Karisma's rendezvous with the Calcutta press!

Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta

Ask Karisma Kapoor about her reported romance with Abhishek Bachchan and you will soon know Fiza ko gussa kyon aata hai!

Karisma, who was in Calcutta recently to attend a programme organised by the Times Group, found herself placed in an awful predicament while answering the missiles thrown at her from the Calcutta press.

Little did Karisma know that Bengali journos would be more tempted to grill her about her affair with junior Bachchan than ask her experience of Shyam Benegal’s Zubeidaa.

It all began with both Benegal and Karisma expressing their love for Calcutta and its 'beautiful' people.

No sooner had she answered a few questions on why she likes Calcutta’s misti doi ( sweet curd), came a question from a scribe of a Bengali daily on her reported relationship with Abhishek.

A visibly embarrassed Karisma decided to call it quits and insisted that the organisers wind up her question and answer session with the media immediately. She walked out of room in a huff.

The most embarrassing moment came when the Bollywood actress slipped on the stairs narrowly escaping some serious injuries. Her shoes came down rolling through the stairs, compounding her and organiser’s woes immensely.

Later, a senior official was seen cursing Calcutta scribes for 'spoiling the entire party'.

He told rediff.com,''See, how one of your colleagues has acted in a childish manner and spoilt the whole evening. We had never announced that it would be a press conference. It was purely a private party of the Times Group. The idea behind inviting you guys was to spend an evening with us and take photographs of the invited celebreties.''

The enraged organisers also refused to distribute press materials on Zubeidaa!

In a response to rediff.com's question on her role in Zubeidaa, Karisma said that the movie assumed monumental significance to her even though she had already won a national award in the past.

''Mr Shyam Benegal is an exceptional director and needs no introduction. It was the experience of a lifetime working with him and an actress like Rekhaji. Manoj (Bajpai) too was awsome. Of late he has really been doing great both in commercial and so called offbeat movies.

In Zubeidaa, I am playing the role of Manoj’s second wife,''she said.

On sister Kareena, she said that she was thoroughly impressed with her sister’s talent. She hoped that Kareena too would soon make her mark in Bollywood.

''I saw her in Refugee and am convinced that she possesses everything needed to be a star. Lets see how her future movies fare on box office,'' She added.

Rekha was also scheduled to arrive but couldn’t reach Calcutta following some 'unavoidable' reasons.

Benegal, when asked as to how difficult it was to cast Rekha and Karisma together, said that it didn’t entail any difficulties at all.

''Why are you classifying between a commerical and an art movie actress? The bottomline is that both are thoroughly professional actresses and it is not difficult at all to cast them together. All my movies have evoked overwhelming responses in Calcutta and I sincerely hope Zubeidaa would be no different,'' Benegal remarked.

The Times sources said that Zubeidaa would be premiered in Calcutta on January 26.

However, the moot question remains whether Karisma would consent to be present during the show especially after Wednesday’s experience.

Only time will tell...