, which has only happened thrice in the last 100 years. One of the times it happened was in 1931, when the world was plunging into a recession. So, can gold continue this trajectory? A 20–25% upside in the medium term looks achievable. If geopolitical friction intensifies or bond markets wobble further, the metal could double over the next five years. That's because gold thrives when markets and economies are down. Ever since gold was untethered from the dollar in 1971, its correlation with equities has remained near-zero (correlation with S&P 500 is just 0.3%)—making it a powerful counterweight in diversified portfolios. How and where to invest in gold? If one wants to skip physical gold, one can consider gold ETFs or gold funds for better security and liquidity. Internationally, iShares Gold Trust (0.25% expense ratio) and SPDR Gold Shares ETF (which has grown 6x over two decades) are strong options. If you want to look at exchange-traded commodities (ETC), as that's how gold ETFs are commonly traded in Europe, one can consider iShares Physical Gold ETC (Expense ratio: 0.12%; three-year returns: 19.21% CAGR; 5-year return: 12.85% CAGR) and Invesco Physical Gold A (Expense ratio: 0.12%; three-year returns: 19.19% CAGR; 5-year return: 12.8% CAGR). Domestically, Nippon India ETF Gold BeES and SBI Gold ETF are the largest exchange-traded funds in the country. That said, Kotak and ICICI Prudential's gold ETF's are the most cost-efficient, with expense ratios of 0.55% and 0.5%, respectively. We also like gold mining funds, as they tend to do well when gold prices rise. VanEck Gold Miners ETF can be an interesting option. Don't ignore (foreign) equities It's perfectly understandable why even seasoned, long-term investors may be tempted to go overweight on gold right now. But holding more than 10% of your portfolio in gold carries risks. Gold often delivers strong performance after prolonged periods of sideways movement. Take the recent example: while gold outperformed the S&P 500 by over 20 percentage points in Q1 2025, such a divergence has occurred only 12 times in the past 50 years, according to Bespoke Investment Group. This is precisely the moment to take a page from Warren Buffett's playbook: 'Be greedy when others are fearful." Long-term equity investors should stay the course. Yes, the road ahead may be turbulent in the medium term, but it's the long-term picture that matters. Attempting to time the market—even for professional investors—is almost always futile. Remarkably, 78% of the best days in the S&P 500 have historically occurred during bear markets or in the early stages of a bull market. Miss the 10 best days over the last 30 years, and your returns would have been cut in half. Miss the top 30 days, and your returns would have fallen by an extraordinary 83%, according to Hartford Funds. The story is no different in India: skipping the 40 best days in the Sensex could have dented your overall returns by nearly 67%. For new investors, a slow-drip approach—investing systematically in small amounts every week or month—is far more effective than making lump-sum bets. This strategy, known as rupee cost averaging, helps mitigate volatility. And for long-term investors, history is clear: any time is a good time to start. Despite painful market drawdowns since the 1960s, the S&P 500 has averaged an annual return of 12%, while the Sensex has delivered in the 15% CAGR range since its inception in 1979. The US has been the best performing market in the last 10 years. And one also got an additional kicker of 3-4% annual appreciation of the dollar till now. Diversification beyond India and US stocks Besides Indian and US stocks, one can consider the European market, especially its defense companies, chip supplier ASML and obesity-battling pharma company, Novo Nordisk. Those seeking European ETFs can consider FEZ SPDR Euro Stoxx 50 ETF and VGK Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF. In short, this Akshaya Tritiya, think like a portfolio manager. Not a trend follower. Gold may be glittering, but it's just one part of a well-diversified playbook. Balance remains your greatest asset. top videos View all This is authored by Yogesh Kansal, Cofounder & CBO of Appreciate The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication. Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: April 25, 2025, 09:04 IST News business » savings-and-investments Akshaya Tritiya 2025: Why Gold's Shine Shouldn't Overshadow Diversification
