Finally Deepika Padukone takes a break

Deepika Padukone, who is riding high on success and constantly racing on the top takes time out to pamper herself and spend some time with her family. She leaves on a holiday for 15 days with her parents and sister to Europe.

The actress gets to spend quality time with her family after almost 2 long years.

In the last 2 years, Deepika has been working very hard and shooting for films back to back.

Starting with Cocktail, getting into Race 2, then Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, to Chennai Express and now Ram Leela. The actress has delivered 4 consecutive hits and played versatile roles each time that are not easy to forget.

She completed all her shooting schedules and left no work pending before taking this holiday so she could enjoy her time with her parents and sister without having to delay her commitments to her work

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SRK's Chennai Express breaks records in Pak

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan starrer "Chennai Express" has grossed rupees 40 million, breaking all box office records in Pakistan's biggest city after its release at the Eid weekend on August 9

The action comedy film directed by Rohit Shetty also stars Deepika Padukone. "There is no doubt that 'Chennai Express' has become the biggest box office hit from India since the government allowed screening of Indian movies in the country," Mohammad Qadri the media spokesman for IMGC told.

IMGC is the biggest distribution company in Pakistan with its offices based in Lahore and it imports Indian films via Dubai. Qadri said that since its release in just eight screens in Karachi, "Chennai Express" had grossed over 40 million rupees and the figure was mounting.

"I can't give the exact figures now but the initial estimate of ticket sales for the week since its release 'Chennai Express' has grossed over 40 million rupees. The figure will be higher when the final figures of ticket sales for all over Pakistan are available by Monday," Qadri said.

The previous record for highest grossing movie from India was held by Salman Khan's "Dabangg" in Karachi. Qadri said due to the high demand for tickets the cinema owners had also hiked up prices for "Chennai Express" and in some areas it was being screened in five to six shows in a day. 

"Clearly the Pakistani people enjoy the movies of Shah Rukh Khan and its ticket sales exceeded expectations and it did much better than all the other Eid releases including some Pakistani movies and the Hollywood blockbuster, 'Wolverine'. 

" Pakistani film critics have also described the film as an entertaining time pass and one critic wrote, "The Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer is an aesthetically selected evolution of the 'Dabangg' genre."

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Movie Review: Board 'Chennai Express' if you are an SRK fan

Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sathyaraj, Nikitin Dheer, Kamini Kaushal, Mukesh Tiwari

Directed by Rohit Shetty

Rating: * * *

Dammit! No out-takes!! Is this really a Rohit Shetty film? Every film of the Gol Maal director so far ended with out-takes giving us entertaining glimpses from during the making of the film. Here those trademark Shetty out-takes are replaced by a Honey Singh track which celebrates Rajnikanth and the lungi.

The rest of the film resembles those typical sambar-and-sandalwood creations by K Raghvendra Rao, and worse still, Raj Kanwar's Dhai Akshar Prem Ke where Aishwarya to escape her parental wrath at her elopement, introduces a man she has just met to her family as her soul-mate. 

Of course there are the flying cars exploding in the air to make sure we know that all said and drummed, this is a Rohit Shetty presentation. 

Packaged with pickled precision, peppered with just the right doses of naughty jokes and precocious pranks that go well with Shah Rukh's 40-year old brat's act, Chennai Express is the kind of non-toxic comic entertainer where the most damaging double- entendres you'd get is a Tamil word that sounds like Angelina Jolie's name. 

Come again? 

That brings me to another major hurdle in the heap of hilarity that Shetty builds so meticulously in the first-half. 
The generous outflow of Tamil that seems initially engaging (more so, since Shah Rukh shares our non-comprehension of the rapidfire Tamilian cloudburst that accompanies Deepika's quicksilver character) begins to come in the way as the narration grows older and runs out of energy. 

But then there is the sprightly Deepika as the runaway Tamilian girl who piles on to the North Indian mithaiwala stranger to escape marrying the boorish fiancee back home in her village in Tamil Nadu. 

We've seen Kareena Kapoor do the chirpy runaway train traveler in Jab We Met. Deepika brings a special filtered-coffee flavour to her chirpy character. Even that broad hammy accent grows on us. Yes, we like ! 

Here she is is the only Rohit Shetty team member (and I use the term 'team' since Shetty generously credits the direction to himself and his team) who seems to have a firm grip over her rudderless dithering character. Deepika plays Meena Amma with flavourful flourish. 
She is specially delightful in three key sequences, two of them comic and the other unexpectedly somber. In the sequence where her character turns into a sleeping kicking and convulsive zombie she's unbelievably goofy. It's not just Shah Rukh who gets a kick out of that scene. 

