"I'm quite a foodie and have a very Punjabi taste in terms of food. So when we were shooting in Delhi for the film, I used to eat a lot of golgappas, chhole bhature, dahi bhalle and meat from Karim's. Basically, I used to eat all the wrong things, but I loved that," said Sonam.

In Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi-6 , Sonam plays Bittu, an aspiring singer who lives in a conservative family in the crowded Chandni Chowk area and has a desire to break free from the typical Indian societal norms.

The one-film-old actress says a good amount of preparation went behind her character in the film in which she stars opposite Abhishek Bachchan.

"One has to really prepare for the role he or she is portraying in a film. For Delhi-6 , I had to work on my accent, body language, clothes, my expressions, the way I walked and a lot of other nitty-gritty stuff," she said.

Apart from Sonam's carefree Indian looks in the film, her performance in the hit peppy number Masakalli, picturised on her and a dove, has been really appreciated.

"Masakalli is a beautiful song by A R Rahman and beautifully choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant. Masakalli is the name of the dove in the film and it is very symbolic of my character. She nearly became my pet on the sets. She used to hop on to my head," said Sonam, who is actor Anil Kapoor's daughter.

Asked if she was a wee bit scared of the bird, she said: "I wasn't scared of Masakalli at all. She was just a small bird. How could it harm me?"

The song has become so popular that a lot of Sonam's friends have started calling her Masakalli and she finds it "really sweet".

Talking of her co-star Abhishek, the actress says she had a "fabulous" time shooting with him.

"We share a great chemistry. He is young, but experienced enough and he guided me and helped me through scenes where I would get stuck. Besides, we had great fun on the sets.

"Every 10 days we used to have a dance party when we were shooting in Sambhar in Rajasthan. We used to have a DJ who used to play really bad Hindi songs from the 1980s and 90s and we used to dance all through the night," said Sonam.

Why is Abhay Deol not in Mumbai to savour the rave reviews his Dev D is getting? The actor is in New York and has decided to make the city his home. He has even signed up for a welding and metal work course there because he finds it therapeutic!

"I'm here in New York to stay. Right now I'm at a rented place. But I'm looking for a place to buy. It was very important for me to get away and do things other than acting. Yes, acting is my primary passion. But there's so much more to do in life," the actor said.

So now onwards he'll be travelling between New York and Mumbai.

"It's not as easy as it sounds. Travelling back and forth will take a lot of time and money. And it was a hard decision to take. But I needed to get away. In Mumbai, I was getting caught in a rut," Abhay said.

At the moment he is doing a course in welding and metal work at the Arts Students League of New York. Never heard of an actor doing a course in metal work before!

"Why not?" asks the star. "Melting metal at 60,000 degrees fahrenheit is very therapeutic. It's as cathartic as living out the anguish of Dev D. I was planning to take this time off too explore new territories for some time. But in Mumbai I was caught up in the never-ending chain of doing movies and promoting them.

"I thought I would finish this routine and then take time off. But it never happened. So I just took off after completing Dev D. Now I'm glad to hear the film has been so well-received. So what if I'm not in Mumbai? Friends back home are keeping me informed," he said.

Abhay has family, including his sister, in California and friends in New York.

"So it's not as though I'm alone. I don't miss home because this is also home now. I chose New York as my second home because it's a city that has always fascinated me. It's such a hub of activity. The creative possibilities here are unlimited. I want to grow not just as an actor but also as a human being," he said.

Abhay will be returning to Mumbai for a new crop of assignments as and when they happen. These include Anil Kapoor's home production with Sonam Kapoor, a new film with Dibakar Banerjee of Khosla Ka Ghosla fame and the directorial debut of Vikramaditya Motwane, who co-scripted Dev D.

The actor, who was launched by his uncle Dharmendra with Socha Na Tha in 2005, has featured in films like Ahista Ahista, Manorama Six Feet Under, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!. But Anurag Kashyap's Dev D is his first big hit.

Priyanka Chopra, who gave two big hits last year - Fashion and Dostana, is one of the most sought after actresses for brand endorsements, according to a survey.

A study by media monitoring company Adex India revealed that Priyanka is the queen of endorsements and is ranked second on the list of top-notch brand ambassadors of 2008 only after Shah Rukh Khan.

She leads the youth brigade as the face of brands like Lux, Ponds, Sunsilk, Hero Honda, Nokia, Tag Heuer, J Hampsted and Virgin Comic.

