Dipak Mishra/TNN
Patna, Jun 11: Railway minister Lalu Prasad seems to be obsessed with cine actress Hema Malini. Years after he, as Bihar chief minister, made the famous promise to make the Patna roads as smooth as Hema’s cheeks, Lalu on Monday night said he would love to do a movie opposite the silver screen’s "Dream Girl".
Not that Lalu has expressed his desire to be cast with Hema for the first time. When Lalu and Hema bumped into each other while casting their vote in the last presidential election, the RJD chief asked the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP to get him a role in one of her forthcoming movies. That the cine actress at her election meetings in Bihar berated Lalu and his party has not pissed him off. "Didn’t she tell you guys (journalists) even during those days that she is a big fan of mine?" Lalu asked and added he had then responded, "I am her air-conditioner."
In fact, Lalu’s tryst with Bollywood has made news quite often with almost anyone and everyone coming from the tinsel town to Bihar making it a point to call on the maverick politician.
Very recently, actor Shahrukh Khan expressed his admiration for Lalu when the latter was appearing in Khan's TV quiz show "Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?'. "Shahrukh is an affable boy. I advised him to give up smoking," Lalu recalled.
Lalu may or may not feature in movies, but he has already started using another medium - blog - to reach out to the masses. "A TV channel-owner friend of mine persuaded me to start my blog as it would help me get people's feedback on various issues and the functioning of the railways," he said.
The idea has clicked. About 10 pages of the hard copy of entries made from across the globe on myPOPKORN.com/Lalu's-Blog were presented to him recently by railway officials. The entries related to irregularities in railways' functioning, RPF jawans smoking on running trains, dilapidated railway bridges and delayed running of trains.
Lalu's new-found love for internet has not impressed his bete-noire and state CM Nitish Kumar as well. "But didn't Lalu once make the famous comment "yeh IT-YT kya hota hai'?" Nitish asked newsmen when told about Lalu's blog. Asked how fascinated he is with computer, Nitish said he calls himself a "madhya margi" when it comes to infotech.
"Nitish is not a ‘madhya margi'; he is an Anand Margi," Lalu quipped.