No more ornamental roles for me: Yana Gupta

Bollywood item girl Yana Gupta, who has no projects in her kitty right now, says she will only take up films that are original and challenging.

"I would come to Bollywood only if a great project comes up. I don't really think I would do a film that is a copy of a Hollywood flick. Also, I will not work with people who copy and have no stand of their own," Yana told IANS in an interview.


"No more ornamental roles for me!" she stressed. Yana was here to launch Amatrra Spa.

The Czech model struck gold after featuring in the Kingfisher calendar. Her stint in Bollywood started with the film Dum, which sank without a trace at the box office. But Yana's sizzling performance in the song Babuji zara dheere chalo... turned her into a star overnight.

But she is still waiting for a solo hit. The celebrity candidly confesses that many projects slip out of her hand because she doesn't have command over the Hindi language.

"I wouldn't deny that Hindi is not an issue with me. I had to say no to some projects because people wanted someone else to dub for me and I didn't."

"I wouldn't mind playing an NRI or a foreigner but I will do the dubbing myself. Otherwise the same passion won't reflect on-screen and again I am doing nothing in the film than just looking good."

So what is keeping her busy?

"I am currently working on my yet-to-be titled book on nutrition and a pop album for which I have written, composed and sung songs.

"Actually, I am a fitness freak and when I came to Mumbai I gradually put on a lot of weight, courtesy the Indian food. It is too yummy to resist and full of fats.

"Also, people in the country are increasingly becoming conscious about their looks but are hardly aware of their fitness levels. All this prodded me to write a book on nutrition.

"As far as music is concerned, I was trained for two years in music when I was a child in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). Moreover, I have already completed a jazz album that we will use only for promotion. My pop album would be officially my debut album."

Commenting on her experience of writing and composing songs, she said: "While composing just happened, writing songs wasn't so easy. I had to work a lot on my vocabulary, as English is not my mother tongue. I started with writing poetry and then gradually moved on to songs."

She stated that both her book and album would release this year.

Bollywood holds musical Twenty20

Mumbai, Jan 31: Bollywood's top music directors and singers came together but this time for a different reason. Cricket and Bollywood have always been connected.

The musical fraternity in Bollywood formed a cricket group called 'Club C3', founded by singer Shaan and musician Lalit Pandit, and chaired by Aditya Narayan.

The music directors were pitched against singers.

Those who were present during the musical Twenty20 match included singer Baba Saigal, Ismail Merchant, Shaan, Rahul Vaidya, the second runner-up of the first Indian Idol contest, and Sandeep Acharya, winner of the second Indian Idol contest. Music director duo Sanjeev-Darshan were also present.

Singer Alka Yagnik was the only female there who came to cheer the singers and musicians as they played.

This group meets every month, and they hope to get in sponsors in time so that they can donate the proceeds to charity.

"We already have so much, it would be nice to give back something," said Wajid Khan.

Britney Spears Taken From Her Home in Ambulance

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears was taken from her home by ambulance early Thursday and escorted to the hospital by more than a dozen police officers in cars, on motorcycles and in helicopters.

A Los Angeles police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said the 26-year-old pop star was being taken to the hospital to "get help." The Los Angeles Times cited unidentified authorities who said Spears was being placed on a "mental evaluation hold."

Spears was taken to UCLA Medical Center, where her mother, Lynne, was seen leaving its psychiatric hospital at about 5:30 a.m.

When asked by a throng of paparazzi and reporters whether Britney was doing all right, Lynne Spears replied, "Yeah," before leaving in a Range Rover.

Hours earlier, shortly after 1 a.m., the motorcade that pulled away from Spears' residence was nearly the length of a football field. Along with the ambulance, it included police on nearly a dozen motorcycles and in two cruisers. Two police helicopters followed overhead.

The scene was more controlled than the one earlier this month when Spears also was taken away from her home in an ambulance.

On Jan. 3, police were called to her home when she refused to return her two young sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, to ex-husband Kevin Federline, who has custody.

Officers had paramedics haul Spears to a hospital for undisclosed reasons. She was released after a day and a half in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Police also went to Spears' hilltop residence off Mulholland Drive on Monday night after someone reported a swarm of paparazzi trespassing in the singer's gated community. When officers arrived, they didn't see anyone trespassing, police said, but citations were issued for several illegally parked cars.

Spears has been in a highly public downward spiral since filing for divorce from Federline in November 2006.

Her bizarre antics include shaving her head bald, attacking a car with an umbrella and bringing along a paparazzo pal on trips to a courthouse in her child custody case.

Spears' child custody case has become a public spectacle, with her skipping depositions and twice this month arriving at the courthouse but not attending the hearing.

The most recent incident was last week, when Spears showed up at the downtown civil courts building for a chance to persuade a Superior Court commissioner to change his order and allow her to see her sons.

Dressed as if arriving for a cocktail party — wearing bright pink lipstick, sunglasses, shiny gold platform shoes and a very short black dress with a ruffled hem — Spears was driven into an underground garage and then entered the courthouse.

A court spokesman said she got through a security metal detector, then announced, "I want to leave," and returned to her car.