As far as her film assignments go, the actress has a busy year ahead with two big movies in her kitty - Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminay and Ashutosh Gowariker's What's Your Rashee?, among others.

Priyadarshan's comedy Billu, which features a large number of top-notch Bollywood actresses, saw bevy of Indian origin beauties from 25 countries at its premiere in South Africa.

The 25 young women have assembled here to vie for the Miss India Worldwide 2009 title at the Suncoast Entertainment resort here on Saturday night. And they were excited to take a break from rehearsals Tuesday evening to join local celebrities at the premiere of , hosted by young South African Indian cinema magnate Abie Moosa.

While Lara Dutta is cast opposite Irrfan, who plays the title role, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone feature with Shah Rukh Khan in three different item numbers in the comedy.

"It will be delightful to have a complement of such lovely Indian ladies from across the globe to complement the Indian beauties on the screen," said Moosa.

In keeping with the traditions of the Miss India Worldwide Pageant, started by Dharmatma Saran of the US nearly two decades ago, the contestants have been engaged in a series of visits to local communities and welfare projects for several days now.

On Monday, they were shown the massive Hare Krishna Temple in the huge Indian township of Chatsworth, which has become a popular tourist attraction.

Many of them expressed surprise that there were so many Indians in South Africa, and even that they had been here for nearly 150 years. "It is also wonderful to see the huge cultural diversity in South Africa," said Miss India Australia, Kanchan Verma, a health professional.

Miss India Oman, geneticist Shruti Dilip, said she had watched an impressive Indian dance by "a pint-sized" Indian dancer when they visited historic Gandhian sites in Pietermaritzburg, where the young lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi started his path to becoming the Mahatma after being kicked off a train by a white conductor.

Miss India Singapore, Asmaa Pandit, a business development consultant, and Miss India India Deepthi Varughese said that Durban with its large Indian population felt "just like being in India".

This is the second consecutive year that South Africa is hosting the Miss India Worldwide Pageant after Shagun Sarabhai of India was crowned the winner in Lenasia, the huge Indian township south of Johannesburg, at a gala event last year. Sarabhai will hand over the crown to her successor on Valentine's Day as another former winner from India, Fareisa Joemmanbaks of Suriname, looks on.

Saran said that he definitely had a soft spot for South Africa: "I have been coming here since 1991, when South Africa was just beginning to regain its international stature ahead of the first democratic elections, and the local franchisee for the Miss India Worldwide Pageant, Farook Khan, started it off here."

Saran said from just 12 countries participating in the initial event, this has now more than doubled, and the high standard of entries was most gratifying as young women in the Diaspora gained the international recognition denied to so many of their forebears.

After the critically acclaimed box-office hit Shakespeare MA, Jayasurya and Roma known as “a cute pair” is back. They will once again play the lead roles in an untitled film to be directed by debutante Ramakanth Sarju, a former associate of directors like Hariharan and the Anil-Babu .

The film produced by Santhosh Pavithram under the banner of Pavithram Creations, will have other leading comedians and character artists in Malayalam. The story written by the director will have script by J. Pallasserry.

The film tells the story of a guy Prakash who loves to laze around and do nothing in particular. Enter a beautiful girl Devu, daughter of the local Jewelry shop owner and Prakash’s life changes.

After Lollipop Prithviraj and Bhavana are together again in Robinhood, an action adventure story directed by the veteran showman of Malayalam films Joshy.

The ‘pooja’ launch of the film took place last week in Kochi. The film is produced by Santha Murali of Anandavision that produced the super hit Lal Jose film Classmates.

The man who wrote the script of Prithviraj’s super hit Chocolate, is writing the story and screenplay of the new film. The story is about a bank heist and about a high-tech computer wizard and a crook played by Prithvi who specializes in ATM robberies

Shamili the younger sister of Shalini and sister-in-law of 'ultimate star' Ajit is going to do a full fledged role in Malayalam film Shikari. She will play the role of Mohanlal's s daughter in the film.

Remember like her elder sister Shalini, she too had debuted as a child artist in Mani Ratnam's classic Anjali and Bharathan's Malootty in Malayalam. Now she is going to play heroine in Padmakumar directed Shikari as Mohanlal's daughter who gets kidnapped! Shamili has also been signed to do a Telugu film with Siddharth, and is also on the lookout for the right project in Tamil.