Dhoni bared his soul in 'Roar of the Lion': Kabir Khan

Agencies
March 12, 2019

Mumbai, Mar 12: Kabir Khan has documented the fairy-tale comeback of the Chennai Super Kings last IPL season, following a two-year suspension for spot-fixing, in the upcoming, "Roar of the Lion" and the director says the series will see a "very personal" side of cricketer MS Dhoni.

CSK, the Chennai franchise of the IPL, had served a two-year ban for its management's role in the 2013 spot-fixing scandal.

The Hotstar Special docu-series, directed and executive produced by Kabir, chronicles how the Dhoni-led team made a comeback, winning Indian Premier League 2018.

In an interview with PTI, the director says the series is a human exploration, one beyond the obvious, to show what the phase did to the people involved.

"We know all about the broad strokes, the legal side and the uproar. We don't know what was happening to the individuals beyond those headlines. This is a story behind the headlines. Were these headlines affecting Dhoni? Of course they were, but he never spoke about it, until now," Kabir said.

The critically-acclaimed filmmaker said the series aims to bring out the emotional journey, which the mainstream narrative missed out.

"The controversy was hurting other players but we never heard their perspective. That's what the USP of the show is. It's a story we all know how it played out, but we don't know the details and layers of the emotional journey of the protagonist."

The episodic series was shot on a tight schedule of three months and involved a series of intense, honest and long discussions with Dhoni.

"Our interviews with him on tape lasted sometimes seven to eight hours. He trusted me and had the confidence that I'll be sensitive in the way things are going to be portrayed. He was ready to bare his soul.

"You've never seen Dhoni speak like this. He has always been silent about these matters. You'll see Dhoni in a very personal, emotional way on this series."

The "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" director said the team was conscious regarding the timing of the release, as they needed to bring out the series before the start of the next IPL season.

"Roar of the Lion" becomes the second cricket-related project for Kabir, who is gearing up to shoot his next feature, "83", which chronicles Indian cricket team's iconic first World Cup win.

The director, however, said it is "pure coincidence" that the two projects have cricket as the backdrop.

"Even if I wasn't working on '83', I would've done 'Roar of the Lion' because it was a fascinating and heartwarming story of the triumph of the human spirit. It has a classic sport story graph.

"The most successful IPL franchise has a match fixing allegations against them and the icon of the country: Dhoni. They get banned, they cope with that, come back after the allegations are cleared, build a team which is ridiculed and go on to win again. How could I not have done this?"

"Roar of the Lion" starts streaming on Hotstar from March 20.

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News Network
April 14,2020

Mumbai, Apr 14: Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope has thanked Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan for providing 25,000 personal protective equipment for health workers.

Khan on Monday provided the personal protective equipment (PPE) kits to the frontline medical staff in Maharashtra fighting to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic in the state.

Tope took to Twitter to thank the actor for the help.

Many thanks Mr. Shah Rukh Khan for your kind contribution of 25,000 PPE kits. This will go a long way in supporting our fight against COVID19 & protecting our frontline medical care team @iamsrk @MeerFoundation @CMOMaharashtra," he tweeted.

The actor and his wife Gauri Khan recently offered their four-storey personal office space for treating COVID-19 patients.

Khan had earlier announced various initiatives to help the country during the crisis.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Los Angeles, Jul 14: US officials on Monday found the body of "Glee" actress Naya Rivera in the Californian lake where she drowned last week during a boat trip with her four-year-old son.

Rivera's body was retrieved and an initial examination found no evidence of foul play or suicide, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub told a press conference.

"We are confident the body we found is that of Naya Rivera," said Ayub, pointing to the location, appearance, clothing and condition of the body.

Her body was being taken to a medical examiner's office for a full autopsy and confirmation of her identity from dental records, though no other missing persons have been reported at Lake Piru, he added.

Rivera, 33, is believed to have accidentally drowned after renting the boat with her young son at the camping and recreational hotspot around an hour's drive northwest of Los Angeles.

She vanished on Wednesday afternoon, and a massive search involving divers, patrol boats and helicopters was launched after her sleeping son was spotted drifting alone in a boat on the lake.

The son later told investigators that Rivera had helped him into the boat before "he looked back and saw her disappear under the surface of the water," said the sheriff.

Ayub pointed to the lake's strong currents as a possible cause of a fatal accident.

"The idea perhaps being that the boat started drifting -- it was unanchored -- and that she mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself," he said.

The lake has been closed to the public since Wednesday, with around 100 personnel, including the US Coast Guard and rescuers from neighboring counties, joining the search.

Search teams used footage from video messaging calls Rivera made from the boat before her disappearance, as well as interviews with her son, to scour portions of the lake bed for her remains over six days, with no success.

"We believe she was concealed within some of the shrubbery on the floor bed of the lake" before eventually floating to the surface due to natural decomposition, said Ayyub.

With less than one foot (30 centimeters) of visibility underwater in daylight, the recovery operation was a "complex search effort" even with use of sonar equipment, he said.

Rivera was best known for her role as high school cheerleader Santana Lopez in "Glee."

She starred for six seasons in the wildly popular musical television series set in a US high school that ended in 2015.

The "Glee" cast has been struck by tragedy before.

Actor Mark Salling took his own life in 2018, weeks before being sentenced for possession of child pornography.

Canadian castmate Cory Monteith died in July 2013 of an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Mumbai, Jan 4: After the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur constituted a panel to decide whether legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem 'Hum Dekhenge' is offensive to Hindu sentiments, filmmaker Shoojit Sircar had a cryptic take on the burning controversy.

"Best time for the rich & small businesses to make money as most of the population are engaged with a revolutionary poet named Faiz," Sircar said in a tweet.

The poem, penned down by the iconic poet in 1979, came into limelight again recently during the protests against CAA and NRC in IIT Kanpur.

Earlier on Thursday, senior lyricist Javed Akhtar rejected the claims about the poem being 'anti-Hindu'.

IIT Kanpur on Thursday had set up a committee to look into the issue.

The move came after a complaint that the students who took out a peaceful march in the campus on December 17 against the Citizenship Amendment Act and in solidarity with Jamia Millia Islamia students, sung it as a mark of protest, which hurt the sentiments of other communities.

The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh and came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

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