Actor John Abraham recalled the threat that he and the rest of the team of Kabul Express had received from the Taliban when they were shooting the movie in Afghanistan. The movie, released in 2006, told the fictional story of two Indian journalists, an American journalist and an Afghan who are taken hostage by Pakistani soldiers and are forced to take a 48-hour journey into a war-torn Afghanistan.

Speaking about the threat, John said “There were no social media at that time. When I was leaving Afghanistan, Afghani people told me John jaan (jaan means bhai) whatever you do, don’t say anything bad about Afghanistan. And today I want to say on record that Afghani people are the most beautiful, loveliest people in the world, amazing hospitality. Really lovely people, superb people.”

The actor also recalled an incident that occurred while he was staying at the house of Mohammad Najibullah, former President of Afghanistan, while he was filming for Kabul Express. He said, “It was an UN-approved hotel. I came to the terrace to have tea, and this rocket came from the front and hit the US consulate. Condoleezza Rice used to be the US foreign secretary to the state in Afghanistan at the time. It was Afghanistan’s way of telling her that they are not happy with the Americans here. There was another incident where a suicide bomber had blown themselves up just six hours before we reached this location. It was quite an experience.”

He wrote, “I came in contact 3 days ago with someone who I later learned had Covid. Priya and I have tested positive for Covid. We have been quarantined at home so haven’t been in contact with anyone else.”

He adds. “We are both vaccinated and experienced mild symptoms. Please stay well and healthy. Masks up.”

As of late, a few other Bollywood actors including Mrunal Thakur, Nora Fatehi and Shilpa Shirodkar shared that they have tested positive for Covid-19.

The actor was most recently seen in Satyameva Jayate 2, with Divya Khosla Kumar. He played a triple role in the film which was panned by the pundits. He will currently be seen in the action movie, Attack, which is scheduled to release in theatres on January 28. It additionally features Jacqueline Fernandez and Rakul Preet Singh.

Recently, in an article in the famous Indian-American publication India West, Preetisheel revealed how she started out and how Kamal Haasan’s look of a woman in Chachi 420 inspired her to enter the world of makeup, hair and prosthetics. Here is an excerpt from the article by veteran journalist Rajiv Vijayakar:

Born to a Sikh family in Pathankot, Singh repeatedly calls her parents “brilliant” for their unconditional support and encouragement at all times. She exults, “After I completed my B. Tech. in Engineering (Electronics & Instrumentation) in 2004, I was hired by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), but I soon realized that I was not wired for such jobs. I was giving my 100 percent, but there was nothing standout that was really happening! I told my mom I wanted to quit, and she just said, ‘Do whatever makes you happy!’”

Her parents are film fanatics and that led to Singh being floored by the 1997 “Chachi 420.” “I was blown by Kamal Haasan’s look as a woman! I came to know that they had to call in foreign technicians for it. I also started digging online into what goes into such prosthetic make-up, initially only just for knowledge. And then I thought, ‘What if I myself do all this?’”

At that time, as luck would have it, TCS had posted her in the US, and Singh resigned, invested all her savings into an expensive six-month course at the Cinema Make-Up School in Los Angeles, and in 2010, arrived in Mumbai, putting up with her sister. She made strategic rounds of producers every day, with contacts derived from JustDial—the Indian search engine.

Predictably, the response was disheartening. Most filmmakers had no clue about her special skills and no requirements either because they did not understand how different she was from the average make-up artiste. But make-up veteran Anil Pemgirikar, who is 70-plus, saw her work, praised her and promised that he would put in a word for her wherever possible.

In 2012, came her first small assignment: of a swollen eye for Akshay Kumar in “Joker,” a film that went unnoticed by the audience. That portion was shot in Chandigarh, and then came the designing of the mutants in “Krrish 3,” under U.S.-based make-up whiz, Mike Stringer.

After finishing her work on the film, in which she helped on the mutants, the production person offered her peanuts as payment and Singh refused to accept the meager remuneration. The person was furious and demanded, “Who do you think you are? Miles Stringer?” Singh recalls, “I told her not to talk to me that way, I don’t owe her anything. But she went on shouting, so I went and told Mike. He got so furious he blasted the person, saying that without me, the mutants would not have been ready on time.”

Gradually, word-of-mouth spread and she got “Nanak Shah Fakir” and “Haider.” The former needed six months prep and she was given a bungalow where she set up a full lab. “I had to do aging for men, make someone’s face fat, show a leper, a chopped off part of a body and so on.”

The rest is history.