Stargazer: Dimple Kapadia, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Asha Puthli

 Living Her Best Life

Ready for over two years, Jab Khuli Kitaab's release last week was a relief. Not only for Pankaj Kapur who gives a memorable performance, but also Dimple Kapadia who is excellent as a woman going through a divorce after 50 years of marriage. Directed by Saurabh Shukla, the Zee5 film shows the real­ity of loneliness and the need for companionship. Last seen in the spy movie Pathaan (2023) as Shah Rukh Khan’s boss, Dimple's light is undimmed. At 68, she is now learning classi­cal Hindustani music, adding to her list of accomplishments.

Scary Role

The Never Have I Ever star, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, is back in a supporting role in the Asian body horror movie Slanted playing the friend of a Chinese-American teenager (Shirley Chen) who undergoes an experi­mental ethnic modification surgery to try and fit in at school. Fans may want more of her breakout role as Devi in Never Have I Ever, but Maitreyi has said in interviews that it’s unlikely. Instead she will be back on television with a role in Season 2 of ‘Elle’, the Legally Blonde prequel series.

 Rockstar Redux

Asha Puthli was a singer ahead of her time. Now the music band Gorillaz has reminded everyone why she was such a rockstar. Puthli, along with sitar play­er Anoushka Shankar, sang at the Saturday Night Live hosted by Ryan Gosling. At 81, the jazz singer who moved from Mumbai to New York with a dance scholarship in 1969 has shown she can still dazzle. Among other new gigs, Puthli has also collabo­rated with the New York-based band Say She She on the single ‘PAWA!’. The disco-funk track released in time for International Women’s Day last week.