Would Rohit Shetty please do a full-fledged out-and-out comedy with Deepika? That, Chennai Express is not. It is a half-hearted but laugh-hearted effort that makes the fatal error of taking itself too seriously. Towards the end when the utterly shammed climactic fight ensues, we even have a long speech by Shah Rukh on the social status of the girl child. 

Not now, please!
As we squirm at the attempt to turn comedy into a serious business we look back at the rest of the film with some amount of wramth and affection. Some of the long shots of the train winding through green acres is breathtaking. And Shah Rukh's first meeting with Deepika's father over a bridge over a fast-flowing river is shot with amazing brio. 

There's a wonderfully-shot sequence where Shah Rukh has to carry Deepika to a temple over hundreds of steps. Deepika here goes from amusement and mockery to a sense of belonging and pride in her man's arms. It's a moment built with care and love. 

But then, such tender affection really has no place in this comedy of cultural dispossession where the Punjabi boy Rahul gets embroiled in Tamil girl Meena's family affairs and comes out. . . . well not quite wiser. But filled with self-mocking laughter. 

Shah Rukh pokes a whole lot of goodnatured fun at his now-aging lover-boy persona. There are tongue-in-cheek references to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and several other Shah Rukh Khan films and songs including the introductory South Indian lines from the Jiya jale song in Dil Se. 
All these self-tributes work better than what Puri Jagganath did with the Bachchan persona Buddha. . . . Hoga Tera Baap. Rohit Shetty is more in command of his canvas here than in his last comedy Bol Bachchan. 

But the self-deprecatory laughter is still not good enough. Somewhere you feel the one-line plot (okay, if not one then two-line plot) is stretched into an unwelcome second-half where nothing really happens. Even the humour tracks stops short beyond a point. 

But there is some genuine steam and spark in the early part of Chennai Express. Towards the beginning of the train journey when Deepika and Shah Rukh play a kind of antakshari of Hindi film songs to put the goons off her trail, Deepika completely overshadows her kingly co-star, who should be okay with being upstaged by his female co-star.

After all he has given Deepika priority over his own name in the credit titles. 
And Deepika takes the lead very seriously. She has never looked better and never been funnier on screen without even trying too hard. 

But then the plot and the situations let her down. The antakshari-speak that was amusing in the beginning recurs during a stale fight sequence in the second-half. 

We are no longer laughing. Not when Shah Rukh's purported big chase sequences end in embarrassing deadends. Not when an item song with incoherent words and even more misguided logistics pops up like a joke whose punchline has gone missing. Through all of this Shah Rukh Khan braves it with a delicious sense of self-mockery bordering almost on a masochistic absence of heroic pride. 

Yes, he likes it when the joke is on him. But that happens once too often here. 
So it's finally here. The film that all Shah Rukh Khan fans (which covers half the hemisphere) has been waiting for. The good news first. "Chennai Express" is a pleasant and likable film in parts. The bad news is, it does nothing for Shah Rukh Khan's imdomitable star power except to tell us he can still play a 40-year Rahul without faltering. That we already know.

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Sunny outmaneuvered Katrina, Bebo and Deepika

Although Sunny might be struggling carve a niche as an A-grader in Industry, but it looks like her sensuality makes her the champion of her own league, where none of the Bollywood hotties stand anywhere around her.

If outcomes of recent Google stats for the month of June, which comprise of cumulative data gathered from Google, YouTube et al, are to be believed then Sunny has emerged as the most searched Indian celebrity online.

The data collected for the month of June exhibits that, Sunny's name has been searched for a staggering 3.50 Crore times on the browser, whereas other A-graders of Bollywood failed in even getting up to the half of this figure. 

This Indo-Canadian stunner is followed by, Katrina and Kareena who rests at second and third slot respectively. In this battle of popularity even Dabangg of Bollywood, Salman lost to sizzling, Sunny, and could only manage to secure the fourth slot.

Most searched Bollywood celebs on Google:

1 Sunny Leone: 3.50 crore

2 Katrina Kaif: 1.15 crore 

3 Kareena Kapoor: 1.15 crore 

4 Salman Khan: 1.14 crore 

5 Aishwarya Rai: 92 lakh

6 Akshay Kumar: 67 lakh

7 Deepika Padukone: 66 lakh

8 Ranbir Kapoor: 65 lakh

9 Aamir Khan: 59 lakh

10 Anushka Sharma: 57 lakh

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A woman is free to choose her attire: Deepika

Deepika Padukone is perturbed by the recent attacks on women. She feels a woman can dress the way she wants

Women are constantly blamed for the way they dress. It is high time that we do something about stopping such crimes. The rules and the laws should become a lot more strict and action needs to be taken and faster.

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