Why Aish says no to offers
Noreen Aslam

BOMBAY—Former Miss World-turned-actress-turned-actor’s wife Aishwarya Rai is in great demand even after her marriage with Abhishek Bachchan. This is unusual, though. But, the industry doesn’t seem to be too lucky. As expected the Bachchan family doesn’t wish any female member, especially their bahu (daughter-in-law) to continue acting in movies. In any case, if she (Aishwarya Bachchan) continues she wouldn’t play opposite any male actor other than her husband. So, she is reluctant to do a non-Abhishek Bachchan love story after her marriage with Abhishek Bachchan! But, producer Rohan Sippy is keen on casting her in his next film to be directed by Sriram Raghavan. Though Rohan hasn’t yet titled the movie, Raghvan says that it’s a love story for which he has to begin shoot soon.
What prompted Rohan to cast Aish in his movie? The buzz is that Ramu showed a promo of ‘Sarkar Raj’ that blew Rohan’s mind. Incidentally, the Sippy film’s male lead is John who is too eager to cast miss Aishwarya opposite himself. He believes they’d make a very handsome screen pair. He has convinced director Raghavan that his chemistry with Aish would be perfect. Since Aish is away in Boston shooting for ‘Pink Panther 2’, Rohan is contacting her there. Would she accept Rohan’s offer could be anybody’s guess? After all, she has recently opted out of Karan Johar’s film. She has reportedly said no to Karan as she doesn’t want to play a woman having many men in her life. But, Rohan and Raghvan believe that Aishwarya is the right choice for Raghavan’s film. They hope to convince Aishwarya to accept their role.
Not only this, she has said no to J.P.Dutta, too. Dutta wants to cast her in his ambitious film on legendary princess of Alwar, Gayatri Devi. So, J.P. is left with no choice but drop the project. Dutta says that he planned the movie keeping in view Aishwarya Rai to play the character of Gayatri Devi who was also considered one of the few beauties of the world like Miss World Aishwarya, though not in the distant past. This is to recall that J.P. Dutta’s project ‘Umrao Jaan’ starring Aishwarya opposite Abhishek Bachchan, was a box office hit.
Gayatri Devi hails from Cooch Behar (West Bengal), who married Maharaja Mansingh of Jaipur in 1939. Dutta regrets that his choice of Aish to play Gayatri Devi was approved by Gayatri Devi herself. Besides, Aish had also agreed to play the character. Why no, now? Bollywood circles are abuzz with reports that Aish is reluctant to act in the fourth period film. After all, she is already involved in three such projects that include Ketan Mehta’s ‘Jhansi Ki Rani’, Ben Kingsley’s ‘Shah Jahan’ and Ashutosh Gowarikar’s ‘Jodha Akbar’. Aish says she has enough of historical movies in her kitty. She would rather do some other genre movies to avoid being described as typedcast.